# Michael Gilbert shares 12 common ways to fail at email

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2006/07/19/michael-gilbert-shares-12-common-ways-fail-email/
- Published: 2006-07-19T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Michael Gilbert, publisher of Nonprofit Online News and author of The Gilbert Email
Manifesto to nonprofits, has published “Twelve Ways To Fail at Email” based on the
most common failures he has observed talking to and working with nonprofits.
His
list of the top 12 includes issues such as not collecting email addresses; investing
more in their website than in email; not acting upon the profile, preferences or
behaviours of stakeholders; and not responding to email.

These might sound obvious but Gilbert’s analysis makes this list particularly useful.
He starts his article by recommending how to use it, encouraging readers to rank
them according to which ones are having the most damaging impact on your current
online communication, and which ones, if you were to tackle them, would meet with
the least resistance.

This article was first published in Gilbert’s The Basics of Nonprofit Email, and
later in The Guide to Nonprofit Email (February 2006), but this is the first time
the article has been published at no charge.

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