“Smore” Than You Ever Imagined AUTHOR: ARDYS ATTEBERRY Region 10 ESC Communications
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EET Jennifer Hood, our Region 10 ESC Accountability Consultant. Hard wired to always do her best, Hood probably asks her go-to question at least once every day.
“How can I make it better?” One of her many responsibilities is to distribute state accountability Information to our 130+ districts. Just imagine the time, effort, and patience it must take to sift through tons of material to prioritize when, what, and to whom she should send this essential information. For years, her predecessors distributed it via e-newsletter, but Hood wanted to know how to make her Monday Matters e-newsletter better. Her go-to question sparked her next question.
“Is my e-newsletter even going to the right audience?” Good question. Hood’s audience consists of district leadership, assessment and accountability leaders, curriculum directors, superintendents, administrators, instructional coaches, and even fellow colleagues. That’s quite a list, but the question is, how accurate is it? People retire, change roles, move to another district, and other variables, so Hood knew her list was flawed. Determined to fix it before moving forward, she invested a big chunk of time to update her contact list to ensure the right person was receiving her e-newsletter. It was time well spent.
Mission accomplished, she moved on to her next questions. Who’s reading her e-newsletter? Who’s reading it the most? What is of most interest to her readers? Hood chose Smore to build an informative e-newsletter, so she took a closer look at its analytical side. Most would cringe at the prospect, but Hood absolutely loves data. She couldn’t wait to dive in.
“How can Smore analytic features make my e-newsletter better?” Hood’s deep dive answered some questions and created new ones, including a quest to identify a mystery reader. With a few clicks, she sees how many people open her e-newsletter and who is reading it the most. In fact, she weekly identifies her top three readers. Why? She contacts each of them to learn how to make her e-newsletter even better. She can also detect which articles generate the most interest, how people engage her e-newsletter via social media, how much time they spend reading it, and even their locations. Remember, her goal is to distribute state accountability information, so it’s fascinating to see people from all over the world take a peek at her Monday Matters. Seriously! It’s not unusual for people from Peru, Saudi Arabia, Puerto Rico, Germany, and others to drop in for who knows what reason. And then there’s Ireland.
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