Is your email newsletter a waste of time?

Across the pond, Obama digital strategist Thomas Gensemer, made waves when he proclaimed email newsletters a waste of time.  Mr. Gensemer argued that email newsletters take too much time to produce, get read too infrequently, and too inefficiently drive action. He said that, “email newsletters don’t get read, yet they take more effort to prepare than a 250-word email,” and suggested that a system of frequent, short, personalized messages to users is a better approach.

Convio’s Vinay Bhagat, among others, begged to differ. While noting that, “anyone who helps raise $500m online is worth listening to,” Mr. Bhagat suggested that email newsletters continue to serve a purpose, and that frequent short and action-driven messages may be best for political campaigns, but probably aren’t a good idea for non-profits.

My take?  It’s a ridiculous argument. Neither Mr. Gensemer nor Mr. Bhagat could possibly know whether your organization’s email newsletter is a waste of time or the best time you spend without taking a look at the particulars. If there’s a constant in communications it’s that one size never fits all.

Is your organization’s email newsletter a waste of time? If you’re not sure, find out:

1. Clarify your goals. What do you want your newsletter (or newsletters, if you send multiple versions) to do? Be as precise as you can. Reasonable goals for email newsletters might include:

• Drive traffic to online content
• Drive advocacy actions
• Drive donations
• Test response to new content areas

2. Examine metrics. Take a look under the hood at how your email newsletters perform in relation to your goals. If your goal is to drive traffic to online content, then click-through is a critical metric. If your goal is to drive advocacy actions or donations, then response rate is a critical metric (moreso even than open rate). Examine the metrics for your list overall and for different segments of your list – it’s probable that you’ll find different levels of success among different segments of your email list. Be sure you’re evaluating metrics across at least four newsletters to avoid making decisions based on one-offs.

3. Assess the effort required to send your email newsletters. How much time does it take? How much does it cost (if you use a service that charges for message volume)? What aren’t you doing instead?

4. Evaluate. Is your email newsletter a success, or a waste of time? If it looks like the latter, are there ready alternatives? Is your organization’s internal culture ready to lose it, and if not, are there tweaks you can test to see if you can make it more effective?

5. Test improvements. No communications program is perfect.  Use your data to guide tests to see if you can make your email newsletters more effective.  And by all means, test Mr. Gensemer’s suggested frequent, short, action-oriented emails.

Ignore the noise of experts debating abstract questions. Whether or not email newsletters were effective for the Obama campaign or whether Mr. Bhagat at Convio thinks they’re the best thing since sliced bread is irrelevant. What matters is how your email communications are furthering your organization’s goals.

-Shayna