Filling up my in-box
As we've all been reading about newsletters this week, one completely obvious question popped into my mind this afternoon (because what else is there to do when you've already waited 45 freaking minutes for your stupid Metrobus to come along?): What's so fancy about newsletters?
In their book, Emi and Phil describe them as "short and well-written, without a lot of platitudes of puffery," and I wonder if the examples we read this week are a bit bloated by that definition. At the very least, none of Bush's or Kerry's many e-mailed newsletters qualified as short (and certainly weren't lacking in the "platitudes and puffery" category).
But what I'm really wondering about is if newsletters are even the right medium to be discussing as we look toward the future. We can customize everything about the information that arrives to our brains from our computers, but someone, somewhere along the way decided that newsletters from presidential candidates wouldn't be customized (much). I'm torn over whether newsletters e-mails like this are even a medium worth saving.
How do you reach out and touch people in an increasingly self-centered society?
It seems newsletters in digital form face the same problems all media face--they capture a flash, a moment in time and afterward run the risk of being made obselete. Kerry sends out an e-mail update in the morning, Bush gives a new speech 2 hours later, Kerry follows up with another e-mail rebuttal and a speech in the afternoon--pretty soon my in-box is full of Kerry's strained arguments and I'm beginning to tune out everything he says. On the other hand, if he only sends out one e-mail a week, I'll be at a loss if I wait more than a day to sort through its contents because much of it will have been made obsolete by the daily campaign events.
In their book, Emi and Phil describe them as "short and well-written, without a lot of platitudes of puffery," and I wonder if the examples we read this week are a bit bloated by that definition. At the very least, none of Bush's or Kerry's many e-mailed newsletters qualified as short (and certainly weren't lacking in the "platitudes and puffery" category).
But what I'm really wondering about is if newsletters are even the right medium to be discussing as we look toward the future. We can customize everything about the information that arrives to our brains from our computers, but someone, somewhere along the way decided that newsletters from presidential candidates wouldn't be customized (much). I'm torn over whether newsletters e-mails like this are even a medium worth saving.
How do you reach out and touch people in an increasingly self-centered society?
It seems newsletters in digital form face the same problems all media face--they capture a flash, a moment in time and afterward run the risk of being made obselete. Kerry sends out an e-mail update in the morning, Bush gives a new speech 2 hours later, Kerry follows up with another e-mail rebuttal and a speech in the afternoon--pretty soon my in-box is full of Kerry's strained arguments and I'm beginning to tune out everything he says. On the other hand, if he only sends out one e-mail a week, I'll be at a loss if I wait more than a day to sort through its contents because much of it will have been made obsolete by the daily campaign events.
posted by politiae at 12:18 AM
1 Comments:
You bring up some really great points in this post. The newsletters seemed to be one of the most effective tools of each campaign's online strategy.
I think in the future we will see more sophisticated targeting. When signing up for the updates, you are often promoted to check boxes of issues that are important to you. I see email newsletters as potential digital direct mail pieces.
The major campaigns have built successful targeted direct mail strategies. The email newsletters will allow them to cheaply send pieces individualized based on your preferences.
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