You may have noticed the e-mail newsletter sign-up in our lefthand sidebar, which is a new feature that came with our recent redesign. We offer a few different lists for things like events or helping out with Church Marketing Sucks, as well as a main News & Updates list. Though if you’ve already signed up you may have noticed that we haven’t sent anything yet. We’re still trying to figure out what should be in our main e-mail newsletter, and that’s where you come in.
Tell us what you think should be in our e-mail newsletter.
- What kind of content do you like to get in an e-mail newsletter?
- What would be the most helpful?
- Should the content be unique to the newsletter, or should it also be available on the site?
- Is a newsletter that recaps what’s already on the site helpful? (including popular posts, interesting comments, overlooked posts, etc.)
- How often should it come out? Weekly? Monthly? Bi-Monthly?
Thanks for your input. We’d like to make a newsletter that’s valuable and worth your time, but also something that we can reasonably produce on a consistent schedule.
Paughnee
August 17, 2005
This site is one of my favorite resources — I get so much value from reading the blog. Thanks for the quality content you provide. Here’s my input on a newsletter:
I would subscribe to an email newsletter if the content is unique to the newsletter. Or, perhaps if the newsletter included a more in-depth look at one of the topics addressed briefly on the blog.
If the newsletter is monthly, for example, you could highlight some of the most popular blog entries and/or comments from the past month. That would drive readers back to the site to read an entry they missed or check out the comments. (Ideally, this would be in addition to the unique or more in-depth content.)
A newsletter would be a great place to highlight examples of church marketing that doesn’t suck (or do the peer reviews).
Let us know when you publish the first issue . . .
Greg Vennerholm
August 17, 2005
I like when there’s something of value: an opinion, a recent finding, a noteworthy site… something that you’d put on the main menu. Something fresh.
I wouldn’t think a newsletter of ‘recaps’ would be particularly compelling… though a section of ‘see what you just missed’ might be interesting. I would think you’d rather promote an upcoming editorial (something new) or point people to a Peer Review that got a lot of traction.
When I think of really useful newsletter, Adaptive Path sends really useful newsletter. From a sheer impact perspective, Apple always hits the mark. So, somewhere in between is a successful balance.
Simply as a matter of best practices, the newsletter probably should be unique, but have an equivalent page on the site… for those who might have trouble viewing it for various reasons. It’s easy enough to do, since your images will reside on the server anyway (assuming you’ll send HTML emails).
As to how often… monthly at the most, unless you’ve got something so compelling that it can’t wait until the next newsletter… like the Rapture. Oh, wait a minute…
Carry on the good work!
// venny