Case Study: Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce

WMC is a lobbying and advocacy group as well as the state’s largest business association, representing nearly 4,000 members, including manufacturers and service companies, chambers of commerce and trade associations.

One of WMC’s primary means of outreach to its membership is through email. WMC established an electronic newsletter in March 2001 as an online resource to keep its members updated on issues affecting their business. Capitol Watch is an interactive publication reporting on public policy, politics and the Wisconsin legislative process. This weekly electronic newsletter combines the benefits of a communications piece with the ability to access WMC issue papers, legislative bill text, WMC staff, state legislators and more.

Problem:

WMC didn’t have a means for tracking the effectiveness of its email marketing campaigns nor a reliable delivery mechanism. In addition, its campaigns had higher spam scores, meaning the newsletter was more likely to get picked up by recipients’ spam filters.

“We wanted to take the next steps to improve the effectiveness of our flagship e-newsletter” said Jim Warner, WMC’s Director of Information Technology.

Solution:

WMC turned to Netconcepts’ gravityMail division to help with its email design, delivery and tracking.

Its improved design and the automated spam-scoring tool built into gravityMail helped WMC to minimize the likelihood its campaigns would get caught by the spam filters.

gravityMail’s tracking and reporting capability offered WMC new metrics – including total opens, unique opens, clickthrough rates, clickthrough by recipient, total clickers, return clickers, unsubscribe rate, and bounce rate – to measure its campaign success.

The WMC newsletter before work with Netconcepts

After work with Netconcepts

Results:

WMC was able to evaluate and improve it member email communications by working with gravityMail and Netconcepts. “With gravityMail and Netconcepts behind the scenes helping us, we have been able to increase the value of our e-newsletter,” stated Warner. “If you want to apply best practices and track the success of email marketing efforts, I strongly encourage consideration of gravityMail and the Netconcepts’ team.”