Week 3 Project Update

The month of June has quickly reached its conclusion, and consequently so has my month-long operations and marketing learning project. After another busy week of work, I’ve tied up the remaining loose ends and have done my best polish job – with that, let’s go to it.

Here’s what I completed this week:

• Consumed a handful of youtube videos on Mailchimp content and got comfortable with the interface and a few core functions.
• Created a Mailchimp email campaign marketing for the Willmar Assemblies of God church and its audience, working closely with the communications director, linked here.
• Produced a 9-minute video on how to create and publish a Mailchimp email campaign, linked here.
• Created a project overview page and managed all other organizational tasks related to the project, linked here.

Here are the results and a few considerations

Engagement and Performance

The email campaign I created was delivered to the church’s compiled list of 1,220 contacts.

99 emails didn’t deliver (or “bounced”), leaving me with 1,121 delivered emails. Of those 1,121 emails:

• 458 emails were opened, with a 40.9% open rate
  • The average open rate in this industry (religion) – 26.5%
• 50 clicks were registered, with a 4.5% click rate
  • The average click rate in this industry (religion) – 2.7%
• A 10.9% click per unique open rate
• To break the clicks down even further:
  • The direct link to the volunteer sign up form was clicked 31 times
  • The video link I added was clicked 18 times
  • The church’s homepage link accounted for the other 12 clicks
• Only 4 emails unsubscribed from the list – 2 noted they had moved away, the other two did not disclose why they unsubscribed.

I sent the email out at 1:11 pm on Wednesday, June 26th. Between that starting point and roughly 3:00 pm on Friday, June 28th, I received word from the office administrator that 26 volunteers had signed up, with 9 registered in the area that I marketed towards. It’s likely inaccurate to attribute every volunteer to the email blast, but I’m confident a substantial portion of those volunteers came directly from the campaign I sent out. 

My workflow this week

I included this in my project overview, but here’s what week 3 looked like for me. You can see in orange boxes are where I designated time for this project. Breaking this week down into actionable tasks was vital in attaining success – considering I don’t have an excess of free time, I had to be proactive early in the week or I could have fallen irreparably behind.

Problems I faced this week

The largest problem I faced this week has been deliberating on how I want to organize the final presentation of my project. I aspired to tightly toe the line between a clean-cut/flashy project and an informative/substantial project. With time and practice I know I can further hone in on these skills to the point that organization and planning become second nature to me.

What I’m working on next week

Just as quickly as this month-long project came to an end, another takes its place. Over the month of July, I’m embracing the challenge to write a blog post for every day of the month. These posts will range from topics of productivity, lifestyle, reviews, etc., and will serve as a stepping stone to becoming a strong communicator. I’m pumped to keep creating content and putting my thoughts and ideas out for the public, so check in every day of July to tap a little deeper into my professional and personal psyche.