NewsBeat

6 NewsBeat October 2018 Newsletter engagement strategies to grow community and readership How audience development professionals are rethinking newsletters as tools to drive action, conversation and content mail newsletters have long been an essential distribution channel for publishers, but new engagement strategies are evolving to help publishers stand out in a crowded inbox and build an enthusiastic readership. The Wall Street Journal's Head of Product for Newsletters Annemarie Dooling led a discussion among news audience engagement and product professionals from a dozen publications about the ways in which publishers are keeping readers engaged after they've left the inbox. The tactics the conversation surfaced for encouraging engagement through the inbox are diverse and depend on reshaping the newsletter from a one-to-many medium into a one-to-one conversation. By redefining success through meaningful interactions with readers, newsletter editors are building stronger communities of engaged audiences that support the business models powering journalism. Here are our some of the takeaways: Demand action Elevating newsletters beyond a tool for link distribution requires asking readers to interact. By encouraging action, you "defy the longevity of one email," said Dooling, and some newsletters can be built specifically around those actions. Here are some actions that newsletter editors are asking their readers to take: • Join a group — Publishers on the call shared experiences using newsletters to drive the growth of other off- platform communities. One digital-native publisher is growing a subreddit where members discuss the contents of its newsletter; similarly, several newsletters are supported by Facebook Groups. In these cases, the communities not only discuss the newsletter, but also serve as places to promote related content from these publishers and generate ideas and content for future newsletters. • Do an activity — Motivating people to get away from their desks and devices might seem counterintuitive for a publisher, but getting readers to perform some action with your brand in mind will galvanize excitement for the next newsletter. One publisher challenged subscribers of a dedicated newsletter to complete an offline activity each week; approximately 40 percent of readers completed all the challenges, and their engagement fueled growth of a corresponding Facebook Group. • Converse in the inbox — You don't have to push people to groups, forums, or comments to have a conversation with readers. Banish the no-reply@ email addresses and use a real e-mail address. Email editors are making more frequent use of explicit question prompts or invite feedback. Subscriber responses can be used as content in future newsletters, pushing the conversation forward. Other approaches shared by discussion participants include polls to collect bulk responses, or running a quiz in which an email autoresponder will send the answers to those who join in by replying. • Follow a story — Curated email digests remain a staple for news publishers, but these can be made more engaging by giving readers an opportunity to continue following stories outside of the newsletter. A global publisher with several newsletters uses its daily digest as an entry point to other newsletters and notifications. After summarizing a story, it includes subscribe links to allow one to follow that topic over time. "You may be done with [the digest] for the day, but if we can get you to have an interest in a particular story, or E

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