Over the past two years we have spent countless hours building nthWORD Magazine from scratch. The most critical piece to our publication's success has been our ability to attract talented contributors. From the start, our development and growth began with how we conveyed our message. Yes, we made a few word and font choices that could have been better, but generally speaking our language and visual identity has been key in getting our talented contributors first to be interested in what we were building and then to actively participate in what we were building.

We appealed to our initial network of writers, artists and creatives by placing ads. The response far exceeded our expectations, with well over 500 potential contributors submitting to the first issue of our yet-to-be-conceived publication. How we conveyed our message was key. The same applies to email marketing. While we enjoy getting the latest news in an email, it's important to address the topics of subject lines and visual appeal of a mailer. The phrasing of a subject can either boost or sink your open rate and a poorly designed mailer will never get read. Our last newsletter announcing our current issue had an open rate above 30%, well over the industry average for publishing and new media.

We want to use our experience to help you get more out of your email marketing campaigns, which is why we've partnered with the industry leading email marketing service Constant Contact, the first tool featured in nthWORD's new Toolshed for creative professionals. Marketing to a demographic of creatives is different than the general population. We think different. And that's a good thing. We don't open an email that says "Our August Newsletter" it doesn't tell or ask anything and most of all it's not compelling. Now if we get an email that says "Well, we couldn't control the weather, but..."

Regardless of whether the intention of your email campaign is to inform, call to action, or, let's say to solicit submissions--it's got to be compelling. Sign up today for your free 60-day trial and please EMAIL US to begin a conversation about how you can improve your email marketing campaigns.

Cheers,

The nthWORD Guys,
Robert & Ryan