April 2009 meeting notes

[We don't have a complete record of all questions, but answers are generally worked in to the notes below.]

Sarah Bjorkman from the University of Minnesota Extension presented on Extension's use of mass e-mail to internal and external audiences. The group drifted into related topics and discussion even during the presentation, and most of the notes (1h15m worth) are from this presentation and related discussion. The presentation is available as a set of PowerPoint slides.

Extension is a highly decentralized group, with 18 regional offices throughout the state and staff, or associated staff, in most counties, which poses its own challenges. One of the major programs within Extension is 4-H.

Extension began using Lyris is May of 2008 and sends three publications through Lyris, including its employee newsletter, retiree newsletter, and other internal communications. Mailings are tracked and aggregate information is retained. While data has been gathered since May 2008 for the employee newsletter, the data has been used for information only; no decisions regarding the content of the newsletter or other changes to the newsletter have been made based on the data. This is due to a concern over not having enough data and varied content yet to fully understand the audience.

Above average (compared to B2B) open and clickthrough rates have been seen for the employee newsletter, 37% and 23%, respectively. The employee e-mail links back to the newsletter on the Web, and page views more than doubled from 2007 to 2008.

The designs of the newsletters are straightforward and include both HTML and text parts. Header graphics are used; other graphics are not included.

One major consideration in utilizing Lyris or other mass e-mail systems in Extension is the decentralized nature of Extension. Numerous other e-mail publications already exist, going through a variety of groups. 4-H is hooked into the same system that other 4-H groups use nationwide, with centralized data and services; how does that data get to Lyris or another tool and how is the data managed between sources/tools? Staff working for counties or on county-owned machines raise a concern over the use of Lyris on those machines.

Groups within Extension that ask for access to Lyris are asked to clarify their needs and get their data organized. This has caused many groups to think more carefully about their needs and the benefits of switching to Lyris, or creating a new publication in e-mail.

Ongoing work includes looking at Extension-specific e-mail policy, but this has been delayed as Extension has been waiting for some central policy; branding policy currently in 30 day review period following approval, publishing policy under investigation.

The group talked about use of images in e-mail. Most groups stick to a header graphic, while one group uses images more extensively in email, and another uses only one or two non-standard images but commits design time to each e-mail. A question was asked on handling of multiple images and design to send e-mails with more flare. Those who responded generally suggested consideration for business requirements and time needed to produce these messages; ever-changing formats imply neverending development and testing. Sarah noted that in her research, it was pointed out that most users have to click to load images, anyway; key content should never be included as images only. Some sources differ, and some e-mailers, particularly in business, are still heavily reliant on images.

Questions about the formulation of the text part of the message were posed. Extension strips out all formatting from the text part (asterisks for bold, underscores for italics, < and > characters around links. Roughly 50% of Extension's audience for the internal newsletter gets the text part by default [correct percentage?]. Some other groups do the same, some leave as it, some use the text part to refer to Web content only. There are text part recommendations on the eCommunications Standards site. The TEN Standard, used for the Web Design Update newsletter (produced by Laura Carlson on the Duluth campus), was also looked at.

Extension is also looking at core competencies and roles for those involved in mass e-mail.

Following the main presentation, a short set of slides from University Relations on Lyris use, policies, and the mass e-mail privacy statment were provides. These slides are available for download.