The City Wire has changed the look of its popular daily e-mail blast that goes to more than 9,000 people in the Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas areas, and will on Friday launch a weekly e-mail that recaps top news stories of the week and provides a “look ahead” to planned or upcoming news and events.
Changing the daily e-mail was pushed by the need to streamline the look, make it easier to read and improve how it appeared on mobile and other hand-held devices. The City Wire staff worked with a graphic artist to research popular and practical trends in the media industry and then incorporate several of those into the new looks.
The Friday “Recap & Review” e-mail that will be sent on noon each Friday is in response to a growing number of The City Wire readers who requested a weekly summary of key business and political stories, and some insight into news and events around the corner.
“The higher-income, higher-education demographic we reach at The City Wire appreciate the convenience of having key stories delivered to their e-mail inbox every morning. It has proven popular not only with subscribers, but with advertisers,” said Michael Tilley, a co-owner and editor of The City Wire. “We’ve been reluctant to add another e-mail service, but we believe the demand is there for a concise, yet indepth review of the news and a practical look at upcoming stories.”
Statistics point to the popularity of the daily e-mail. The average open rate for the two daily e-mails during 2014 ranged between 29% and 20%, with the industry average at 17.3%.
“Based on our statistics and the anecdotal evidence, we are confident we have a unique media reach – with respect to providing indepth business and political news – that appeals to business leaders and decision makers in the Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas areas and around the state,” Tilley said.
Subscribing to the e-mail services is easy, and takes less than a minute. Link here to sign up.
ABOUT THE CITY WIRE
The City Wire is a media company that covers business, politics and culture in the Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas regions. News on The City Wire (www.thecitywire.com) also includes statewide business and political news. More than 2.201 million users have visited the website between Nov. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2014, and logged more than 9.94 million pageviews.