Mass e-mails are useless (LONG)

Back in the day mass e-mails were a good way to reach a large number of people. Scouts Canada, the various councils, areas, groups and sections hopped on the e-mail bandwagon and started publishing newsletters, bulletins, and all manner of missives aimed at the membership. Time marched on and the trickle of missives from a few sources grew to a torrent of trivia from everybody and their cousin all vying for my attention.

And then came ...




... which begat ...




Defensive measures were taken ...




Now the likelihood of your legitimate e-mail actually reaching its intended recipient, being read, and being acted upon is approaching zero.





E-mail still has a place in our communication strategy, but how we use it needs to change.


Publish Less E-mail

1. Stop sending newsletters
   Publish your newsletter on a website and send links to the newsletter, along with a single paragraph, or maybe two paragraphs, that draw attention to the most important article in the newsletter. If you expect me to do something it had better be the first thing I see when I open the e-mail. I'm not reading through your comparative essay on the "Environmental Impact of One-ply Versus Two-ply Toilet Paper", however articulate and informative it may be.
   
   Get me to visit your website! Who knows? Something else at the site might catch my eye and I may find myself contributing to another section's program or signing up for that first aid course I have been putting off.
   
   
2. Move discussions and planning to a collaboration website
   If you are as tired as I am of receiving a "Reply All" that includes the entire conversation on a camp plan from the dawn of time with "Me too!" added to the top then the answer for you is a collaboration website. You will cut down on the clutter and gain some control over your inbox. As an added bonus you can keep the lore available for next year's leaders so they aren't starting from scratch when they start planning next year's camp.

Publish Smarter

1. Use a mailing list server
   There are many good mailing list applications available. Popular ones includeMailMan, ezmlm, Google Groups, Yahoo Groups, and a plethora of others are available. Some will force advertising on your users, and some may use your e-mail contents to target marketing, but they all have the advantage of offering a centralized list that is easy to manage, and provides users some control over their inbox.
   
   
2. Enable archiving
   If every message gets archived then the information is available for reference in the future, and people do not need to worry about saving local copies everywhere.
   
   
3. Electronically sign your e-mails
   If you decide to host your own mailing list, and want to get past all the spam filters, then you need to do everything in your power to make it easy for them to recognize you as one of the good guys. This means taking pains to implement DKIM signing and SPF. The goal of these efforts is to get your mailer whitelisted so maybe your e-mail will show up in my inbox, where I might read it.
   
   
4. Give your recipient control
   Let your users decide when and if they want to receive individual e-mails, daily digests, RSS/Atom feeds, tweets, text messages, or no e-mail at all.

Discuss, debate, dissent, disagree?

Wow... long post...

Okay... I'll disagree to hopefully generate some debate.

I rely on emails to send information to Cub parents on a regular basis. A few times I've showed up and had to apologize for forgetting to print off paper notices and just email it out that night. Never been a complaint, other than the few times that a parent's name was dropped from the list or the address had changed without me being notified.

I also rely on receiving emails from Soccer and Air Cadets to manage the rest of my kids lives.

Checking the web site, facebook group, tweeter, whatever... I can't rely on that as timely delivery.

I do use links to web sites frequently. I do save all my notices using Google Docs, but I haven't made an archive of them available. That's a good idea and I'll probably do that next year.

I have had incredibly poor results when I have relied on either email or websites to get my news and information to parents. After a couple of years of consternation, I have decided that the most fool-proof way to make sure that parents get the information is to put it in hard copy and put it directly in their hand. Archaic, to be sure, but very reliable!

I agree. I have emailed several times to all for a specific event, and still parents don't get the message. I usually try posting the special event on the notice board, begin working the date and event in emails weeks ahead, and still handing out a paper copy at the meeting or two before. It is that 'lead a horse to water' concept. You can talk but are they listening? For the big events, this long drawn out process is very successful. For last minute information changes (ie. different time or place), it is the old school method - the telephone.

