Easy on the Eye: Making Life Easier for Volunteers and Chapters

Take a moment to think about the materials you send to your volunteers and chapters (e.g., board materials, membership marketing manuals, etc). How easy on the eyes are they? With this in mind, let us take a look at a marketing manual I created for use at the state chapter level for an association. When creating this piece I tried to answer these three questions:

Is it easy, at a glance, to determine what information is on the page? In the example below, a volunteer can quickly determine the topic covered on the page. The reader doesn't need to spend time wading through dense paragraphs of text to figure out whether the information within is relevant or timely. 

Is there anything engaging that will attract the eye? The information on the More Guerrilla Tactics page uses graphic images to stimulate the interest of the reader. There's nothing particularly fancy about it, but it works.  

Are there visual cues to help the user remember and reference for use at a later date? There is often a time lag between when a volunteer receives (and hopefully peruses) a resource from HQ and when she might actually get around to using it. Thus, it is helpful to apply the "I remember seeing ____" Test. In this case, a chapter volunteer might say, "I remember seeing a primer about writing better letters."

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

You will notice this marketing manual is pretty basic. It certainly didn't win an awards for graphic design! Still, it got the job done: it was very effective as a marketing tool and well received by the folks who used it.