I attended an industry conference last week and was asked to do a presentation on this email newsletter — The Daily Umbrella. Before agreeing, I stated that I would share what I learned but I also wanted to share what I was still hoping to learn. The presentation turned into a good roundtable discussion with comments and feedback from publishers across the nation.

I explained how my original idea on this newsletter was to find a way to aggregate and share more of the news and information that we have from our 18 publications to others who may enjoy it, too. Here are a few of the items you may find interesting.

I suggested to build subscriber lists slowly, starting with friends, family and coworkers. These folks are more forgiving of your early mistakes — but they will give you some of the most honest feedback, too. I said to then share your early versions with others who do business with you — readers, advertisers, others in the industry. From there, if you do a good job, the list will grow organically. Ours most certainly has.

I also suggested to be sure to have an easy way for people to unsubscribe, as some people sign up for email subscriptions with good intentions but then later change their minds. We have about 20 different email newsletters that our readers can subscribe here. 

Readers can select whichever ones they want. Some choose the SELECT ALL option, which is generally not a good idea. We learned the hard way that, when readers unsubscribe to one list, they unsubscribe to all of them. Getting them signed back up for the ones they want is not an easy task. Unfortunately, the software we use won’t allow for the SELECT ALL choice to be removed.

Early on, we focused on growing the total number of subscribers we had. We have since learned that the total number is mostly irrelevant, as the number who open and read it is what really matters, at least to advertisers.

As with any form of media, content is the key factor in gaining readers, listeners or viewers. We have diligently chosen consistent news and information that you tell us you like, and we removed the stuff you don’t. It’s not rocket science, but it does take focused listening, trend identifying and timely follow up.

Does The Daily Umbrella make us a lot of money? No. It is a lot of work? Yes. Is it an incredible marketing tool for our company? Absolutely. Like all forms of marketing, it takes repetition to drive response, as very few people respond to an ad the first time they see it. And, of course, the offer needs to be attractive. Even if we never had a single dollar in advertising revenue, we still find The Daily Umbrella and our other email newsletters to be valuable as they are effective ways for us to market our events, our polls, our stories and our staff.

Have a marvelous Monday, and, as always, I thank you for reading.

Shane Goodman
President and Publisher
Big Green Umbrella Media
shane@dmcityview.com
515-953-4822, ext. 305
www.thedailyumbrella.com

See Shane Goodman's other columns here.

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