Weekly digest - your feedback wanted!

[richard@imutual]

Historically, we haven't sent many regular emails to our members and, while some may think this is a good thing, there is a danger that people just "forget" about imutual and aren't aware of recent developments, interesting forum posts and money-saving offers.

Part of the reason for the lack of emails is the limited staff time to compose what we think might be of interest. But also, my vision for imutual is that it should be the members (i.e. shareholders) who help to determine what's worthwhile. So I'd like to start sending a weekly "digest" - a semi-automated newsletter summarising the most notable posts, deals and new merchants that have appeared on the site over the past 7 days. People will be free to unsubscribe from (or resubscribe to) the weekly digest at any time, and we'll also complement this with a more editorial-based monthly newsletter.

I've attached a draft "design" - I say "design" but as I haven't actually involved a "designer" at this stage, I'll be the first to admit it's very, er, functional. Nevertheless, it's a start but I'd welcome your comments on:
- Whether you'd find this useful in principle
- What you think we could easily change about the content / layout to improve it

I'd like to send the first one this week, so do let me have your thoughts ASAP

[kevinchess1]

see my post about four down from here

[kevinchess1]

Think it would be a good idea to have the POTM winners mention everytime with a link to the rules
Also a link to the FA comp
and something like
'Latest Freebees here'

[kevinchess1]

Why not arsked some of the shareholders to doit?
If they were provided with a template
wouldn't be too dificult I dont think

[richard@imutual]

We could certainly have a separate section for Freebies. What do others think?

Bear in mind that, by definition, the people we want to appeal to with the weekly digest are those who don't make regular forum visits - but could be "lured in" to the forums by seeing a topic of interest

I anticipate that the monthly newsletter would go out shortly after the 1st of each month, and that would cover recent announcements such as POTM, site stats etc, specific competitions

[Squire]

Why not arsked some of the shareholders to doit?
If they were provided with a template
wouldn't be too dificult I dont think

By automatically including the most popular posts and offers, isn't that effectively what we're doing? Without members having to make any additional effort

[rayf]

OK with me but lets not repeat the same stuff every week otherwise it will just get ignored - new stuff or occasional reminders only

[richard@imutual]

It will only ever include stuff that hasn't appeared in a previous digest

I suspect I could make it a bit shorter (say, 10 items in each section, with a link to the main site if you want to see more)

[BeautifulSunshine]

I would start off with offer and forums posts. It will look too much otherwise. Don't forget most people will be sneaking a preview at work so too much and it'll go straight to the trash.

[Richard Frost]

OK with me but lets not repeat the same stuff every week otherwise it will just get ignored - new stuff or occasional reminders only

This is a good point. It needs to look fresh and enticing. Encourage people to delve further.