Updating IDG B2B newsletters to improve readership and clickthrough rates
Newsletters for IDG’s B2B sites had been performing poorly. Open rates had decreased, along with clickthrough rates from anyone who did open the newsletter. I had numerous theories as to why this was happening, but chief among them was that the newsletter design was old and stale, and both the title and subject lines needed a refresh.
The Problem
My role
A large percentage of subscribers were no longer opening IDG’s newsletters. Clickthrough rates were slowly but steadily decreasing each month. This problem was consistent across all B2B brands.
The team for this project consisted of one UX designer, two email marketing staff members, one editorial stakeholder, one front-end engineer, and one project manager.
As the UX designer on this project, I:
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Analyzed the current email lists in order to purge duplicates and non-functioning email addresses
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Planned A/B tests
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Discussed changing the newsletter "from line" and "subject line" with the editorial stakeholder and marketing staff
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Designed a completely new look and feel for the newsletters templates.
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Created responsive versions of the new templates
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Worked closely with front- and back-end engineers to ensure the developed templates successfully captured the design and met stakeholder expectations
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Devised new ways to insert advertising on the redesigned newsletter templates*
The Process
Research
I gathered information on newsletter-type emails to discover what readers respond to most, identifying current best practices. Next, I worked to find the best times of day to send out newsletters with IDG’s type of content. I performed A/B tests to see what from line and subject line performed best with readers.
Design
As the UX designer on this project I:
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Created six different brand styles using the same newsletter template
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Included webfonts in the designs to help keep branding consistent
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Made a modular template, creating sections that could be turned on or off depending on the brand
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Created responsive mobile versions that maintained the look and feel of the desktop design
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Created subscription promos to attract new subscribers
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Created logical areas where advertising could be inserted, as well as devising ways for an advertiser to sponsor the entire email
Outcome
It took a while to see results for this project. As we analyzed open rates and clickthroughs, we saw slight improvements in the first month after the update. After making adjustments to the from and subject lines and finding out what times of day worked best for each brand’s newsletters, we saw much better results the second month.