How are you using Broadcast Messages?

[John McDonald]

Hi!Now that Ning supports HTML for broadcast messages and lets you send yourself a preview, are you sending more broadcast messages to your members? When have you found broadcast messages to be most useful and effective?I'm interested in any success stories or lessons learned. We plan to showcase a broadcast email success story in an upcoming email newsletter.Thanks!John

[Jen]

Some of the primary announcements we make on the Ning Directory, utilizing the Broadcast Message are:

• New Ning Networking Tips
• New Contests and Regular Contest Start Dates
• Contest Winners
• New Site Features
• Site Issues
• New Polls

We put forth big efforts to only send broadcast messages when it is helpful to our members. We never send out a broadcast message without including something special, that is hopefully beneficial to our member base.

For example, today we sent out a broadcast message that announced 2 new features. We have a high percentage of regular members who visit the site. Anytime we send out a broadcast message, we will receive several hundred members visiting the site, after the message goes out.

The Broadcast Message is a great tool to make special announcements.

[Thomas Hoey]

Yes. At http://carnytown.ning.com we are now sending out a minimum of two broadcasts a week. Now that we can include screenshots, it has opened a new vista (oops theres the bad word again). But seriously, we can see loads of options to utilize our newest tool. And yes, the preview option makes it near perfect. Near because it would be even better if we could embed widgets/javascripts. I believe it will be an effective tool to bring folks back to the network that signed up and did not return because they "forgot" they were members. And a great way to send out seasonal wishes.

[Chris or Andrew from Safe World]

We are always wary of sending out broadcasts - its a tool to be used sparingly.
One fo the problems which can happen on a site is that if a member joins a few groups, comments on a discussion etc etc they can get inundated with email updates.

So what happens is they can easily switch off when getting a broadcast message - worse still they may have already added messages from the Network to their spam boxes.

We recently did an interesting experiment and exported our members email addresses and used a Newsletter Programme to send a real classy looking newsletter to the members.

We could then analyse all the results to the smallest detail to see how people were responding and who didn't respond.

It made fascinating reading to see how many people, who were on that partcular site, actually had email addresses that bounced!
It gave us a lot of food for thought...

So, yes very sparing useage of Broadcast messages here.

But great to have one's that can at last look good!

byee

Andrew

[The PL Team (d&e)]

Hi John,

We're soon to do a monthly newsletter with it starting 1/1/10. I think it would be a very cool idea if Ning were to provide some sample newsletter templates like they did for notes when the feature was added. That broadcast button should always be viewed like the "big red button" only use it when you really need to!

Oh, and what would you consider a "broadcast email success story?"

e

[Nique]

from what my members have told me, the HTML doesn't show in all e-mail clients. Whereas it will show in yahoo, it's not showing in Gmail. which is irritating. Now I have to send an HTML e-mail and a non-HTML e-mail for each broadcast I do.

[SteveH]

This actually brings up a good point.... should have the ability to send text versions of email with the HTML version.

[Eyal Raviv]

At mepeace.org - a network for peace, I send the broadcast message twice a week. Once for specianews/updates and once for our weekly recommendations (links): Video, Event, Discussion, Peacemaker (profile), Blog, and Group.

That's an easy message to compose and good way for staying on top of what is good on your site.

[Jens]

Since some last months I send each 10th of a month a broadcast message featuring

• some new discussion,
• blog posts
• and videos.

I think it would be useful to have a monitoring option:

• How many members receive these messages,
• is it send to all members (who hasn't stopped receiving it)

Some some templates for these messages would be nice and the option for a multilanguage message.

[Linda]

I use the broadcast feature to promote community events, and I always include a link to our contest page where members can enter to win tickets to the event being promoted. Event organizers donate comp tickets (approx. $100 value) in exchange for the broadcast, and we've had great membership participation since we implemented it a year ago. We've sent out 6 broadcast messages/ticket giveaways this month, and regardless of whether or not our members enter the contest the broadcast definitely prompts them to visit our site...which is great! The one problem I've encountered recently with this feature, which has certainly thrown a wet towel on the success we've experienced to date, is that members are receiving our broadcasts despite opting out in their email settings. Needless to say this has not gone over very well with either myself or my membership...still waiting to hear back from Ning about this.

However, the preview works great, and although I haven't had time to use some HTML and images I'm really looking forward to doing so in the new year!

Linda