It is a chamber orchestra rather than a philharmonic: rarely an unsupported solo act.
Content very quickly looks tired and dated unless it is relevant, well expressed. Where delivered digitally it has to have those apparent and hidden ‘clever bits.’ It links to stuff, it engages, it might embed video, it invites people to connect and share … i.e. an eNewsletter is so much more than a piece of print distributed by email.
This graphic is my attempt to explain this further: content (text, images, video), with design (layout, branding, readability) and ‘smart‘ (links, tracking/understanding the audience, share, interaction … and much that I can’t even start to imagine that can make a more personalised ‘communiqué.’
My role of the digital editor, like an editor on any platform, print, TV, or radio, as well as creating or editing/managing the content, must make sure that the audience get this extra ‘smart‘ input. This is both whatever an eNewsletter does on the surface: register with this, join that, read this, do that, come to this, action that, but also the ‘analytics’ in the background.
I choose to receive eNewsletters from all kinds of organisations and have been looking at them closely. Keeping up is not easy. The very best are simple, clear, readable in a wink, engaging … and invariably connect invitingly to committing to a paid subscription or membership and want you to read it every month too.
If I should set a goal for any eNewsletter it is that not only does it engage and appeal to my readers, but they think it’s so interesting they want to share it with potential new readers.
Mind Bursts 
Jon – the graphic doesn’t display
Thats odd. It’s there for me and others. Any suggestions?
Just comes up as a icon – would suggest the original graphic is on your own PC (which is why you see it) but not on the server?
Hi Gordon. I hope this now works. I’ve always kept images in a Picasa Album then linked. Here I think I lazily did a cut and paste from a Google Doc.
Indeed it does! Thus the whole item makes sense!
Thanks Gordon.