The types of projects our department takes on seem to go in waves. A bit of a history lesson takes us back to an abundance of websites which pushed us to build the CMS (opens new window). The many events that followed gave us the idea to write and centralize them all in to a university events calendar (opens new window). Then came the RSVP's for those events. We got fed up creating hundreds of forms so we wrote an RSVP system (opens new window) for the events calendar. After that the campus community could maintain their own websites, and create events and RSVP's by themselves. They then asked us to create pretty HTML emails to announce all of these components and we did that for a while before crafting the self- serve HTML email creator (opens new window).

Everything goes digital

Now we are on the age of transitioning traditional print newsletters to digital pieces. These are a little more complex than the standard email and sometimes connect to a broader website with more information. In the last four months we have literally transitioned more than ten complete print publications to online editions. I would love to say that in those four months we created a self-service system for the entire campus to create and maintain publications, but I can't. They all seem to have some unique factor that required individual attention.

Multiple flavors

Requesting a new HTML newsletter can result in a 2 hour or up to a 40 hour project. It's important to know what you need before starting the process. Let's walk through the process of the newsletter request and I hope I'll be able to shed some light on the reason for the complexity.

Simple single column email

The most basic email is just a single column with a single message and any action items go off to existing websites. The types of emails have a custom header that identifies your department or group and is reusable at your leisure.

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Here are a few examples of single column emails we have done:

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Multiple column email

Typically a multiple column email is required when there is a single message that needs to be communicated and the content warrants "action items" on the side. These can be: upcoming deadlines, buttons for next steps or just "for your information." They're a little more complex but offer some flexibility to highlight multiple items "above the fold". (BTW, there is no fold on the Web.)

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Here are a few examples of multiple column emails we have done:

[gallery link="file" columns="4" orderby="title" include="5847, 5841"]

Multiple column newsletter

Using the same format as the multiple column email the newsletter takes it one step further and keeps a consistent format but with categories and articles feeding in to compile a complete email. Typically the format is set up and each month/semester/year a new "publication" is created which consists of article titles, teaser descriptions and links off to more information.

If the links for each article go to existing stories already published on the Web it gets the user to interact with multiple areas of your website and possibly explore things they otherwise wouldn't have without being prompted by the email.

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Here are a few examples of multiple column newsletters we have done:

[gallery link="file" columns="4" orderby="title" include="5844, 5842, 5840, 5839, 5837"]

Newsletter Web page

Lastly the most complex and time consuming is the HTML newsletter that has a stand alone website which features the full text of each article and is organized like a newsletter with editions and archives. This approach is really driven by the print mentality of compiling an entire edition of articles and publishing the entire thing at once. It wraps up the email and website into a single package for the user to experience. One of the downsides, just like a printed newsletter/magazine is once the user receives it and browses through, they typically recycle it or close the window and never come back. Their only reason to come back in the future is when their next email comes in. It isn't "sticky" and doesn't build continuous engagement, but in the end it's what most traditional writers are comfortable with.

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Here are a few example of newsletter websites that we have done:

[gallery link="file" columns="4" orderby="title" include="5843, 5838, 5836, 5835"]

Thinking about requesting an HTML email?

Make sure you have thought through how you want it to work and be prepared to answer some tough questions by our team. Just because "email is free", aka you don't have to pay postage, it doesn't mean that your audience will engage the same way they have in the past.