Subscriber List Developement

Managing Email Lists

MailPoet can be used for more than just sending out our newsletter. We need to harness it’s power to grow our subscriber list, send out sponsor appeals and organize specific areas of our Northeast Arts community. At least that is the projected vision.

Our newsletter subscriber list

We will be using MailPoet to:

  1. Compile and send our monthly newsletter “Arts District. News”
  2. Send opt-in appeals emails to a variety of email lists (building lists, board-developed database lists, etc.)
  3. Address our events venues
  4. Appeal to our sponsors
  5. Address our leadership

Whenever the District needs to make an official announcement or appeal, we will be using MailPoet.

Note: Many of these list have already been compiled and are in MailPoet. As different groups in our consortium organizations compiles email list, I will be entering them into the MailPoet database; with their permission of course.

 

Types of email lists & their uses

There are two types of email lists, official District list that we use internally and one-time-use lists that we use to ask people to opt-in to our subscriber list.

Official District Lists: This are list that people have already opted into. they chose to be in the list.

I will be asking for help from the board and committees to compile and maintain these official email lists.

One-time-use Lists: This are lists that we gather from our organization friends to ask people to opt-in to our subscriber base.

I will be reaching out to other Northeast organizations to help locate opt-in, one-time-use mailing lists to use to increase our subscriber base.

 

Levels of Community Assistance

  • Most organizations will not hand over there email lists on just a promise to only use it once. Our inner circle probably will.
  • In cases where they will not, we will ask them to send out an appeal that we write asking people to opt-in to our “Arts District News” newsletter.
  • Some will not do a special appeal, but will add an appeal item to their news letter.
  • Some may refuse altogether.
I have set up plans for all these situations. It is below.

Sharing Email Lists Responsibly
Analysis of Problem by Remo Campoiano – 1/8/2020

 

The task is to grow our Arts District News subscriber base. The most efficient method is to send out emails to list we deem appropriate. The task then becomes a matter of identifying and appropriating this lists.

 

There are two ways to get useful lists:

  • We can look for websites that list people’s emails, like NEMAA and copy/paste into a spreadsheet. Note: The minimum fields we need are email address and first name.
  • Another way is to ask our friends, board and committee members to share their lists one-time. For example, Jennifer Young allowed the one-time use of her tenant list, which yielded 70 (and counting) new subscribers with a minimal effort, about 2 hours of work.

The Problem
In the Jennifer Young example, she saw this as in-her-interest and the interest of her tenants. It was a win-win opportunity. 

 

Problem #1: Not everyone we will be asking will see it this way, and for appropriate reasons. Email lists are valuable assets and one needs to protect them from improper use or abuse. 

 

Problen #2: There are different levels of effectiveness with subscription drives. The most effective is when we are given the list and we run it through our own MailPoet system. We are getting a conversion rate of about 36%. The least effective is to ask people to include a link in their own newsletter. We estimate this conversion rate to be 1-2%.

 

With these issues in mind, I am proposing we accommodate a variety of comfort levels in list sharing. The following outlines these levels and explains how each works:

 

LEVEL 1: Full Campaign
This level is the least work for the list owner and affords the highest conversion rate.

 

  • One-time use of your list – this is a promise to delete the list after the promotion ends.
  • Opt-in: In the email promotion we ask that the recipient go to a District webpage to opted in to receive our newsletter. The form asked for their email, first name, last name.
  • From Option: The email can come from you – if not it will come from the board chair, Josh Blanc.
  • ReplyTo Option: Replies can go to you – if not replies go to the campaign manager, Remo Campopiano.
  • Intro option: We will encourage you to write an intro sentence setting up the subscription request – this is not mandatory but may help the conversion rate. Either way you will have the opportunity to review (and edit) the email before it goes out.
  • One Call-to-Action: The promotion will not ask anything else. It will not ask for a contribution, or any other commitment or distraction from the call-to-action.
  • Format: The easiest way to transfer an email list is to export it to a CSV (Comma Separated Version) file and attach it to an email.
  • Filtered: If appropriate, you may want to filter a large list for appropriateness. Example: if you have a lot of international emails, maybe filter on MN if you have that ability.

LEVEL 2: You Send

This level can be just as effective in terms of conversion rate if carefully written and not diluted. The drawback is that it is more work for you and we lose the ability to track the results.

 

  • Appeal Language: we write the initial subscription appeal including the link to the District website and work together to finalize it.
  • Opt-in: It is still and opt-in request. In the email promotion we ask that the recipient go to a District webpage to opted in to receive our newsletter. The form asked for their email, first name, last name.
  • From option: The email come from you.
  • ReplyTo option: Replies go to you. Note: you may need to forward any questions to the manager of the campaign, Remo Campopiano.
  • Intro option: You will need to write an intro sentence setting up the subscription request.
  • One Call-to-Action: The email will not have any additional requests, calls-to-actions, or information that dilutes the intent. Conversion rate depend on this.
  • Filtered: If appropriate, you might want to filter a large list for appropriateness. For example if you have a lot of international emails, maybe filter on MN if you have that ability.

LEVEL 3: A Mention in Your Newsletter

This level is the least effective in terms of conversion rate, but it may be the easiest for the list owner. 

 

    • One-time or Ongoing: You may want to do this one-time or put it in the template of your newsletter so that is in all your newsletters.
    • Opt-in: It is still and opt-in request. In the email promotion we ask that the recipient go to a District webpage to opted in to receive our newsletter. The form asked for their email, first name, last name.
    • Language Option: We will request that work with us to develop the language leading up to the Link.
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