Conventional snail-mailed newsletters often have coupon response mechanisms, but otherwise publishers have no idea whether the newsletter was opened or not, and even if it was, which articles, if any, were looked at. For that reason, newsletter publishers have, for years, been in the dark as to what to include in their newsletters or what to leave out.

With electronic mail, all that has changed.  Newsletter response measurement is now possible, and while the reality of response measurement doesn't live up to the paranoia of those with Internet privacy concerns, it does provide useful feedback to the publishers of online newsletters. Specifically, our Newsletter Activity Reporting system is able to determine:

• The number of people who opened the newsletter and who they were 
• The number of people who clicked a link from the email and who they were
• The number of people who looked at each of the articles and who they were  
• The number of people who passed each article on to a friend and who they were  
• The number of people who selected each of the multiple responses to each survey question

There are numerous benefits to being able to measure newsletter response in a detailed fashion, among them:

• Evaluate email lists comparatively. Responses are an excellent way to compare the quality of one list from another.  
• Segment lists according to interests. You can segment your email list by who responded to which articles. For example, if you have articles about products, you may find that different groups of respondents are interested in each one. This will enable you to do more refined mailings in the future.  
• Segment lists according to level of enthusiasm. As part of the prospect qualification process, high levels of enthusiasm may qualify readers for more labor-intensive treatment by your sales team.  
• Copy testing. You will be able to test headlines to see what are the most effective ways to get people to open a particular article. By peppering an article with links, you will some indication of how much of the article is being read.

These Newsletter Activity Reporting and Reponse Management systems are advanced features not often found in other online newsletter production and mailing applications.