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Effective Marketing
E-Newsletters: Strategies and
Practices
The Communications Network featured the topic of
"E-Newsletters: Strategies and Practices" as part of
its monthly professional development
Ongoing Learning Workshop series.
The workshops focused on strategies for building an
effective E-Newsletter program. The discussion was
comprised a peer exchange and gave participants the
opportunity to share their opinions on balancing
electronic and print publications, encouraging survey
participation, and demonstrating the benefits of
e-newsletters to the organization’s decision-makers.
The session was moderated by independent communications
consultant Nancy Schwartz and lead by Larry Blumenthal
of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Mitch
Hurst of Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and Mirinda
Kossoff of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF). Schwartz
moderated the discussion and shared lessons she learned
from publishing her own e-newsletter,
Getting Attention.
Each presenter told the story of how they designed their
e-newsletter program and their strategies to reach
target audiences and achieve the goals of their
respective programs. What quickly became apparent as
each shared their organization’s experience is that
e-newsletters — while a popular and cost-effective tool
for increasing visibility and raising awareness around
issues — are not the solution for every organization.
In considering starting an e-newsletter program, you
must first ask if an e-newsletter is the appropriate
communications tool for your organization.
Are E-Newsletters Right for Your Organization?
Larry Blumenthal, Senior Communications Officer at The
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), presented seven
key questions for an organization to ask of an
e-newsletter program:
•
What are we trying to accomplish?
•
What are we going to offer?
•
Should we design emails in-house or
use consultant or email
distribution
service?
•
What format should we use:
Text vs HTML?
•
How do we market the
program?
•
How much does the program
cost?
•
What are we measuring to
determine success?
For RWJF, the goal was to drive more readers to the
website and to the content of their publications. Since
the purpose of the foundation’s website is to give the
public more access to the Foundation, RWJF decided that
e-newsletters would be a useful tool in disseminating
information to a wide audience.
To address this need, RWJF decided to offer four
different types of e-newsletters, including one general
email update from the foundation. For those interested
in a particular topic, RWJF offers weekly news digests
and monthly roundups to alert subscribers to new
information available in their designated program area.
In addition, RWJF sends out “Funding Alerts,” which are
calls for proposals, and “Content Alerts,” which are a
form of breaking news information alerts from the
Foundation.
On a smaller scale and with limited scope, the Burroughs
Wellcome Fund launched a quarterly e-newsletter to
spotlight grantees and the Fund’s activities.
E-Newsletters as Quarterly Reports
Mirinda Kossoff, Communications Officer at the Burroughs
Wellcome Fund (BWF) shared her experience in
transitioning BWF’s printed newsletter Focus into an
online publication. Focus had been published quarterly
for four years until Mirinda joined the staff and
decided that putting it online would help BWF to reach a
wider audience.
To make sure email was the best way to reach her
intended audience, Mirinda mailed postcards to
subscribers offering them the chance to ‘opt-in’ to the
e-newsletter. The Fund saw an incredible response from
these postcards and have only received two unsubscribe
requests in the one and a half years of online
publication.
Print vs. Electronic Newsletters
Mirinda’s transition from print to electronic
newsletters shed light on an important debate: Is it
possible to replace printed materials with electronic
materials?
The answer depends on the objective of your
communications materials. One participant shared that
his organization was debating moving to e-newsletter but
worried that a printed publication made a longer lasting
impression, “even if it is thrown in the trash as
quickly as it would be deleted from an inbox.” Moderator
Nancy Schwartz suggested that email allows you to
provide the audience more time-sensitive information in
a concise manner. All agreed that e-newsletters are an
excellent way to update your audience on breaking news
and key issues, but that if your objective is
fundraising or raising awareness of the organization,
then e-newsletters should be distributed monthly or more
frequently, if possible. The consensus was that
quarterly e-newsletters, without a printed component to
reinforce the message, appear too infrequently to make a
lasting impression.
