Serving its members more effectively with an online newsletter

Background

The Secondary School Admission Test Board (SSATB) is a national, nonprofit educational organization that develops and administers the Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT). SSATB also serves as a professional association for approximately 1,700 educators in independent school admissions. This organization sponsors a broad range of meetings, conferences, and training, in addition to publishing a newsletter, reference manuals, directories, and special reports for admission professionals in over 600 private schools.

Objectives

SSATB requested the services of Verascend to design, develop, and manage a Web site for the online publication of their existing newsletter, Memberanda. SSATB also wanted to increase the frequency of publication, serving to engage their audience more regularly, and giving it greater influence over its members’ perceptions of the organization.

Solution

Verascend’s solution is comprised of the Memberanda Web site, a Memberanda e-mail, ongoing publishing services, and site management services.

The Memberanda e-mail is a condensed version of the Memberanda newsletter that is delivered to members. The e-mail contains brief excerpts from each article in a given issue. It is in HTML format to give the appearance of a Web page, rather than a text e-mail.

The Memberanda Web site features the current issue, as well as these additional components: an archive of past issues, feedback and topic suggestion pages, a subscription feature that allows visitors to register for e-mail delivery of Memberanda, and contact information.