By Charlie Elrod, NEAFA President
Two months ago we sent out a survey to gauge our members’ interest in our continuing to publish the NEAFA Newsletter. Thank you to those that took the time to respond! Based on the results, it looks like you’re stuck with having us publish this newsletter each month. We know from the analytics that our newsletter has an incredibly high open rate, often between 50 and 60%. This is backed up by the 57% of respondents who say they open the newsletter every month. Thirty seven percent of respondents open the newsletter “occasionally” and 4% said they “seldom” open it. See graph below.
In terms of what gets read, it appears that nearly 80% of you read the Executive Pen articles 63% and 67% read the member highlights and legislative updates, respectively. Externally written articles, from PRO-Dairy or NEDPA for instance, are read by 41% of our readers. For the visual learners among us, these results are graphed below.
When asked what other types of information would be useful to see in the newsletter, several people suggested grain market information while others suggested more general ag issues and challenges. Another suggestion was that we provide links to allied newsletters such as from NEDPA, NY Farm Bureau or VT Dairy Producers Alliance. We will ask permission from these organizations to see if we can make that happen.
Lastly, since you’re reading this just a month after our last newsletter, the vast majority, 67%, of readers would like for us to continue to publish monthly, rather than the 30% who would prefer to see it published quarterly.
We hope that you find value in this newsletter and will continue to do our best to meet your needs. Please do not ever hesitate to get in touch with any member of the board if you have suggestions on ways we can improve the communication within NEAFA. With such high open rates, and an engaged audience, wouldn’t it make sense for you to advertise in the NEAFA Newsletter? Rates are reasonable considering the audience you’ll reach with our 500+ subscribers. You can access the ad form here.