Finn Digital Blog

The Challenge

Develop a concept for a weekly agency newsletter that allows research, writing and creative to be completed in three hours per week.

Newsletter Goals

Open Rate of 15-20%: Create a newsletter of high interest and v alue
Keep readers "ahead of the curve" on interactive marketing services and trends
Inspire: showcase companies that utilize interactive marketing in innovative ways
Sufficiently inform our readers of a product or service via a brief description to make them aware of it*
Position Finn Digital as a thought leader/innovator
Platform for sharing occasional information important to Finn Digital: New technology we're developing, launch of website redesigns, marketing surveys

*Click-thru rate is not a direct goal of ours as we're sending people to other websites

Target Audience

Business owners and marketing decision makers

Writing Approach

Write a newsletter that's easily read and digested in 2-3 minutes
Keep description limited to 2 - 3 sentences per topic
Don't report on news and services that can be found in other marketing publications, such as Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Vox, Advertising Age
Maintain a fun mix of Business, Personal and Lifestyle type apps and services
Don't link to overly long articles or web applications that take more than a minute of review to understand the value proposition

Open Rate

Average six month open rate, November 2009 - April 2010 = 41%

Leading Subject Lines

(since inception of newsletter in 2008 )

Answers to all of your questions; Twitter tracking for websites - 58.89% open
Parties hosted by leading brands; Fax on the fly - 57.44% open
Twitter Quitters; Kraft Foods' Social Media Examples - 56.36% open
The next 11 big things; Twitter shame - 49.11% open
The Twitter Edition - 47.66% open
Red Cross's employee guide to social media strategy; Remove Gobbledygook - 47.44% open
Game changing technology; Internet-based voice communication - 46.24% open

Top Performing Subject Line
(since inception of newsletter in 2008)

How 7,589 companies connect with consumers; email marketing tip - 78.57% open

Top Topics

Any type of handbook or guide, for example: "The CMO's Guide to the Social Landscape" ( http://www.cmo.com/sites/default/files/CMO-SOCIAL%20LANDSCAPE-R5.pdf)
Websites that allow you to analyze your website, Twitter profile, SEO, etc. are popular
Free: MP3s, Phone apps, Web services (file backup, for example)
Insight into top company marketing results, internal guidelines, etc.

Hotsheet.me

Newsletter Extensions

Monthly Blog topic: Blog creation of the past month's "Finn Favorite" hot sheet item - an item of interest that really has "legs"
Quarterly "Best of" Hot Sheet with most popular reader topics based on click-thru rates
Stickybits addition: Newsletter becomes interactive by allowing readers with iPhones or Droids to scan barcode on each newsletter and add comments, photos, video, etc.
Tip: Addition of "I didn't know you could do that" feature

Awards

Writing and Executing a 3X Award Winning Weekly Newsletter with a 40%+ Open Rate, in Three Hours or Less