Reaching Audiences Through Online Newsletters: The Gist
How the DNIC company is reaching readers right in their inbox.
Email newsletters may sound a bit archaic, but they’re a proven method of engaging audiences in today’s digital landscape.
Just look at the New York Times.
Last year, the Times accumulated a whopping 13 million email subscribers.
And all those newsletter subscribers are good for business.
Newsletter subscribers are twice as likely to become paid subscribers, according to a memo sent out by the Times
But the Times isn’t alone in using newsletters to engage audiences.
Digital News Innovation Challenge (DNIC) participating company The Gist is also using the power of email newsletters build their brand.
Headed by Ellen Hyslop, Roslyn McLarty, Jacie DeHoop, The Gist orients the world of sports to a female perspective.
To become the leading source of sports-related news for women The Gist is quickly building a network of readers by sending content straight to their inbox.
“We’re in your inbox, where you’re already scrolling,” said DeHoop. “That’s where you’re getting your shot of weekly news of what’s going in the sporting world.”
The style and tone of The Gists’s newsletters are key, says the team.
By using a less formal writing style The Gist breaks down sports-news in a way that engages their core audience.
“We write it conversationally. We’re not talking at you, we’re talking with you” said Hyslop. “We wanted to have it accessible for the on-the-go female.”
Hyslop added that most sports news is written by (and for) men, making some sports-content unrelatable to certain female readers.
The Gist’s newsletters have effectively built a core readership and drives traffic to The Gist website, where readers can find useful glossaries on sports terms and topics.
According to the team, The GIST’s newsletter open-rate is well above the industry average, and click-through rate, which is about 9 percent, is triple the average for other sports newsletters.
Same goes for The Gist newsletter click-through rate, which is about 9 per cent, triple the average for other sports newsletters.
As the DNIC continues, The Gist will work on perfecting the layout of their newsletter through user feedback. The Gist Team said that multimedia elements will also be added (videos, podcasts) once the newsletter format is perfected.
Article written by Michael D’Alimonte
