Be Thorough and Creative in Your Announcement

Publish a Blog Post

This post can contain a video going over new features, screenshots of special pages, the rationale behind your redesign or launch, and testimonials from excited customers or members that relate to the new site.

Send an Email to Current Customers, Prospects and Members


Customers, members and those who have taken the time to join your email list should be notified first. Members should be especially interested in a new membership website that offers more features, perks and increases member value.

Ask All Staff and Key Volunteers to Change Their Email Signature


You can provide sample text for them to use. Something along the lines of Check out our new website, with a link is appropriate. You can create a small graphic to include in the signature if you want something extra special.

Announce Your Site on Social Media

It’s wise to create a series of social posts about the new website. These can be spread out over a couple of weeks or even a month. Be sure to create fun graphics. Facebook posts with images are 2.3x more likely to get clicked on versus those without images. Some ideas:

1. Create screenshots of new pages on your website.
   
2. Do a “Top 5” or “Top 10” list mentioning the top things site visitors can do or explore when they visit the new site.
   
3. Use photos of people or animals (if that would align with your brand) expressing excitement.
   
4. Hold a contest in conjunction with your announcement; consider these creative ideas. Remember to check the contest rules for each platform you are posting on.
   

Use Canva, Photoshop or tools within the social media platforms to add text on top of the images. Check to be sure that your text is not too small to be readable when the image is viewed on a smart phone as that’s the most likely platform for social media to be viewed.

Send an Email to Past Customers or Members


Perhaps some people stopped visiting your site due to a lack of a mobile responsive design or the fact that it didn’t have features that met all of their needs. A new website announcement email is a great opportunity to let folks know how you can better serve them now. And it’s much easier and cheaper to bring past customers back into the fold than it is to advertise to attract a new customer.

Create a New Website Announcement Video


A website announcement video can incorporate different messages depending upon your target audience and what you are trying to communicate. It’s a good idea to keep it to 2 to 3 minutes or less. It can be even shorter as 33% of viewers click away and move on after the first 30 seconds of a web video. Some ideas for announcement video content:

1. A narrated walk-through of your website. This is effective if you have a number of new features to show off. Consider doing this as a Facebook Live or Instagram Live video for maximum social media impact.
   
2. Member or customer testimonials talking about things they can do on your new website.
   
3. An interview where a key person involved with the website design or a board member talks about what their goals were related to the new website.
   

Places you can post your announcement video:

1. On your YouTube channel if you have one
   
2. On your website
   
3. On social media
   
4. In a blog post on your website
   
5. In your announcement email.  Platforms such as MailChimp will allow you to put in a YouTube video link so users with some email clients like Gmail can play the video within their email inbox.
   

Amplify Your Launch Message With Email List Building

Boost Your Email List From Internal Sources

Email is superior to social media for announcing a new website to loyal customers. You’ve probably noticed that you don’t get notified every time your favorite brands post on Facebook. Facebook controls how many of a page’s followers will see posts. After all, they’d prefer that you pay them to boost that post. On average, a Facebook post will reach 8.1% of those who like the page.

On the other hand, emails reach about 85% of the people they are sent to. Hopefully you have been collecting customer and member email addresses as you’ve been fulfilling orders, taking event registrations or otherwise interacting online. You may have a variety of different places customer email addresses are stored such as:

1. An ecommerce platform
   
2. Online form submission entries (like a contact form)
   
3. A CRM or membership software.
   

Assuming you have permission to add these people to your email marketing list, it is time to upload any additional email addresses. While you’re at it, you might look into what integrations your various platforms have to see if they can automatically add emails to your email marketing system in the future. You don’t want to have to undertake this process again. Add a checkbox to any e-commerce checkouts and other forms to allow customers to opt-in to your list so you are certain of their intent to subscribe.

Add An Email Subscription Popup to Your Current Website


You can add a popup form by adding in an email opt-in plugin or widget provided by your email marketing provider or another plugin. Make sure that these signups are feeding data over to your email marketing platform. The average conversion rate for all pop-ups is 3.09%, but there are ways to increase that number. Popups that include an offer such as a discount are more successful at converting than those that don’t. Depending upon the success of the popup, you may opt to continue to use a popup on your new site.



Hold a Drawing to Collect Email Addresses


If you see a big discrepancy in numbers between the number of social followers versus the number of subscribers to your email list, consider holding a contest on social media to build up your email list. Or consider other creative list-building promotions.

Create posts and stories to tell those that complete your email signup form on your website between now and an upcoming date will automatically be entered to win something special. Perhaps it’s a free product, a free 1 year membership, a set of tickets to an upcoming event or something else you know would be attractive to your target audience. Note that there are rules regarding holding contests or promotions; they should be followed carefully.

1. See Instagram contest rules. And these helpful tips.
   
2. See Facebook promotion rules. And this guide.
   

Conduct a Soft Launch

1. They are among the select, special few who know about the launch at this point.
   
2. You would appreciate any feedback they have, including bugs they spot by a specified date (ideally before you make the major announcement so you have time to address issues they might raise).
   
3. You have an online form where they can submit their website feedback. This will help your web designer or developer find all issues items in one place. Be sure to include a field for collecting the URL of any pages that may have issues. A Google form works great for this task as you don’t necessarily want the form to appear on your website.
   

Sample Announcement Email

 

1. A searchable membership directory <make this a link to your directory>
   
2. Online event calendar <make this a link to your calendar/events page> with online payments
   
3. Ability to edit your directory profile <make this a link to your member login page> and pay membership dues online.
   
4. And more! (if there are other new features that are a part of your site like forms, a shopping cart, etc., add them on!)
   

1. Go to the member sign in & manage account page at <make this a link>
   
2. Click on the Request Password option
   
3. Enter your email address - [eml].
   
4. Click the Request Password button.
   
5. Check your email for the password message and follow the instructions in that email. If you don’t see the message, check your spam folder.
   

Step by Step Instructions to Send Announcement Email

Step 1: Copy Email 

Step 2: Customize Email Verbiage

Step 3: Personalize Email 

1. We are thrilled to announce that your organization name has launched a new website at website url <make a link>.
   
2. We are thrilled to announce that ABC Company has launched a new website at https://abccompany-testurl.com.
   

Step 4: Copy Your Draft

Step 5: Email Your Members Folder 

Step 6: Add Subject Line and Message

Step 7: Preview and Send Your Message