The SCORE Association, relies on two email newsletters to establish the organization’s expertise, credibility and value as a business training and mentoring service. As the economic downturn took hold last fall, SCORE team examined whether their newsletter strategy was doing enough to reinforce how SCORE’s offerings can help small-business owners. MarketingSherpa has written a fantastic case study on what they learned. You can read the full case study here.
Here is one of the four strategies they used to overhaul their e-newsletters:
The team developed a research process to identify newsletter articles and interview subjects that were timely and relevant to their audience.
They looked for editorial guidance in two key areas:
- Keyword research
The team examined the company’s Google adWords campaigns to find keywords that drove strong traffic. When they saw terms that were performing particularly well, they created articles related to that subject area.
For example, when the team saw terms related to small business startup tools appearing regularly in their keyword research, they created a feature that included three resources to help entrepreneurs start a new business.
- Small business news and trends
The team also used anecdotal research to guide their editorial planning. They identified the top 15 small-business news websites and monitored the most significant news and trends featured on those sites each month.
Then, they compared those subject areas to the information available on the SCORE website to develop articles that could feature several links to existing resources.
For example, they saw that organization was a major subject of editorial coverage around the first of the year. So the team created a bonus download for the January newsletter that featured three tips from a noted organization expert on organizing for success in the new year.
