How can I make my university e-newsletter more interactive?
October 30, 2015 6:55 AM   Subscribe

I work for a large university in the Campus Life Services department, and we have a weekly e-newsletter that I would like to make more interactive. Our audience is mainly graduate students who are serious about their studies. At the moment, the e-newsletter we are offering is basically a regurgitation of the online calendar with pictures - I think it could be more. Please share your successful newsletter engagement strategies - thanks!
posted by lodie6 to Human Relations (7 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
I also work at a university, in a technology support capacity. We have a MailChimp newsletter that we just started last spring, and I try to make it a mix of timely news, unique content (I put in a "tech tip" about some little thing that is too little for us to actually write documentation about, but still something handy), and links to timely articles and workshops on our website.

What do you mean by interactive? Soliciting the students to reply back to you or something like that?
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:20 AM on October 30, 2015


Is there a specific goal you're trying to achieve with this? "I want to improve this newsletter" can go a lot of different directions. I'd look for problems or improvements to help your audience, and then identify those that could be solved via newsletter.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:26 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


I am a graduate student at a large university. I receive so many newsletters from so many different departments and offices of the university that I can read only a small number of them, prioritized, skimming for entries that are directly relevant to my needs and interests. I do read (some of) them, though, so here are my suggestions from the point of view of a reader who is likely similar to your target audience:
1. keep it short; grad students have limited time;
2. make a table of contents the first thing your readers see (I'm more likely to read a newsletter if I know in advance that it will be worth it to me).
Things I'm interested in are on-campus events and services. Things I am less interested in are the kind of glossy content that might be included in alumni newsletters. If you decide to include content beyond the calendar, keep it short, sweet, and directly relevant to your audience. ... and thread it between content you know will get your readers' attention (events and services they want to know about).
posted by bibliotropic at 7:37 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


I'm faculty, not a grad student, but I wish the newsletters I get would be big enough to be easily legible in my email, even (especially) on the phone. The newsletters I get seem to be just the web page shoved in the email, and consequently the words are too small to read. I don't want to have to engage with the newsletter (interactivity??), just figure out if any of the information in the newsletter is relevant to me.

Since I'm never going to check the online calendar, a regurgitation of the calendar would be just fine with me.
posted by leahwrenn at 8:48 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you want to set about reworking your newsletter, I would start by thinking about what you consider newsworthy. Campus events, of course. How about conferences and webinars that your students might like to participate in? Funding opportunities or prestigious scholar/fellowships? Internship opportunities? A really successful alum?

I would also do a recurring "Focus On" section. Maybe you want this to be a short profile of an alum. Maybe you want to Focus On Careers in your field. Or Spotlight On Current Student Research. What about a Focus on the Faculty--a rotating bio of one of the profs in the program? Anything that gives you enough content to be a recurring theme.

I have been thinking about starting an alumni newsletter for graduates of my undergrad program, and this thread has given me lots of ideas.
posted by Liesl at 9:00 AM on October 30, 2015


1) Facilitate sharing with social media buttons
2) Write content people want to share on social media!
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 12:00 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Student; I would not interact with a newsletter, and anything that is not a highly selective and timely reminder of deadlines for (only) funding opportunities, scholarships, and internships is instadeleted.

For anything else, including information on workshops, I'd rather actually go to a clearly and consistently signposted website that has a good search engine for backup. I'd rather not have to read five emails and navigate three or six different portals to find (inconsistently) duplicated information.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:34 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


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