COVID-19 Drives Up Open Rates for E-Newsletters

No question, the COVID-19 pandemic has been – and will continue to be – devastating to small businesses around the world.
Interesting, however, that some businesses will thrive in such odd times.  These might include companies like the huge warehouse retailers, virtual meeting platforms and e-newsletters.
Sure enough.  Another early trend we are seeing as a result of the work-from-home edict is the increase in the open-rates of e-newsletters.

HMA Public Relations has been publishing the Arizona 100 for nearly two years now. It’s a bi-monthly thought-leadership e-newsletter distributed to 30,000 business leaders.It features 100-word stories and 100-second videos on topics of interest in Arizona.
Over the last couple weeks, our counterparts in Ohio and Oklahoma set geographic market records for opens. Openings of The Travel 100 were also off the charts.

A recent article by Ray Schultz of Publishers Daily stated: “The best performers over the past week were newsletters focused on the arts & entertainment and style & fashion categories, compared with prior weeks.” 
Schultz also said “shopping newsletters have done well because stores are closing brick-and-mortar locations and brands are trying to leverage email.”

Further, Schultz quoted Kerel Cooper, senior vice president, global maketing, at LiveIntent, a marketing platform that claims to reach 250 million logged-in people per month:
 “As people are social distancing and beginning to heed the governmental warning about isolating themselves, email engagement is likely to increase,”Cooper said.  “Email newsletters represent a 1:1 relationship with a trusted news source, as opposed to untrustworthy user-generated content that proliferates on social media.”

If you’re looking for a trusted source for timely news and interesting information, pleasefeel free to subscribe to the Arizona 100 here.