Scouting Email, eZine's, eNews tips and tricks

Do you send a lot of email or publish an eZine or eNews for your scout district or county?

After sending a load of emails of to various people, I thought how much easier it is to communicate today. I can email any documents to my Leaders that they may need in a fraction of a second. I can also send information to multiple people in one go. Isn’t it great?

However, I have to remember I can’t just rely on email. Not only do some of our Leaders not have access but many don’t check it as often.  There is also the trap of spam filters and even just plain getting lost in the crowd.  I and not alone in receiving around 30-80 emails a day.  So if I am particularly busy with appointments for a week or two so I can find anywhere from 200-1000 unread email in my box. 

So, my advice to all you busy technophiles don’t just send email, grab the phone sometimes it is in most cases still the best way to communicate.

Oh, also another tip, read receipts for email will let you know if that important message got through but don’t over use it (I hate them on non-important stuff it costs me time and energy).  For  eNews or eZine add link tracking, I use tinyURL to publish eNews headlines with a little added content to entice the reader.  This will give you a  quick and dirty way of reporting on how many of those thousands of email newsletters you sent out were actually read.  AND what parts were interesting enough to get users to “click-through” to your website to read the whole post.