Newsletters are like teasers – they 
highlight issues and activities, celebrate success stories, point to useful resources and give you a hint of upcoming events. A great way to build a relationship with your target audience, an email (e-) newsletter is cost-effective and a valuable tool for communicating via the Internet.
As Nancy White, online communications expert and lead facilitator at our Social Media Workshop, believes,
“E-newsletters serve as a great summary for ongoing information that may be available in other forms such as blogs, twitter, discussion forums. The target audience that seems to appreciate them the most are people who don’t use many online tools and/or who are not online a lot and like to print and read offline.”
E-newsletters not only overcome a lack of technological know-how, they also transcend geographical boundaries and low bandwidth issues.
Used widely within CGIAR Centers, e-newsletters communicate department/project updates and Center-wide research activities. They are informative, contain useful resources and are often archived as institutional memory.
However, the BIG question is: Is your e-newsletter being read?
To ensure that your e-newsletter is being read, there are two things to consider: target audience and content.
We know the reach of the e-newsletter is wide, and if you have an extensive distribution list, even better. But then, so does everyone else with a reasonably attractive newsletter. In effect, your newsletter will be competing not only with other research-oriented newsletters, but also with high priority emails, project meetings and an assortment of work-related activities.
Ruthless people are made, not born
People have become adept at managing their email inboxes. Many juggle several email accounts at one time, with each established for a different purpose: work, study, family and yes, even newsletter subscriptions. They can also be ruthless in deleting emails that are of little value to them, a decision that often takes place in the first few seconds of seeing an email in the preview pane of their inbox.
Unless your e-newsletter appeals to the reader in that small space, chances are it may not be opened right away, and may even get deleted.
How to garner the attention your e-newsletter deserves:
- E-newsletter title – the subject part of the email can be used to your advantage. Use keywords from topics instead of volume number and issue.
- Headline title – keep it short, attention-grabbing, possibly controversial
- Subheading – use keywords, state the purpose of the news item
- Order – place your two best stories at the top to maximize the view in the preview pane
- Graphics – minimal is best; consider a simpler newsletter header so it does not take up too much space in the preview pane
(A little trivia: Based on eyetracking studies conducted on reading behavior, it was found that e-mail users are extremely fast at both processing their inboxes and reading e-newsletters. The average time allocated to an e-newsletter after opening it was only 51 seconds, with most participants reading only 19% of a newsletter)
So based on the data above, once your e-newsletter is opened, you have approximately 51 seconds to impress your readers. The more discerning readers will quickly size it up by scanning the headlines and subheadings. If they do not find anything of relevance or interest, you’ve lost them for that particular issue. They may try the next issue you send out, but if the trend continues, they may un-subscribe from your e-newsletter. So keep track of subscribers and un-subscribers.
For e-newsletter content to be appreciated, it has to be presented in an appealing manner. The look and the feel should be inviting – easy-to-read fonts, minimal images and reasonable length. Description under the headline titles should be short and succinct. Include a link to the source, for people who want more information.
Long e-newsletters risk losing valuable readership. If your e-newsletter is lengthy, it may be prudent to review the rationale behind it. Whether you split your e-newsletter content into shorter e-newsletters that are sent more frequently, or whether you decide to edit content to only showcase the top 5 -6 news items, depends on the purpose of the e-newsletter and the target audience.
There are some quarters who believe newsfeeds are slowly replacing the e-newsletter. Newsfeeds are subscriptions people can make to websites, blogs and other online sources to inform them when new content is introduced to these sites. The ‘news’ comes in the form of headlines. While this is very useful, newsfeeds are impersonal.
The e-newsletter, on the other hand, has the power to be the voice of your cause.
Till next time…
Some examples:
- ASB partnership Newsletter based on teams bookmarks on delicious
- CAPRi Newsletter: Blog and newsletter in one
- ILRI Newsletter
- Network for Good newsletter
- Habitat for Humanity newsletter
Resources:
- Newsletters as a KS Tool
- Developing successful e-newsletters
- Eyetracking studies on newsletter reading
ICT-KM Program 
June 11, 2009 at 9:08 am
Thanks for an excellent article! a few more tips:
– newsletter is a great way to bring more people to your website — post summaries of stories in your e-news, with a link to the full story on your blog. win-win.
– another reason to integrate e-news with your blog: it’s easier to track web traffic and usage. we always get a spike in website visits after we send out the e-news
– on e-news vs. RSS feed: in the ideal world everyone is subscribed to your RSS feed. but email newsletters are a great way to bridge the gap and facilitate adoption of RSS technology. Offer both, and use every email newsletter to remind people that they can subscribe to the RSS feed instead — if they want!
June 11, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Meena, this is very interesting, but I must confess that while I was reading this article, I was wondering: why is it in the social media series? how can we ‘social-ise’ newsletters?
Your points about making newsletters usable by potential readers with attention span challenges (we all are challenged in this regard) are absolutely true, but there’s more to not losing valuable readership.
As Vanessa suggests, there’s value in 1. diversifying channels, and, I’d say, 2. aligning content production with dissemination channels, while keeping attention focussed on listening.
Traditional newsletters are for dissemination, a one-way flow: how can people interact with the articles in it? how do you assess what topics readers liked the most? can they rate, comment, link to parts of it?
In this light, what is dead is the traditional, monolithic issue-based newsletter, a direct derivative of the print product (and in pdf, for good measure…). What’s also dead is the purely email-based newsletter, that has no life on a web site or an archive for people to retrieve it via search engines or direct links. What is dead is the concept of the newsletter as the (dead)end product of an editorial process.
What is still very alive is the power of email as a distribution channel: we all still spend a lot of time on email, so this is a great way to distribute information. What needs a great injection of life is the concept of the newsletter as a collection of articles and news, each one of which can have their own online life, so they can be linked, searched, bookmarked, commented (if the platform allows it) and evaluated individually.
The rise of alternative channels, like feeds, social bookmarking, twitter, poses an effectiveness/efficiency challenge. So, how can we produce good, relevant content that is to be distributed on multiple channels, even if we still call it a newsletter?
The point, in my opinion, is about aligning content production with the multiple digital channels available, for examples combining RSS feeds and email distribution.
Breaking down a newsletter in individual, standalone articles is the first step towards giving each one of them a potential social life, so that they can be bookmarked, shared, searched, twitted, monitored, commented, rated, syndicated, with the ultimate goal of improving outreach and covering all possible channels where our audiences are.
Eventually, it’s the editorial approach that needs to change: quality control, relevant content and simple design remain important, but are we thinking about what happens to our valuable content after clicking on the Publish button?
June 12, 2009 at 10:20 am
Dear Vanessa,
Thank you for your comments and the extra tips, especially the point about tracking web traffic and usage, which is great for showing impact.
Cheers-Meena
June 12, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Dear Anto,
Thank you for your thoughtful ideas on ‘social-izing’ the newsletter. I agree that the days of the traditional newsletter is numbered. Email newsletters still serve a purpose in bridging the techno-gap and communicators should always be mindful of ways to make sure their e-newsletters stand out in the crowd of others.
And your thoughts on breaking down the e-newsletter to feed into other social networks makes sense especially for people who no longer tap into newsletters. Communications professionals will need to keep abreast with emerging technologies to grab the attention of this audience.
It can be as simple as creating standalone articles out of newsletter content as you suggest. Or as Nancy mentioned, the newsletter itself can be a summary of content from blogs, tweets and other social media tools.
Cheers-Meena
August 11, 2009 at 11:32 am
Hi Meena,
I am a New Delhi-based journalist and communications professional. I found your post very informative. Thanks for all the inputs.
Cheers,
Vijay Srinivas