Scenario

Illinois Heartland Library System, an association-like B2B organization with 520+ member libraries, reached a point where it was hosting almost twice as many events as it had a few years prior. Without a corresponding increase in staffing, it became unsustainable for my partner and me to reach the desired event registration targets by creating targeted emails for each new event. Yet, the bi-weekly Member Connection email newsletter alone was not sufficient for reaching the organization’s goals. We needed to come up with a new way to promote events that would drive views and registration rates without relying on individual emails for every one-time event.

Action

We chose to experiment with replacing select emails with an IHLS Upcoming Events newsletter “supplement.” We changed the Member Connection schedule from biweekly to twice monthly, standardizing the first and third Wednesdays as the publication dates. Then, I designed a new events-only “newsletter supplement” template, which I used to publicize all events in the next five to six weeks. I lightly branded the email as a “Member Connection Supplement” to allow me to take advantage of the existing newsletter subscription list, to which the new newsletter was sent. After a few trial issues, we added a “Featured Event,” an “On-Demand/Rolling Events” section, a “For IHLS-SHARE members” section (for events that only apply to libraries who are also members of the SHARE consortium), and jump-to table-of-content links for these section headings. These, along with the consistent event detail formatting and highly visible call-to-actions, made the newsletter highly skimmable.

Results

While the Member Connection emails averaged an open rate of 34%, the Upcoming Events emails averaged around 38%, with open rates as high as 42.8%. Click rates averaged 3.1% and resulted in increased registration numbers as compared to similar events promoted in the months before the newsletter supplement, according to program staff. The program staff was pleased that the events received additional promotion, and the new format was sustainable using existing resources.