E-Communications

Greetings, all.

For the benefit of our new members, I manage our electronic communications, primarily through an internet application called Constant Contact. We currently have 3683 contacts, up from 3600 in November. We routinely send emails about our upcoming events, such as Minstrel concerts and Swingin' Tern dances, and notices about membership expiration and the electronic newsletter. This past month, in addition to our usual emails we sent a notice about the MUF Benefit concert; a welcome letter to Minstrel volunteers from new Staffing Chair Barrett; and instructions for signing up for the Valentine's Extravaganza, as the contact information was inadvertently omitted from the newsletter.

We also added video links to the Minstrel-Gram notice about the Christine Lavin/Don White concert. This was not completely successful, as there were formatting errors if the email was viewed in Microsoft Outlook. I've since learned how to correct the error and we will be able to address it going forward. The Lavin/White email had a 10% click rate, which is higher than average. Of those, 20 people (or 31.7% of total clicks) clicked on the Lavin video and 12 people (19% of total clicks) clicked on the White video.

I am pleased to announce that Liz Pagan has joined the committee and will be handling the emails for Special Concerts going forward.

Finally, I am also pleased to announce that Bob's company, McNally Instruments, has signed up with Constant Contact. Since we recommended the service to him, both the Folk Project and McNally Instruments have received a $30 credit from CC.

Happy New Year!

Lori