How We Incorporated Audience Needs in Redesigning Our Newsletter
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After joining the team at Documented a few months ago, I notified readers in the first newsletter I wrote to look out for a survey and invites for an interview about their experience with Early Arrival so far. We let them know their input will be used to guide our work on the newsletter.
In the weeks that followed, we had several meetings, asking ourselves:
- What questions can we ask in the survey to help us design a newsletter that fosters community and engagement?
- How can we develop a newsletter to drive more audience growth and conversions to members who donate?
- What immigration topics do our subscribers care most about? How regularly do they want the newsletter?
- What communities do our subscribers belong to?
Ultimately, these were some of the questions that set the foundation for the audience research through surveys we sent out a few weeks later and interviews that followed.
We surveyed our audience across three major categories:
- Identifying our audience's needs regarding immigration news
- What readers found most useful about Early Arrival
- What readers thought could be improved or added
It was exciting to see dozens of responses from readers, telling us how to better tailor the newsletter for them. Having spent only a few weeks on the team at the time we began the research, the audience feedback was also an avenue for me to learn more about the old version of the newsletter, see what people appreciated the most about it, and how to better source content and write for the audience.
Readers also expressed some of the early thoughts I had about the newsletter before joining the team, including that the newsletter should be “sent by one email address instead of rotating (e.g. early arrival@documentedny.com)” and that “weekly in-depth analysis” could be included, news summaries could be “shorter and more concise,” in the words of respondents.
All of these and more were very useful insights, which we find to be worth sharing.
How we started
For the past four years, Documented’s Early Arrival newsletter has been an important news source in New York’s immigration community, providing local, national, and federal news about the biggest stories of the week. The latest design and modification of the newsletter will be the third since Early Arrival was launched in 2018.
Driven by the steady and encouraging audience growth, which has grown by thousands since Early Arrival’s first launch — and more than doubled since the start of the pandemic — we decided to upgrade the look and structure of the newsletter again. With so many new people now reading the newsletter, we wanted to better understand why they sign up for, read, and engage with the newsletter so that they can have the best possible experience.
Our in-house team consulted with Kim Bode, a Newsletter Consultant, and Emmanuel Obayemi and Clarence Quarcoo, Creative Designers at The Peppeh Company. We conducted in-depth audience research, where we discovered areas and opportunities to improve. Audience & Community Director Nicolás Rios and I reviewed reading consumption data from the current version of the newsletter and drafted questionnaires for the survey. Then, together with the team, previewed and tested it before emailing readers to fill it. Dozens of readers indicated an interest in the next stage of the process — a 20-minute one-on-one interview with readers, which helped us to collect more qualitative insights about their pain points and needs.
What we found
- Most Early Arrival readers are professionals who rely on our newsletter for work
We now know that many of our newsletter readers are professionals working in the immigration space, and they rely on the newsletter to complement or enhance their tasks at work. “Being a lawyer, a lot of the analyses around cases are usually helpful so I can get an argument surrounding a case quickly,” one reader told us in the interview, echoing hundreds of other immigration practitioners who value the brief news summaries Early Arrival provides. “I always feel like I have a resource that is up to date,” another reader told us. Some readers forwarded the newsletter — as a whole or just a single story or resource from it — to coworkers or clients for discussion and awareness.
In fact, the rating that our audience gave us in Net Promoter Score (the likelihood of people recommending our product to friends or colleagues) qualifies as “excellent” and “above average” when compared to data from experience management company Qualtrics.
Another immigration practitioner told us they value how we “simplify immigration data by telling a story” about it. She added that she often translates our guides and explainers into Spanish and disseminates it on her WhatsApp group for immigrants to read.
- The more local the information in the newsletter, the more useful it is
The further away a news story is from local occurrences, the less likely Early Arrival readers are to pay attention. There were fewer respondents interested in the Border, compared to government policy, immigration courts, immigrant communities, and events or happenings in New York (Protests, Demonstrations, Town Halls, etc.). We also found that readers appreciate our original stories because it focuses on how immigration policies are implemented in reality, and what people directly affected by such policies are truly experiencing.
- Aggregation and summaries of news from a variety of sources is key
People look forward to opening Early Arrival in their inboxes, our research shows, for three core reasons:
1. Brief summaries of the latest immigration news.
2. A selection of news from sources they wouldn’t often check.
3. A first touchpoint to exclusive pieces from Documented.
“Documented provides access to information in one place that I would not be able to gather so easily,” a reader said.
Given all the use-cases we gathered, we identified opportunities for the latest version of Early Arrival to become a more useful and indispensable immigration news resource to our audience while fostering a deeper connection to our work and Documented as an organization.
How we integrated the research insights to the new design
After analyzing consumption data from the current version of the newsletter, learning about the needs and pain points of our audience, and reading their suggestions on what else they would like to see in Early Arrival, we have developed new categories aligned with what we found.
How we adapt: Another important change is that this time, some categories will have a regular presence in the newsletter, while others will be featured more occasionally — a special shout-out to readers who asked to “switch things up every now and then.”
