Food Plymouth CIC ‘How to increase the reach and readership of the E-bulletin’ Contents Introduction The client Food Plymouth CIC is a Community Interest Company based in Plymouth and is built up of 3 company directors, one part-time coordinator and a team of volunteers. It supports and enables a wider partnership network of local organisations, companies and individuals working towards their shared goals. Their company looks to support and enable a partnership networked to build a healthy and sustainable system for Plymouth to follow. What we’ve been asked to do The client has asked us to increase the reach and readership of their E-bulletin. Our client told us in advance that most of the information we have been asked to find is available in journals and on the internet. In addition to this, we also decided to conduct a survey to gain a better insight into suggestions from people in Plymouth as to what they would expect to see on an E-bulletin and how Food Plymouth CIC can improve theirs. The E-bulletin At first glance we found the following: Food Plymouth CIC E-bulletin Good Bad Information is very well structured; there is a direct link to in- depth information Not many pictures on the front page of the e-bulletin, try to include more pictures Simple language which is easy to understand Try to keep people up to date; upload information more frequently It has a dedicated reader message area; very good for interaction with the audience The design and theme could be improved Very good use of font color and font size to attract reader’s eyes Subheadings are not interesting enough to encourage further reading Similar organisations Severn Estuary Partnership We were told by our client that the Severn Estuary Partnership had a ‘superior E-bulletin’ to their own and were asked to review it. The newsletter is called ‘Severn Estuary Partnership News.’ How the e-bulletin is laid out: ● Monthly issues ● Has hyperlinked logos to the Severn Estuary Partnership’s social media accounts, website, and email. ● Organisation logo at the top of newsletter. ● Opens with the latest news, stating what has happened during the month. ● Image advertising something that is happening later in the year - at the top of the newsletter so to grab the reader’s attention. ● Next is the ‘photo of the month’ competition. Readers can send in their photographs of the Severn Estuary area, with the best one being featured in the newsletter. This is a way of interacting with the audience. ● Then there are hyperlinks to the different sections of the bulletin. ● The sections are: organisation-specific news, other UK news, new publications, upcoming events and consultations. ● At the bottom there is another set of hyperlinked buttons. ● In the top-left corner of the page, there are links to previous issues, and a subscribe button. This is also a translate option, which is rather neat. Content of the e-bulletin: ● The offerings are concise but informative. ● Each section is no more than 3 paragraphs long. ● Using images to match the writing makes it easier to digest the information. ● A youtube video is incorporated too. ● The most important thing that has happened during the month is always at the top, e.g. planning for the Severn Estuary Forum. ● The issues always open with the same question: ‘What has the Severn Estuary been up to this month?’ - automatically engages the reader. ● Casual tone throughout, numerous colloquialisms give a relaxed feel to the writing. Approach is similar to ‘morning readers!’. ● There is a monthly beach clean that is featured in every issue of the e-bulletin. It gives environmentalists in the area a chance to meet up and do something. ● Severn Estuary has links to many other local organisations, including UWE; the logos of these organisations are viewable in the bulletin. ● There are many hyperlinks to projects being run by Severn Estuary or other organisations within the bulletin. ● Each issue ends with a section entitled ‘Call for Articles’, which addresses the readers - asking if they have anything they want to be featured in the bulletin. How the e-bulletin is accessible: ● For those for are on the mailing list, each month’s edition is sent via email. ● Every issue of the newsletter is also available to view on the Severn Estuary Partnership website. ● It is posted on the organisation’s social media accounts as well. Exeter Foodbank The Exeter Foodbank issue a well-devised quarterly newsletter. The title takes up much of the front page – so it seems to jump out at the reader. The organisation’s slogan is underneath the title. Unlike most e-bulletins, the contact information here is on the right-hand side of the title page, rather than at the top. The newsletter opens with a ‘foreword’ style piece: the foodbank addresses its readers, thanking them for their recent work, whilst also stressing the importance of their continued support. The first page of the newsletter is consistent throughout; this is important, if the readers find that the newsletter has a familiar feel, they will be more likely to read it. The e-bulletin has a casual feel to it, with many graphics being utilized. This is one aspect of the newsletter that Food Plymouth could make use of. This is because the relaxed tone gives it a less ‘chunky’ feel - than if it were just walls of text. What’s more, it includes a segment for ‘FAQs’, which heightens the level of interaction between writer and reader. Exeter Foodbank’s e-bulletin also makes good use of charts – with one depicting the necessity of individual effort, with regards to the overall goals of the food bank. A more visual illustration allows the reader to understand certain material more readily. Many small images accompany the text boxes that feature stories. This allows for a better understanding of the report – visual aids are always a welcome addition, provided they aren’t too large. The ‘Meet the Trustees section is rather good, it provides backstories for those who oversee the Food Bank’s running, meaning readers will feel more connected to the organisation, as they will be able to relate to the stories’ of the team. The way that the Exeter Foodbank reaches out