by Sue Horner | Oct 26, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Email newsletters are one of the most effective ways non-profit organizations can stay in touch with supporters, and an “effective channel to send prospects to your fundraising page.” So says John Haydon, a digital marketing expert who helps non-profits and charities...
by Sue Horner | Jun 22, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
“How many words can you read on a computer screen before you start drifting off or your eyes start burning?” asks journalist, magazine editor and internal communications manager Rachel Ifans. Rachel calls print the best medium for long-form journalism (which you may...
by Sue Horner | Apr 20, 2017 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
Email newsletters are back – or maybe I should say are still – in the spotlight. And whether sent by large companies, media giants or solo entrepreneurs, email newsletters can be a powerful marketing tool. For example, the content marketers at Copyblogger get massive...
by Sue Horner | Oct 23, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
An interesting article usually starts with a conversation with a “subject matter expert,” as companies like to call them. Your job is to pull out the human side of the subject – sometimes against the instincts of the person you interview. How do you do it? Check out...
by Sue Horner | Sep 29, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
In this month’s newsletter, I’m revisiting a common question: How often should you publish an employee newsletter? A lot depends on whether you’re delivering news or providing background and perspective, how big it is and how many people are working on it, and...
by Sue Horner | Jun 27, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
How rare is it to be born on February 29, the extra day in a Leap Year? By chance I was travelling on this extra day one year, and found this explanation by journalist Steve Rubenstein in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Being born on Feb. 29 is rare, sort of. The odds...
by Sue Horner | Jun 22, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
My client’s newsletter deadline was already past, she was scrambling to get it finished, and then WHAM. A story she was counting on looked like it had fallen through. This is a case where the person you hire to help you with some writing is more than her ability...
by Sue Horner | Mar 23, 2016 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
If you’ve ever given someone your business card at a networking event and later discovered you’d been signed up for a daily newsletter, you’ve seen the dark side of email newsletters. Good email newsletters share information of value to the reader....
by Sue Horner | Jul 22, 2015 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
You may have heard me talk about “spinning straw into gold.” That’s my shorthand for turning reams of raw interview notes into a concise, readable story. Often it also means boiling 1,500 words down to 500. (“Pulling a rabbit out of a hat” is doing so to meet a tight...
by Sue Horner | Mar 25, 2015 | The Red Jacket Diaries blog
How do companies communicate with their employees these days, when so many don’t have a desk or a computer? How do you reach those who work in a mine, in the cab of a delivery van, on the sales floor? Since it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a...