Newsletter Best Practices

Questions

Ask and Answer the following questions before creating a newsletter

What is the main purpose of our newsletter?
How will you consistently meet that purpose? 

What are the goals of of our newsletter?
How will you consistently meet those goals? 

Purpose statement

Write out why you are using a newsletter to help guide future discussions. This statement is only for you and your team. It will set the expectations for you and the school community, as well as provide guidance when there is a question or not to add certain content.  

 

Who Has Access

• There are a limited number of “team” Smore accounts for each school. 
• Who do you want to have access?
• Who do you want to share accounts? 
• Everyone has access to GMail newsletters. 

Generating Content

Who is responsible for generating content and/or coordinating content? This should be part of your overall strategy. 

Submitting Content

There should be a known procedure for teachers and staff to submit content or ideas. 

Someone with account access should be the person responsible for receiving and deciding on this content. 

• Potentially set up a schedule for a teacher, class, team, club, coach, etc. to submit content.

Student Generated Content

Do you want student generated content? If so, what is the strategy for this?

Sending Consistency

Families will expect consistency when it comes to newsletters.

• Pick a rhythm that your team can consistently follow:
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Special Occasions
• Once a schedule is selected, pick a specific day to send, and stick to that schedule, because your families will expected it. 
• Once you know your rhythm, set up a content calendar for the year. 

Sending Platform

• Smore newsletters can be sent
  • ParentLink 
    • Embed the entire newsletter
    • Send as a link (Descriptive)
  • Gmail
    • Embed the entire newsletter (doable, but tricky)
    • Send as a link (Descriptive)
  • Smore
    • You have to provide an email address, or an email mailing list spreadsheet
• Gmail Newsletter
  • Create and Send through your Gmail account

Posting Smore to Facebook

Yes, it is OK to post most Smore newsletters to Facebook, like your regular weekly or monthly newsletters.

But don’t post Smore newsletters that are event only content. People don’t like to click on something that they really don’t need to because you didn’t create an event post or a FB event. 

It’s an extra click. Use a limited-text graphic and default text content.

School Website

If you have a weekly or monthly newsletter, it is suggest that you also put them on your website for reference, or incase someone misses the email. 

You can simply link to them, or you can embed them.  Ask the Communications Department for help on this, if needed. 

Think Mobile

More than likely, your families will be reading this on their smartphone, so design for mobile viewing first. Only use one column for layout.

See it First

Send the Newsletter to yourself (or someone on your team) to view it on both your phone and computer. 

 

What to Put in Your Newsletter

• Follow your purpose and goals.
• Your target audience is your families. 
• Include content that showcases your school culture.
• Include content that informs.

Content Ideas

• School Events: band, choir, sports, JROTC, Art
• Logistics: early release, parent/teacher conferences, evening events, breaks, no school, first day, etc. 
• Classroom Activities: science projects, robotics, teacher/student interaction
• Club Activities: schedules, new clubs, fees, dates
• Awareness Days/Weeks/Months: will you be doing something parents need to do to prepare their kids, like an outfit for the day?
• Awards and Recognitions: student of the month, Fantastic 49, conference awards, music competition awards, scholarships, national/regional awards
• Field Trips: dates, logistics, fees, and then photos afterwards
• PTA Information: events, meetings, contact info
• Fundraisers: meetings, planning, dates, logistics, volunteers
• Share a District Story: share photos, text or a link to a District story about your school
• Third Party Content
• Staff / Student Spotlights
• Tutorial / Education Resources 

What to Include

Every newsletter story or content piece needs the basics:

• Who (did or is doing?)
• What (are they doing?)
• When (did this happen, or is going to happen?) 
• Where (did this or will this happen?)
• Why (did this happen? This is usually the most important part, the purpose, the reason, the connection to your school culture.)

Imagery

Use quality photos and graphics to help tell your story

• See Accessibility information below

Photo Captions

• Use Photo Captions when appropriate to describe the photo or who is in the photo, especially when the text content of the post is not sufficient.
  • Photo Captions are not Alt Text (see Accessibility information below)

Text Content

• Use Clear Concise Language
• Avoid cliches and colloquialisms that won’t translate well
• Don’t use ALL CAPS in sentences. 
• Use the Default Text Headings/Settings under the “¶”  Menu
• Use Descriptive Links
  • In Text
  • In Buttons

Photos

• Use Quality Images
• Use Alt Text/Tags for ALL photos
  • Alt Tags are not the same as Photo Captions
  • Yes, some or all Alt Text could be the same
  • When appropriate use the teacher or staff name, 
  • Only use a student’s name when truly needed
    • When the story or content is specifically about the student, like an award

Graphics

• Don’t Post Text-Heavy Graphics / Flyers
• Use Limited-Text Graphics
  • About a Dozen words or less.
  • Be creative and colorful, but make sure there is sufficient color contrast between the text and background
  • Post the remainder of the useful text in the body of the story
• Use the text in the graphic as part of the regular text content of the post
• Use Alt Text on the graphic
  • Use the text from the graphic
  • If more information is needed, add that as well
• Colors need to be high contrast, meaning when using text, the letters need to be very distinguishable from the colors used behind/around them.

  • The recommended contrast ratio is at least 4.5:1 for regular text and 3:1 for large text.

  • Black text on while or light background is always good.

  • You can uses other colors. 

• See our Graphic Examples Page to see the difference between limited-text graphics and text-heavy graphics and high/low contrast colors. . 
• Third-Party Graphics / Flyers
  • Don’t share noncompliant or inaccessible graphics.
  • Ask the organization to resend with a limited-text graphic and text in a word document.
  • Send them to our Flyer Requirements page.
    • Short URL:  www.d49.org/flyer 

Videos

• Most platforms provide automatic Captions
  • Confirm the captions are correct and synced after posting to platform
  • Correct if needed
• Make sure the cations appear after you embed or link to the video.
• Share Scripts when possible
• Don’t use video to share text-heavy content.
• Any text shared in videos needs image descriptions in the captions
  • For example: Event information

When a group or organization asks you to put a flyer (PDF / Graphic) in your newsletter for an event or fundraiser, it must meet accessibility requirements.

Please send them to this webpage for Flyer Requirements. 

Newsletter

Here are two YouTube videos for Tutorials.

Smore: Creating A Newsletter

GMail: How to use Gmail layouts for professional looking newsletter.

Graphics

See our Graphic Examples Page to see the difference between limited-text graphics and heavy-text graphics. 

From Smore

Smore Academy, which includes short videos on the basics of Smore.

Smore blog posts with information on best practices:

Crafting Effective School Newsletters: Best Practices and Tips

Build a Strong Culture of Communication

Spring-Cleaning? 2 Quick Tips on How to “Marie Kondo” Your School Newsletter

Here is a link the Smore resource library that hosts tons of best practices/tips.

As an admin on the account, you can create brand kits in the Management Dashboard. The Brand Kits can include logos, fonts, background images, and colors. Once a brand kit is created, it can be used by anyone on the account!

Here is some additional information on brand kits.