In the Club

Check your newsletters are being read

So you’ve designed the perfect newsletter, crafted a compelling call to action for people to respond, then emailed it to everyone in your mailing list. Days go by, but you’ve only heard back from a few of your members. Don't despair – it's a common frustration when running a club or society.

The simple fact is that your members – like most people today – will be inundated by emails from all kinds of sources that it’s easy to overlook an important one or simply forget to reply. No matter which email service you use, there’s usually a way to find out whether your newsletters or emails are being read by your target audience.

We’ll first show you how to use a feature called read receipts in Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. If you use Gmail or Outlook.com, we'll explain how to do something similar using web extensions.

Read Receipts

When you enable read receipts feature, email recipients will see a pop-up message after they open your email, prompting them to confirm that they have received it. To set this up in Microsoft Outlook, click the Options tab when writing your email. You’ll see tick boxes to request a Delivery Receipt and a Read Receipt (see screenshot above).

In Mozilla Thunderbird, these are called Return Receipts. Click the Tools option at the top of the email window, Options, Advanced (top right), then click Return Receipts. Here, tick ‘When sending messages, always request a return receipt’ (see screenshot above right), then click OK twice. Gmail and Outlook.com don’t offer these options for personal accounts.

Read receipts rely on your recipient acting on the prompt. They may forget to or choose not to, in which case you might assume they haven’t read it.

Web extensions

A more reliable and discreet way to find out if your emails are being read is to use a web extension. In the Mini Workshop below, we’ll explain how to use Contactmonkey, which works with Outlook.com and Gmail. It tells you when recipients have opened your emails and clicked links, displaying this information in a handy dashboard. After a 14-day free trial, prices start at $10 (about £8) per month.

The Mailtrack extension ( www. mailtrack.io) does a similar job, displaying two green ticks beside your sent emails. Move your cursor to these to see how many times your email has been opened. Similarly, Mixmax ( www. mixmax.com, $9 a month) tells you how long ago your email was opened, while Yesware ( www.yesware.com, $12) tells you when, where and on what device your email was read.

It’s a good idea to try these out for free, then upgrade to a paid-for plan when you find the one that suits your needs. These may sound expensive, but they are the only reliable way to find out whether your emails are having the desired impact.