to the audience is arguably the best part of the e-bulletin, it creates a good level of interaction – which is most likely crucial to the success of the newsletter. Academic research findings How to make a good e-bulletin Penny C. Sansevieri, Founder and CEO Author Marketing Experts, Inc. She recommends some ways to enhance your newsletter and increase your audience. ⦁ Know your audience: most people neglect this and don’t know the importance of their audience. In fact it is more important than you actually think and ironically, it is often overlooked. Most businesses who put out newsletters write more for themselves than for their audience. This is a huge mistake as you can imagine because most of the time, Your readers will be interested in different aspect compared to the owners. A business should focus on their consumers needs and interests, and most importantly to know exactly who they are before you put out a newsletter copy. ⦁ Subject lines: This is probably the most important part of any newsletter. They need to grab the reader’s attention, and if you know what your audience wants, the subject lines shouldn’t be hard. But they must speak to the needs of your reader. Of all the things going on in their lives, as it relates to whatever message you are sending, what’s their biggest need right now? Answer that and you’ve got a perfect subject line. ⦁ Frequency: How often you deliver your newsletter will generally depend on your consumer, but a good rule of thumb is once a month at a minimum and once a week at a maximum. Penny C does not recommend sending your end-users too many announcements and newsletters. Also, it can be a lot of content to create, so time constraints should be kept in mind. If you build a loyal following you can often create special blasts with more frequency and not lose readers, but keep in mind that most readers are almost overwhelmed with emails so in a lot of cases, more is less and less is more. Kristy, N is a vice president of automated marketing. He has more than 15 years of industry experience in leadership and marketing development. He gives more suggestions about how to increase the readership of the newsletter. ⦁ Grow Subscribers: Ensure your newsletters have a link in order to share content via social media channels. People like to read and share the e-bulletin with friends whom are also interested in the subject. ⦁ Measure performance, improve and repeat: For businesses that rely and thrive on website performance and engagement, people need to measure and report on your audience’s interactions with your website content. The same processes should also apply to any newsletters. ⦁ Keep in tune with your audience preferences: For example, what types of content they are clicking on and which pages they stay on for the longest periods of time. People can create audience segments and tailor newsletters to individual topic preferences, locations, and other demographics. This can lead to an enhanced experience for consumers interested in the letter. Wilson, who is the author of ‘master content marketing’ analyzed that most of the audience are impatient searchers when they are surfing in the internet. Most people just search of the information what they want. You must accept that people scan web pages rather than reading. She gives some ways to increase the newsletter readership: ⦁ Embrace the line break: reasonable line break can help make reading easier ⦁ Strong subheads: a powerful subheading not only attracts the reader’s eyes but also helps the reader determine whether the information is needed by them. So you need to make your subheading attractive but not too exaggerated, otherwise it will lose the reader’s trust. ⦁ Create bulleted lists: those lists are different from the rest of your text, so it’s a way can help reader have a visual break. ⦁ Use ‘deep captions’: people’s visual memory is always more profound than their text memory. More ‘deep captions’ make it easier to arouse the reader’s interest. ⦁ Add relevant and useful links: internal links back to your own bulletin to keep people read your best information. External links demonstrate that you have researched the topic and want to highlight other experts. This way can improve your reader’s understanding. ⦁ Highlight keywords: it can help reader quickly to find the key information. In addition to this Mineo recommends to: ● Be creative with email subjects - include something interesting in the title of the email, that pertains to the content of the newsletter, rather than just ‘February Newsletter.’ E.g. ‘The Severn Estuary Partnership completes riverside cleanup, read this and more in February’s newsletter.’ ● Keep the design of the newsletter minimal - it should be comprehensive yet remain uncluttered. ● Having white space is key in email newsletters because it helps to mitigate the ‘cluttered’ look. ● Make it easy for people to unsubscribe - if someone doesn’t want to receive the newsletter anymore it should be easy to do so. These points are then further supported by Tsu who states that: ● Being informative is the primary objective. ● Consistency is key - if the newsletter has a familiar feel then people will be more likely to keep reading. ● Again, the importance of a compelling opening line is stressed, rather than ‘June Newsletter’ the title itself should be informative, but also eye catching. ● Allow for feedback on the newsletter - people will feel more involved, and because of this more inclined to read it. It also helps with regards to improvement. Survey About the survey We created a qualitative survey on an online platform called ‘Type Form.’ It was decided that a qualitative survey was the best option as it would provide with the specific, personal feedback from the respondents. The only issue that arose was it was time-consuming to fill in the questionnaire which put people off taking part in the survey. This feedback is crucial in understanding what people expect to see on an E-bulletin, which then Food Plymouth CIC can put into effect thus creating an E-bulletin that is satisfactory to their market which is everyone in Plymouth. Methodology When creating a survey there are certain do’s and don’ts that are essential for accurate data to be received. These are as follows: Do’s Don’ts Use simple language Use leading questions Use some open ended questions Overlook possible answers Check your work thoroughly Use too many acronyms or technical terms It is important to use language that every reader can relate to in order to receive repeatable data. This will create empathy between you and your reader; increasing the response rate. The second point is that it is key to have some open ended questions. These will give you more data related to questions asked previously. The final is to check your work thoroughly. Even if you receive a plethora of detailed answers, if the question is wrong then the answers will be unusable. As for the don’ts, you must not use leading questions due to this giving you unrealistic data skewed in one direction. It is also important not to overlook possible answers. Make sure that you put yourself in the repondants shoes and see how their answers can be helpful to your cause. Finally avoid using too much specific jargon so that it is understandable to the general public. The reason we have decided to run an online survey is to try and find more ways to increase readership that we may have missed. It is also useful because it finds people who are unaware of the E-Bulletin to start with and gathers their first impressions. These are the types of people that Food Plymouth are trying to reach and so getting data on the positives and negatives of the newsletter are imperative to its improvement. We sent the survey online to people mostly in Plymouth but also some outside to ensure they would be seeing the newsletter for the first time. What the survey told us Our survey took the form of a questionnaire – it was split into 7 questions, with a mixture of response types: open and closed, as well as qualitative and quantitative. Have you heard of Food Plymouth CIC? Almost 70% of respondents stated that they had not heard of Food Plymouth CIC, which would suggest that the reach of the organisation is not good enough. The e-bulletin however, is aimed at people from the local area who have an interest in sustainable food sourcing; many of those who responded to the questionnaire will have been young people (the bulk of the respondents found the survey on Facebook) – who aren’t particularly likely to be curious about this sort of thing, so an argument could be made that the results are, in this case, somewhat skewed. If the recipients had primarily been elderly individuals, there is a higher probability that people would have heard of the charity (those who are involved in the organisation are ‘older’). Are you aware of their e-bulletin (online newsletter)? Less than one quarter of those that replied ‘Yes’ to the previous question said that they were aware of the e-bulletin. This is a worrying sign for Food Plymouth, as the newsletter should be the primary method of engaging with readers (using the ‘Severn Estuary Partnership’ as an example) – that is, those that know of the organisation should naturally know of the newsletter too. Perhaps the e-bulletin needs to be the centrepiece of the website, then viewers would have no choice but to become aware of its existence. Does the e-bulletin encourage you to read the website? The results would suggest that those who read the e-bulletin are mostly unsure about looking into the website or are certain that it would not interest them. Only a small percentage of the respondents stated that they would be interested in observing the website for more information and this goes to show that the E-bulletin needs improvement some level of improvement. What would you expect to see on a company’s newsletter? One respondent stated that they would prefer to see more pictures on the newsletter, which would suggest that it is too ‘text-heavy,’ but in truth, there seems to be a good mixture of images and written material, so this shouldn’t be seen as a major concern. Another reply illustrated the need for eye-catching facts, so to draw the reader’s attention. This is something that the Severn Estuary Partnership does well in its newsletter, so Food Plymouth should consider adopting a similar practice. A different respondent suggested that a ‘spotlight’ article is paramount to the success of an online newsletter, which is something that Food Plymouth need to do better, as there doesn’t seem to be a true focal point, it is more like a flow of articles at the minute. Another reply stated that the latest news segment is the most important aspect of a newsletter – the organisation could potentially implement this section at the beginning of the e-bulletin, due to its significance. How does Food Plymouth’s e-bulletin compare to others that you have read? Judging by the responses, it seems as though the newsletter does contain clear and concise information regarding the aims of the organisation, and there is some interesting material on what Food Plymouth have done in the past. One thing that becomes very clear via the survey, is that there is definitely room for improvement – when the e-bulletin is compared to others of a similar nature. Another recurring answer is that the organisation of the newsletter could be better; as of right now, it looks a little untidy, although there is a good format in place. As the visual appeal of an online newsletter is crucial to its success, Food Plymouth could consider adding more colour to the bulletin. Are there any online newsletters that you know to be of a very good standard? If so, please state the name of it below. One individual declared the Virgin Wines newsletter to be particularly good, whilst someone else set forth the merits of the Race for Life newsletter. The vast majority of respondents however, stated that they didn’t know of any ‘outstanding’ e-bulletins. That said, one response indicated that it is common for people to unsubscribe from most newsletters, unless they are particularly eye-catching or interesting. What would you do to raise awareness of Food Plymouth CIC’s e-bulletin? The responses for this question were quite varied, with suggestions ranging from ‘more pictures’ to ‘creating flyers.’ One recurring idea was to make use of any local means possible, like school newsletters, higher education noticeboards and community centres. This is an excellent suggestion; the e-bulletin is aimed at local people, so by using the local area to its fullest extent – in terms of advertising, people will start to interact with the organisation. One proposal was to pay for a slot in a local paper, or even on a local paper’s website; the newsletter is electronically delivered, so advertising on well-known local website would seem to be a prudent idea. The company’s current usage of social media channels is good, but it could perhaps be improved. It could be argued that it is not possible to overuse an ever-growing social media, as the platforms are only ever growing in size. Limitations to the data Academic and online research It is important that we emphasise that there are limitations to what we can suggest due to where we have gathered this data from. The data we have collected from online search engines and journal articles are considered as secondary research, this reduces the reliability of the information as it is not recent which makes it harder to apply to a modern community interest company such as Food Plymouth CIC. The survey In regards to the survey, a crucial restriction that needs to be brought to light is the number of replies we received from our survey. In total we received 18 responses, which is not enough to draw a valid conclusion. We believe the lack of response to our survey was based on the fact it was a qualitative survey which is more time consuming for the participants making them unwilling to complete it. Other companies The amount of information available from other company E-bulletins was limited as we found that many companies required us to sign up for their newsletter in order to gain access to the newsletter. Furthermore, the companies we did find do not have the same purpose as Food Plymouth CIC which means the relevance of our suggestions are limited seeing as we can only recommend options that we think would benefit Food Plymouth and there is no certainty this will work because each e-bulletin/newsletter is tailored to the specific company. Final Recommendations Through our research of similar newsletters, academic writings and the survey we conducted, we have found similarities in the suggestions for improvement that could be the difference between and successful and a mediocre E-Bulletin. Our main suggestions for improvement are: ⦁ Continue with the original structure of articles ⦁ Make stories more inviting for readers ⦁ Although well-structured, Boxes can be more obvious ⦁ Include humor and more colloquial language ⦁ Improve the aesthetic value of the page Our first recommendation was to continue with the original structure of the page where all stories are available to readers starting with the most recently added. This will allow anyone to see not only the newest stories easily, but they also have the option to look through past stories to see what the company has achieved and how far they have come. This will create empathy with the reader, meaning that they can feel like they are involved which would potentially encourage them to help Food Plymouth grow further still. Moving on from this it is essential to make each and every story interesting to the reader. This would involve using a ‘catchy line’ or possibly a quote accompanied by some relevant keywords and an image. These are designed to draw the reader into reading the brief before the article. If the article looks dull, it is unlikely that a reader would bother to venture into into reading it. Joining onto this, although the articles are well structured; there could be a more obvious separation between them allowing each article to have its own space to advertise itself. Although in excess it can seem unprofessional, some amount of humor or colloquialisms are a great way to involve the reader in your work. They lighten the mood and allow the reader to see that although the company is professional and are reaching for a higher status, they are also relatable. This will break down any barriers between both parties and henceforth encourages the reader to become integrated with the company’s viewpoints and goals. It is also notable how much white space there is in and around each segment. This extra space can easily be used for images such as the company logo or name. This would also give the page a recurring theme throughout and would make the reader feel as if they are still on the Food Plymouth website as opposed to just another bland webpage. The use of images and colour in the most recent newsletter are much more enticing to the reader, although the layout seems haphazard and unorganised. Using these themes and colours alongside the original structure to ensure an inviting, homely page will have a huge improvement on the readership for Food Plymouth. References Exeter Foodbank (2016). Newsletters. [ONLINE] Available at: https://exeter.foodbank.org.uk/about/newsletters/ [Accessed 1st May 2016). Kristy, N. (2016). 3 Ways to Retain & Grow Newsletter Readership. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.pubexec.com/post/3-ways-grow-newsletter-readership/ [Accessed 4 May 2017]. Mineo, G. (2015) How to create an email newsletter people actually read. [ONLINE] Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/guide-creating-email-newsletters-ht#sm.0001ytn6syouqcrd10skemur0ej80 [Accessed 15th April 2017]. Sansevieri, P. (2017). How to Increase Your Newsletter Visibility by 100%. [ONLINE] The Huffington Post. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penny-c-sansevieri/how-to-increase-your-news_b_1480646.html [Accessed 4 May 2017]. Tsu, T. (2017) 7 Golden Steps to Creating an Effective Email Newsletter. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.verticalresponse.com/blog/7-golden-steps-to-creating-an-effective-email-newsletter/ [Accessed 16th April 2017]. Wilson, P. (2016). 8 Incredibly Simple Ways to Get More People to Read your Content. [online] available at: http://www.copyblogger.com/scannable-content/ [Accessed 8 May 2017].