PR Resources: Newsletters + Tiny Letter

Many PR Professionals utilize e-newsletters to help send messages about their clients directly to their audiences. What better way to connect someone to a person, product, or organization than by sending something that they can interact and engage with? But to what extent are audiences truly engaging when they receive one, possibly of many, newsletters in their inbox? What is to stop them from counting what you see as news as just another piece of junk mail? Or better yet, why would they subscribe to content that they may be able to easily find on a blog or website? Tiny Letter, a service from the same group that brings you services like Mail Chimp, can help take your engagement from zero to sixty!

Unlike many other newsletter services, Tiny Letter is completely free to use and and offers many unique services. For starters, Tiny Letter is set up as more of a personal note to subscribers than a traditional newsletter. It leaves less room for photos and links and more more true and sincere content. When readers receive a "tiny letter" in their inbox, it looks and feels much more like that person is emailing them personally.

Tiny Letter also includes the option for subscribers to reply to their letter -- a huge bonus for PR Pros looking to measure the reach of content! What better way to monitor or track the response to your content than by actually tracking the responses! The writer of the newsletter can also respond back and forth with subscribers via the Tiny Letter dashboard, allowing them to continue the conversation.

In addition to all of these tools for engagement, Tiny Letter does allow you to add personal flare to your newsletter. Through the easy to use dashboard, users can customize the look and feel of their subscribe pages and each individual letter. This makes it incredibly easy to add logos and branding touches, keeping all of the fine details in line.

Have you ever created or subscribed to an e-newsletter? Would you consider using Tiny Letter to do so? Let us know!

The Skimm: The New Newsletter

Maybe skim milk isn’t your thing and you’re a whole milk kind of person, but I can guarantee you there is a different kind of Skimm you will enjoy in life. The Skimm is an online daily newsletter that simplifies the latest current events with a twist of humor. It was originated by two women in their 20s from New York and Chicago, Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin. “Your new secret weapon," as Forbes magazine calls it, will soon become an essential part of your morning routine.

As public relations major it is crucial to be caught up on what is going on in the world around you in order to be successful. My Introduction to PR class professor constantly stresses the importance of staying on top of current events and has visit different news sites repeatedly. Good PR is being able to give your public what they want at the time and being up to date on the world’s views will only help you further your career.  Covering everything from the government shutdown to what actor will play Christian Grey in “50 Shades of Grey,” The Skimm is sent out every morning around 6 am for all of us that are up and ready to start the hectic day. You can read it while enjoying your coffee during five rare minutes of downtime or during your subway ride to work. It gives you everything you need to know to start your day right in an extremely snappy and sweet fashion. This newsletter seems to be a match made in heaven for any PR professional who is already familiar with not wasting any words or any time. A year since The Skimm was introduced to the world and I only was lured into it three months ago. For those of you who are reading about it for the first time now, don’t waste anymore time and hop on The Skimm!

All you have to do is log onto their website www.theskimm.com and enter your email address to subscribe. In addition to receiving their Monday through Friday email you can follow them on Twitter, Instagram or their blog as well. The Skimm will save you precious time from not having to turn to five other news outlets to receive the biggest headlines of the week.

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Staff Member Gabrielle Lacherza.