Best Single Emails of 2018

by Tim D'Avis Second Street

Hurricane Resource Email – WRAL-TV

*2018 Second Street Award – Best Single Email Winner

As viewers dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, WRAL-TV designed this email to be a resource guide for all the local community. With information regarding power outages, downed trees, food safety, and even a place to share their storm-related photos, this email was incredibly valuable for subscribers. While WRAL typically segments all their emails to send to specific interest lists, with Hurricane Florence making such a huge impact on their whole community, the station used this as an opportunity to send to their full database of subscribers.

Year-End Email – Reading Eagle

This timely email at the end of the year not only provided an opportunity for the Reading Eagle to thank their readers for being subscribers, but also gave them a chance to tout their many accomplishments of the year. With links to their top articles of the year as well, this well-designed email was a great way to wrap up the year. Plus, it garnered a 40% open rate.

Husqvarna Targeted Email – KYTV-TV

The team at KY3 made a strategic push to be more critical of how they use their email database and reach their subscribers. This email for a local tractor dealership was sent to a targeted audience who historically showed interest in lawn care or home improvement. This email was one of many that saw a dramatic lift in email open rates by leveraging a targeted audience.

2019 Outhouse Calendar – Daily News-Miner

Looking to secure revenue beyond subscriptions, the Daily News-Miner in Alaska sold an outhouse calendar based on photos submitted from one of their recent contests. The email was simple, the calendar was clever, and there was a clear call-to-action which all resulted in a fantastic click-through-rate over 18%.

Confirming Email Preferences – Black Press Media

This email from Black Press Media was a great example of a reactivation campaign. Maintaining a clean, engaged database is critical to ensuring your success as a media company, so emails like this asking users to update their preferences are key. To show the value of an engaged database, Black Press offered a chance to win $1,000 to every person who participated.

Take the success stories of these five media companies with you as you look to the future of your media company’s email strategy. Are you sending to targeted lists? Are you creating emails that are valuable and useful for your audience? See what small changes can you make today that can turn into big results tomorrow.

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