News Email Alerts
What they are, how we use them.
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The Pinner also allows editors to send out alerts on an as-needed, immediate basis. There are three types of alerts, of varying levels of locality and urgency: Breaking News, Local Updates aka News Updates and Nearby News.
Breaking News can be sent either from the “Pin-a-Patch” page, or the Mass-pin page.
Local Updates can only be sent via Mass Pin.
Nearby News can only be sent via Mass Pin.
What’s the difference between types of email alerts?
BREAKING is for police news, urgent spot news, fires, mayhem, kidnapped babies, robberies, manhunts, major accidents, highway closures, extreme weather, local scoops etc. The keywords here are urgency and immediacy.
NEARBY NEWS is for everything else we want to push via email in real time: roundups, rankings, themed features and any other story that should be pushed to readers sooner than the morning newsletter. NOTE: the Nearby News email list is a fraction of the size of the local email list, because some readers choose not to receive all that email.
LOCAL UPDATES can be anything you want your readers to know sooner rather than wait until 6 a.m. the next day. NOTE: One option would be to Local Alert a town-specific story and then Nearby News alert it to 3-4 neighboring Patches.
To send a Breaking News Alert to an individual town, go to Pin-A-Patch, select your headline from the “Most Recent” column, and pick “Breaking News” from the dropdown. Then click “Add Pin.” Doing so will instantaneously send a Breaking News alert to local subscribers.
To send a Breaking News alert to multiple towns at once, select the Mass-Pin Article tab. Copy and paste the article you want to pin into the box provided, then click “Select this article!”
Verify it’s the correct article. Select the red button to continue.
Now, select the option you’re needing from the dropdown. In this case, it would be BREAKING NEWS.
Note: This is also how you can send this story to multiple newsletters, by selecting, “Top Stories.”
To send a Local Update, follow the same steps as sending a Breaking News Alert via the Mass Pin tab. However, select “Local Update."
Note: You can only Local Update a story to 5 sites maximum.
To send as Nearby News to multiple towns, you follow the same steps as you would for Breaking News Alerts and Local Updates.
For all mass pinning, you then move on to the next step, during which you will make three main selections:
'Expire In': How long do you want this alert or story to stay on the site?
'Slot Number': Where do you want this story to fall in the newsletter or home page lineup?
'Pin How?': What sites do you want this story to be visible on?
Select your pinning area:
You will most often use either 'NEARBY' or a custom region of your specific sites (more training on that later!).
Check off the towns from the list. Then click “Pin this article and send out Breaking News (or Nearby News or Local Update) alert!
Email Guidance: How Many To Send
We want users to get no more than five emails per day — and preferably just four per day.
One morning newsletter (sent automatically at 6 a.m.)
Two to three email alerts: Breaking News, Local Update or Nearby News
NOTE: Some regions send scheduled emails, like Patch PM or Events Roundups. Your manager will let you know about region-specific email campaigns.
Email Guidance: What To Send
Local knowledge and judgment is important in deciding what to alert. A breaking news alert for Manhattan, Illinois (population 7,000) could be different in scale and nature from a breaking news alert for Manhattan, New York (population 1.6 million).
More Info
Five percent of subscribers sign up for multiple email lists; when the same alert is sent to multiple lists, our system automatically de-dupes.
One of the top feedback items from readers: we send too many emails, causing some to unsubscribe.
Sending Blasts, Alerts To Individual Patches
Sending Alerts, Updates To Multiple Patches
Next: "SEO Guidance"
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