How to Write an
Announcement E-mail

E-mail is a fantastic way of sending out announcements to your chapter, region, or even to all of USY. That's because with the click of a button, the information is sent out to tons of people, right into their inbox! However, there are a number of things you can do to make sure that people read your messages, that they enjoy them, and that they learn a lot about whatever it is you're publicizing by email.

The Subject Line of the E-mail
A good subject line is a must. The subject is the thing that will convince a person to read your email if they are on the fence, and get someone who normally doesn't read USY emails to find out about the cool program you are pitching. What makes a good subject line? A good subject line is:

• Interesting.
  It should be something that catches the USYer and makes them interested in what the email is about.
• Informative.
  If the subject line contains a summary of the e-mail's contents (for example, "Upcoming USY Shabbat on June 2nd"), then even if someone deletes the e-mail, they'll get the gist of the announcement. This is as opposed to emails that have a subject like "Really cool program coming up!" which don't tell people anything if they don't take the time to open the e-mail.
• Not Boring.
  If all your e-mails have a boring subject line, then people will think your e-mail is boring too.

The Body of the E-mail
When you type up the body of your email, it should contain the meat of your message (even if you are a vegetarian). You should follow the same rules as if you were making up a flyer; include the following information (if it applies):

• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why you should come, or go visit
• What to bring
• Why you should tell your friends

Also you might want to follow the "inverted pyramid" format that many news articles do. If you aren't familiar with it, what it means is that the most important information is in the first few sentences, and then you get into the nitty gritty details afterwards. Look at any newspaper article, and you'll notice that the big facts are right up front. This makes it possible to read the first paragraph of every article in the paper, get a general gist of what happened today in the news, and do it a lot faster than if you read every single word on the page. Doing this for your announcement e-mails does the exact same thing, which is good for USYers on the run (which so many of us are). Not everyone is going to have the time to read a long email (or even a short email), so make sure that they can get the information right up front.

Making the E-mail Exciting
Try to also spice up your emails. Include a corny joke or two (even if it corny it will make people laugh), make it entertaining, make it so that when a USYer gets your email, they automatically think, "He (or she) writes really entertaining emails! I should open it, because I'll have a good laugh." Whether they open it for the laughs or the information, either way they find out about what you are announcing.

The E-mail Signature
For your signature, you should always put your position. Not necessarily all your positions, that's fine too, but you should definitely put the position that pertains to the announcement. So, for example, if you are on Regional General Board and are a Chapter President, and are sending out an email about an upcoming chapter event, you should put "USY Chapter President" in you signature no matter what. Putting your General Board position too is cool, but it isn't as important as the position that deals with what you are talking about.

Sometimes, too, it makes sense to sign your emails from the entire board, general board committee, or whatever group of people this announcement is really coming from. Then people really know who it is coming from.

Follow Netiquette
Another general suggestion when writing announcement emails is to, just like you should when writing any other email, follow the rules of "netiquette." (Netiquette is etiquette, except on the 'net.) This includes things such as trying to limit the amount of "ALL CAPS" in your email (it is seen as screaming and many people don't like it), using correct spelling and grammar, and so on. A fantastic site on netiquette can be found at www.albion.com.

In Conclusion
Overall the most important part of writing a good announcement email is to make it something that you yourself would want to read. If you were on the other end of the e-mail, and you got this message from a USYer, who you may or may not really know well, would you open it up and read what was in it? If the answer is yes, then the email is absolutely perfect.