Online Surveys
Mirinda’s use of a survey to evaluate BWF’s newsletter
also inspired a discussion around the growing use of
online research. The biggest question raised, however,
was on stimulating adequate survey participation.
In response, Mirinda suggested offering an incentive and
found that the chance to win a PDA was a popular
incentive for her readers to participate in BWF survey.
Roshani Kothari of One World US shared that her
organization raffled off a digital camera, and also
found it to be a successful method of recruiting survey
participants.
Once you have attracted participants, the key to a high
response rate is to keep the survey questions brief and
easy to complete. Online tools such as Zoomerang and
Survey Monkey offer inexpensive survey building tools
that also analyze data. Carlos Birdsong of Connect for
Kids shared that his organization conducted a survey by
email using two different formats. The plain text email
included a link to an online survey and the HTML version
imbedded the survey in the body of the email. He found
that the participation rate was higher with the
participants who received the email with an embedded
survey. The easier it is to access the survey, the
higher the response rate.
Finally, all echoed the importance of testing the survey
before sending it out. An easy, cost-effective way to do
this is to simply ask your colleagues and family members
to take it and offer feedback. If they find it quick and
easy to access and understand, then it is likely the
rest of your audience will as well.
Evaluating E-Newsletters
Online surveys are a good resource for evaluating the
success of including your e-newsletter program. Mitch
Hurst, Communications Officer and Webmaster for The
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, shared that in addition
to conducting focus groups and online surveys, he
monitors the number of “unsubscribes” Mott receives
after each mailing. While there will always be a
percentage of addresses that bounce back due to employee
turnover requests to “unsubscribe” from your list can
provide you with information about your ability to meet
your readers’ needs.
To measure the effectiveness of the content of his
messages, Mitch tracks the “click-through” rate of the
links for each item in the mailing. Larry Blumenthal
uses a similar method to evaluate RWJF’s four email
products. To distinguish between the number of users
that get to a page through an email alert versus by
surfing the website, RWJF adds special code to the link
provided in the email.
Plain Text vs HTML
Tracking click-throughs is an essential form of
evaluation for Mitch because the primary goal of The
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation’s e-newsletter is to
drive traffic to the website. Mitch explained that Mott
uses their e-newsletter Mott Mail, published twice
monthly, for the purpose of alerting their audience to
new content on the website and maintaining close
communication with their 3,500 subscribers and
international staff.
The format of Mott Mail is simple: three stories, each
offering a description and link to information on
www.mott.org. The plain text format makes it a quick and
easy way for Mott to send their information and insure
that all readers are able to view it. Despite Mitch’s
personal preference for plain text emails, Mott’s
research has shown that 70-80% of their subscribers
prefer HTML formatted messages with graphics; Mott is
therefore considering changing their format.
To distribute Mott Mail, Mitch uses a program called
Gammadyne Mailer. This program uses your database to
pull the list of subscribers, distributes the message to
those addresses, and then provides tracking information
on how readers respond to messages. Since Mott Mail is
sent in a plain text format, Mitch does not use a
special program to design messages. Other participants
on the call offered that they have found success with
programs such as Dreamweaver, FrontPage, Constant
Contact, and Mojo mail.
In addition the Plain Text vs HTML debate, participants
raised the issue of sending attachments.
Sending Attachments
One of the biggest issues with sending attachments is
how to protect subscribers from viruses. Moderator Nancy
Schwartz advised against sending attachments because it
“places the burden on the recipient to run the file
through a virus protection system” and this can inhibit
your audience from reading your message. Others pointed
out that large attachments can be burdensome and may
cause readers to opt-out of receiving your messages if
they cause network errors or slow the delivery of other
messages.
Rules to Live By in Strategic Communications
The workshop ended with a return to the initial question
all communicators must answer when starting a new
program:
What is your objective? As Mitch pointed out, you can’t
send an empty email: Regardless of format or method of
distribution, the purpose of an e-newsletter program is
to communicate your message. Every organization has
different needs and objectives and should design their
e-newsletter program to meet those goals.
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