Categories in the new Early Arrival:
Intro
Background: Data (charts and analysis of important numbers we find), News Analysis (explainer about the news with in-depth reporting), and Opinion Pieces and Perspectives from experts and other stakeholders were amongst the most needed pieces of content according to our current readers.
During the interview stage of our research, one of our readers said “- I don’t know any resource as good as Early Arrival in the immigration community. [But] every issue is so full of information that it is a lot to digest. It is hard for me to pick out what is the most important thing.”
How we adapt: Now, Early Arrival will begin with a lead story a short analysis of timely information or news because we help readers sort through an abundance of information and headlines. From time to time, the content in this intro category will take different forms: straight text analysis, background on big stories, data analysis with accompanying infographics, and content developed from social media.
News we are following
Background: This category has been present since Early Arrival 1.0, and over the years, it has proven to be readers’ favorite. “Brief summaries of the latest immigration news,” received 84% of votes as the most valuable feature in Early Arrival. Next to that was “A selection of news from sources I wouldn’t often check,” at 71% of votes.
A key desire that emerged during our research was the need for shorter summaries of the latest news we feature in the newsletter.
“The email needs to be shorter. Too much information. I suggest shorter text that links to more information,” one of our readers indicated in the survey.
How we adapt: In the new Early Arrival, news updates won’t be written as blurbs or chunky paragraphs anymore. There will be a list of 7 to 10 news items sourced from Documented and other news publications, and each one will be a short concise summary — one or two sentences — for quick and easy assimilation.
Catch-up on Documented exclusives
Background: Among other things, Early Arrival has been an avenue for us to spotlight some of our deeply reported stories.
Take for instance our series on the Bronx fire survivors. Recently, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that his office is distributing an additional $3 million to the 150 families affected by the devastating incident. The news came only a week after Documented reported that the mayor’s office had only distributed 10% of the donations raised to support survivors of the fatal incident, showing how powerful and vital local journalism can be when reporters and community members come together.
Our reporter, Amir Khafagy, had written a report that could be found only on Documented, and a summary of that report featured in the newsletter. That story was one of the newsletter’s two most clicked stories that week and the next. It also happened to perform well on our website and on Twitter, where hundreds of people retweeted and shared their grievances about the humanitarian fund.
How we adapt: To leverage the work of such quality reports from our reporters and newsroom, the “Catch-up on Documented exclusives” category will feature original reports from the site. It’ll also give readers an opportunity to check out stories they might have missed.
Events & Jobs
Background: We continually heard that for some readers in New York — which is where the majority of readers are based — their first point of contact for announcements about events — such as city council hearings, rallies, protests, and town halls — is Early Arrival. “Sometimes, I hear about rallies, and I hear about them after the fact. If the information was given on time, I could participate in it,” a reader said.
And according to our survey, “Goings-on in New York (Protests, Demonstrations, Townhalls, etc.)” was one of the five most valued story interests in the newsletter, garnering close to 40% of respondents’ votes.
How we adapt: Now, we’ll have a section dedicated to events and job opportunities relevant for our audience. Readers will now receive a timely list of upcoming events or job opportunities, in-house, and from third parties. We will be experimenting with this category to feature ads and sponsored posts, as an alternative avenue to generate revenue.
Community Corner
The community corner is a category we are very excited about. Here, we will leverage the voices of our subscribers, other immigration practitioners, and our in-house reporters. One of our readers told us they really want to know how people think or opine about immigration issues. Talking to reporters behind some of the stories on our website can shed new light for readers, and conversations with immigration practitioners can highlight the work behind some legislation they are advocating for or a policy they are working on.
How we Assembled it
The approach we took in the whole process took inspiration from Agile methodology, which involves cross-functional teamwork, constant collaboration with stakeholders, and an iterative development process to create, test, and revise until we were satisfied with the end result.
First, our audience research was designed and executed in two months. It guided the editorial strategy we used to restructure the newsletter and redesign the template.
Then, the prototyping process began in January from a word document to three versions of a new newsletter design. When we settled on a design we liked, and one which incorporated the feedback we got from our audience research, we created a template and tested it with the readers we interviewed. They got a first look at the newsletter, and gave good feedback:
“What a fantastic makeover of the Early Arrival newsletter.”
“I like the brief summary at the start of the newsletter; it gave me a quick idea of what to expect in the newsletter and I could more easily navigate to/locate the articles or topics that were most interesting to me (rather than scrolling through without any sort of guide).”
“The new layout is clear and leads me right to the most interesting topics.”
“This looks fantastic! The clear delineation between different sections, and the addition of the events and job announcements — super helpful for a quick read (and I selfishly love seeing job announcements!).”
We are excited we met the goal we set at the start of our audience research: to put the best interest of our readers first. Now, we are finally ready to go live.
We hope that this new edition excites you to open your inbox every morning, as much as it excites us to write it for you.
You can read an edition of the new Early Arrival here, and Sign up to receive Early Arrival in your inbox here.
