Regular readers of the audience engagement blog recognize that we often provide commentary about effective communication with members via email and weekly newsletters.  Many loyalty administrators tend to take it for granted, and over time, less emphasis is spent on creating compelling content in the emails.

Perhaps more importantly, creative subject lines are often neglected.  Think of the subject line as the author of a book would consider the book title.  A compelling title is designed to get the prospective reader into the jacket to get more information about the book, which in turn is designed to motivate the reader to purchase.
In the past few days, here are examples of both good and bad loyalty newsletter topics I have received, with some commentary to help you recognize how to improve your email open rates.  Don’t worry:  client identity is protected! :

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Do you ever find yourself wondering how to use any of the features available in our admin?  Have you gotten half way through setting something up, then needing help on the next step? 

Well, help is never more than a few mouse clicks away.  We have a full library of on demand training materials that will walk you through every section of our system.  There is a searchable User Guide as well as a selection of training videos.  We also have free training sessions via webinar that you can sign up for if you want to brush up your skills or learn about those hidden gems in our program that can be really valuable.

Where do you find all of these treasures? 

You can get there from inside our admin by navigating to Help>>Training OR you can simply navigate to http://tritonloyaltysupport.com/ in your browser.

Knowlege is Power!

If you have ever wished there was a way to clone a survey, then this is the tip for you!

1. Surveys can easily be duplicated by doing the following:
2. Go to the survey module in the admin (Points Modules>>Surveys)
3. Create a new survey by clicking the Surveys button
4. On the Display tab click the Select button
5. A pop up window will open
6. Using the drop down menus, navigate until you find the survey you need to copy
7. Click the Copy This Survey button
8. All of your original survey information will populate into your new survey
9. Make any desired changes and continue setup as normal

Now you can re-use entire surveys and even portions of them without having to manually input all the survey information and you are one step closer to becoming a Stickyfish power user!

I was excited to receive this email last week from Clear Channel/Los Angeles Hot AC radio station KBIG (My 104.3).  It’s a great example of an effective newsletter, highlighting most of the things that should be in every one of yours!  Specifically, here are seven things that make this a winner!

1)  Easy to read.  It’s well laid out, easy to follow and find content.  There’s not so much going on that each individual item competes for attention as if it were just one more neon sign in Times Square.

2)  It’s all about the member.  Since the newsletter is delivered to members of their MY CLUB Loyalty program, it follows that all of the elements be about club activity and benefits.  It is loaded with benefits for the member, from Alice In Wonderland tickets to a Bon Jovi experience to awarding me points for engaging in the letter.

3)  Interactive content.  The What’s That Noise and What’s That Photo contests offer interactive games played on-air (noise) and online (photo).  While I would have recommended What’s That Photo be executed inside the club (must join to play), there is a members benefit for playing….an additional code worth points.  What’s That Noise could have offered a bonus clue to members only, delivered inside the club as well (using Home Page Promo, Page Host, or several other ways).

4)  Links.  Each element is well written, to the member perspective, and links take the reader directly to their website to get more information.  Non-club content does not clutter the newsletter, but is offered in clickable tabs at the top of the newsletter.  This keeps it clean, but easy to access.

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Have you had a chance to create a full page custom contest?

If you have, you may be wondering what the dimensions are of the custom contest page.

The custom contest page will hold an image that is 800×465 pixels.  The file size of this image should be no larger than 250k.

So, now that you know what kind of image to use for the background/layout of a custom contest – go set one up!  What are you waiting for?