I will not rely on just using a Web site. (Local soccer tried that... "check the web site" for schedules and updates... doesn't work.)
Emails doesn't always work, paper is often ignored, phone messages often don't reach the desired parties. Sigh... what's a Scouter to do...

I try (that's "try", with frequent success) to hand out paper (usually just a 1/2 sheet) and email out the contents later that night. This covers the absent, the "other parent's household" and those that loss the paper notices.

Lon Gaspardone
Scout leader Nanaimo B.C.
I agree with mass e-mails being useless, we are inundated with spam and mass e-mails fit in that catagory . It seems were are all caught up in the electronic age and method of communication, What ever happened to face to face communication, Phone communication or at the least one to one e-mails. As a rank and file scouter I have a lot of names and messages but I have no faces or voices attached.
The brotherhood of scouting and the life long bonds that are made are slowly dying out because of the lack of personal contact. With e-mail we can be a faceless, voiceless communicator. If we were to run a scout program by e-mail or chat room or facebook we can cut our costs and have lots of recruits, Is this what scouting is going to come to. We just completed a week long camp for scouts. This camp is held in a semi wilderness area with no running water and no electricity and no electronic devices are allowed, After the first day of withdrawell it is amazing how the staff and the scouts seem to work out all communication on a face to face basis and how life-long bonds are formed by talking one on one. I think we can all learn something from this. Just some ramblings about the lack of personal communication.

Hi Lon,

I agree that the experience of scouting is best done by experiencing it. I do however believe that the planning business of a small group can be accomplished online. it allows people to contribute when they see fit or have time for. thus eliminating the forgetting of or no shows at meetings. How many planning meetings have you been to where the majority of people are actually pondering where they would rather be instead of focusing on the task at hand? I think quality of ideas and programming will be affected positively when we provide a forum where people can contribute ideas at a time when that is their only focus.

High Wayne: I agree that forums do serve a purpose and can fill a need I am not against the new electronic media as you can see as I am using it to talk to you, my big concern is the fact that is being used as the only method of communication. I do not even know what our area service team looks like all I get are e-mails by the ton with information that means squat to me as a scout section leader. The few meetings they have tried to organize were once again a disaster as they did not give section people a chance to meet others in their sections to exchange ideas. They simply took over the whole meeting talking about the good things that popcorn sales can do. If these people would take the time to meet with leaders on a face to face basis and listen to there concerns and try to help one a one on one basis this would build trust and help the scouting bonds to form. I am sorry that the answer to problems seem to be-- Go online with your questions. All I am trying to say is get off your keyboard once in a while and try to meet over coffee or at least pick up your phone and talk (not text message) you may be surprised at the better feelings and real concerns that Scouters have.

Few things compare to a phone call. Hard copy, websites, and emails are excellent when accompanied by a quick phone call informing the parents of the communication and pointing out the key points.Scouting is a community, the value of having person to person communication is the most valuable thing you can do.

When I read the responses here, I confirm my belief. Service teams need to call scouters and discuss. Section leaders need to have a relationship with parents, etc...

Just my two cents.

In my experience... sometimes yes, sometimes no.

One of the biggest culprit - and it exists in the corporate world - is that we try to put too much in an e-mail. If it does not fit in the preview window of the e-mail reader... it won't get read.

This year we launched our pack web site (http://www.1stportlandestates.ca/cubs) to help with parent/leader communications. While many parents were visiting and getting their "news" throught the website - I have the web analytics to prove it - others did not go and visit and consequently missed some critical pieces. So I decided to offer a "subscribe" feature to the website. Meaning that whenever I posted something new, they would get an e-mail telling them I did so. At first, I thought only those that did not visit the site periodically would subscribe... I was so wrong... ALL parents asked to subscribed. What I noticed is that they made more effective use of the web site. Meaning that they would go and find the forms required for Camp, badge slips, etc.

My conclusions:

1. Parents like the e-mail notification of news... but
2. Parents appreciate re-finding things on the website where there is order in contrast to their chaotic e-mail inbox.

Your thoughts?

David