Notifications Newsletter
Notifications are hugely important for my group as members interact little with the site other than to RSVP for the occasional event. This means that I need to get all of the relevant information to them in regular email notifications but walk the fine line of not overloading them with emails and these ending up in the trash. Currently members are receiving all sorts of different emails (forum notifications, event invitations, emails blasts) and they dont really know how to distinguish them all.
I have been playing around with the concept of a customizable email newsletter which can be formatted by the manager and delivered at a rate dictated by the user (default 3 per week). The newsletter would pull the latest information from the site and arrange it in modules. An example of what I am talking about is included below (excuse the crap colours, it is just a mockup in word). The modules include:
1) Upcoming events - events on the calendar in the next 2 weeks, with those requiring RSVP highlighted
2) Featured Member - this would be a new member if they have just joined or a random member if no new members have joined.
3) My subscribed discussions - snippets of latest posts from topics that the individual is subscribed to
4) Latest files and media - latest additions to the files and media section (especially cool now that new photo gallery feature has been added)
5) Alerts - these are any forum posts or events that members have asked to be sent to all members. It makes it personal by saying "John wants you to know about this job opportunity".
6) Subscription options link - like the stuff that appears in existing notifications.
The use of the newsletter concept means that members are only ever receiving the one type of notification and they know it contains all the information they need. I would be happy to use this as a premium feature. I imagine that managers could "construct" the layout of their newsletter using a drag-drop interface with the modules. Individual settings for the modules could be included also.
5)
!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/227/535644680_851614fd72.jpg?v=0!
| Topic | Replies | Likes | Views | Participants | Last Reply |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What's Coming Next ... | 25 | 0 | 4325 | ||
| Chat Room participants | 1 | 0 | 1212 | ||
| "Tagging" photos in the galleries | 3 | 0 | 1333 |
This is an awesome idea.
Nice Gareth - This is a pretty impressive mockup. Great layout! I think it makes perfect sense to eventually add this as a premium feature. I'll let you know once we've had a chance to discuss it internally. Thanks for the suggestion... and we appreciate the effort that you put into describing it.
Clarence
Thanks Clarence:
Notifications would definitely rank as the most important feature on my radar at the moment. I think a lot of the current notifications going out to members are ending up in their trash folder! - It is a shame cause they are not interacting with the site!! - I am heading over to the "engage your group" forum for some new tips on how to get them more involved!!!
@Gareth - Are you positive that they are not interacting? Most people are passive... so they do not particiate actively... however, they do login and read messages and view member profiles, etc. I many cases, it depends on the nature of the group itself. This group currently has 73 members... how many actually participate in discussions? Not many... however, many read the discussions.
The numbers in the forums suggest that people are not even reading the discussions. I am guessing they are not even logging in. I am not too fussed about the passivity aspect. This has been a feature of the group for its entire life (long before CollectiveX). I guess my driving force is not putting people off with excessive notifications. Perhaps the problem isnt as bad as I imagine. It is just that a few close friends (who are members) and who arent afraid to tell me it straight have complained about the notifications.