Encouraging Newsletter Use

Discussions about the Newsletter Tool at LDS.org.
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zaneclark
Senior Member
Posts: 1266
Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:34 pm
Location: Las Vegas, NV
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Encouraging Newsletter Use

#1

Post by zaneclark »

I have been trying several things to encourage members to use the Newsletter the last several weeks.
(1) I have been posting the Sunday Sacrament program with announcements, on Sunday afternoon. Rather than attach it as a PDF file, I take a screen shot, crop it, and add it as a jpg. (Photos open immediately without any more clicking.)
(2) I do screen shots of any flyers handed out and add them the same way.
(3) I post a "mystery" photo of the week so they have to open the Newsletter to see it. (I take photos of ward activities, building cleaning, etc.)
(4) This week I am going to try something different. I am going to post my mystery photo, but with the face or faces blanked out and ask them to guess who the "mystery" person is. Hopefully, this will generate some feedback so I can get a sense of who might be reading the Newsletter. Right now, the only feedback I have received is from members who were not at Sacrament Meeting and appreciate the posted program.
I still send an email to the ward with some general information and give them the link to open the Newsletter.
I would be interested in what others might be doing to encourage Newsletter use.
mevans
Senior Member
Posts: 2049
Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 1:52 pm
Location: California, USA

Re: Encouraging Newsletter Use

#2

Post by mevans »

I like your idea of posting things as a jpeg to get it to show instantly. That's something worth considering.

One thing I've been doing is getting content posted so if people go there, they see something. Several ward organizations send weekly or monthly emails to their members. Most organization leaders are initially excited by the online newsletter and the first thing they want to know is if it will email their organization members. Once I tell them it doesn't, they lose interest. Still, I'm trying to capture the emails they send out to their members and put the contents on the newsletter site so people will see relatively recent content if they go there.

We're still basically looking at a version 1.0 tool with the Newsletter. I hope that in 2014 the church might rev the tool and allow members to subscribe to to selected article categories. If we had push notifications, I think the Newsletter would quickly become the preferred tool to broadcast information to ward/stake members. If members could subscribe, it also allows those who desire to keep their email address as "Private - Leadership Only" to be able to subscribe to content without disclosing their email addresses.

Push notifications aside, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that very few members are going to proactively read the Newsletter.

Another thing I'm doing is using the Newsletter as an information resource. I have articles with helpful technical information for teachers (which sometimes link to LDS.org content). I've also uploaded PDFs of manuals for equipment in the library. When someone calls and wants to know something about library equipment, I tell them to log in to the Newsletter and click on the Technical category to find the manual for the device they want.
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