eROI created a newsletter for Oregon's tourism industry that used consumer feedback to ensure its success.

The Travel Oregon consumer marketing group's objective for 2006 is to continue keeping an Oregon vacation top-of-mind with potential visitors across the country and worldwide, thus increasing tourism throughout Oregon. Travel Oregon had never done direct consumer outreach and wanted to establish a way to communicate with consumers, but not burden them with information that they would find of no value.

The consumer marketing department, working with e-marketing expert, eROI, decided that the best form of outreach was to publish a monthly electronic newsletter-- but not just any eNewsletter. They created one that provided subscribers engaging features and editorials of unique Oregon experiences, all wrapped in an evocative creative design. The newsletter is essentially a vertical extension of the Travel Oregon brand, bridging the gap between the inspiration provided by Travel Oregon Magazine and the trip planning assistance provided by TravelOregon.com.

Due to the fact that this was a first time effort in consumer outreach, Travel Oregon remained cautious and conservative in its expectations. While they had confidence in its engaging content and evocative design, it was unknown how consumers would react to a previously non-existent communication channel from Travel Oregon. In addition, Travel Oregon expected to lose upwards of 30 percent of its subscriber list due to "bad" email addresses or lack of interest.

Goals of the newsletter
The goals of the inaugural Travel Oregon Newsletter was to:

1. Introduce the Travel Oregon Newsletter and request consumers to update their preferences, including contact information and travel and region interest thus setting the groundwork for collaborative communication.

2. Provide information on timely fall events, with a focus on the Oregon Bounty campaign and the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial celebration.

3. Determine "best day" to communicate with Travel Oregon consumers.

4. Update and "clean" master consumer database to only communicate to those who are interested in Oregon as a vacation destination.

The "best day" strategy
In order to stand out, Travel Oregon used the first newsletter to test which day of the week was best to reach potential Oregon travelers. Traditionally, the period between Tuesday and Thursday was thought to be an optimal time; last year, however, an eROI email study determined that Monday appeared to be the best day to not only send email, but also the best day to generate clicks (individual recipients clicking on links). More recent data suggest that while the best day to send email varied by industry, weekends have emerged as an optimal time to maximize clicks. Given eROIs findings, TravelOregon's communications director, Kevin Wright, decided to "split its 70,000 subscriber list into four segments and compare response to each in order to determine the best send day for the Travel Oregon Newsletter."

The results from Travel Oregon's Newsletter and segmented list were as
follows:

It is noteworthy that the initial prediction of 30 percent list loss was proven wrong. On average, there were twice as many consumers who read the newsletter versus those that were lost to either unsubscribes or bounces. The open rates experienced by Travel Oregon appear to be slightly higher than the results of the recent eROI industry study. Click rates for Travel Oregon appear to be close to double on Wednesday; slightly higher on Thursday and Friday, and over twice as high on Sunday, compared to the eROI study.

Managed email lists give you the ability to target your email campaigns based on demographics by which you can segment lists at the start of an email campaign and then refine your lists as you gain more and more information about your prospects and/or customers. Overall, managed lists help build long-term customer value, increased loyalty, higher email response rates and more profitable communications.

Results so far
The inaugural issue appears to have resonated exceeding well with consumers-- both from tangible and intangible observations. Tangible observations -- one of the toughest challenges facing marketing today is that consumers are inundated with a barrage of advertising in every medium -- from print to TV to email. The ability to stand out and build a long term relationship with consumers thus becomes increasingly difficult and even more important. The Travel Oregon Newsletter was a success at standing out and allowed Travel Oregon to begin establishing strong relationships with their target audience.

Intangible observations -- measuring consumers' subjective reaction to the content and creative is often the best measure of a campaign -- it is also the most difficult measurement to ascertain. However, based on what consumers are saying about the newsletter (when forwarding it to friends), it is evident that the newsletter is a runaway hit. Additionally, consumer comments have also provided valuable insight into the emotional and viral appeal of the content. Consider:

• "It's almost like being in Oregon"
• "Well, there's always Oregon if the snow gets slushy"
• "This looks like an exciting place to visit or even to live."
• "How`bout Oregon instead of Vegas?
• "Let's not give up on Oregon all together yet."

According to Mo Sherifdeen of the Travel Oregon Consumer Marketing team "we are blown away by the increasing virulence and popularity of the Travel Oregon newsletter and are pleased with the results we are seeing."

As stated before, consumers are being bombarded by marketing messages from many different channels. Travel Oregon and eROI worked together to execute on their shared belief that the best way to cultivate a sustainable long term relationship with a consumer is to provide them with information based on their interests. Segmenting and disseminating information based solely on an individual's preferences makes the newsletter highly relevant and enables Travel Oregon to meaningfully engage these "hand raisers" to sell them their Oregon dream.