Most email programs are capable of displaying HTML emails, which may include graphics, animation, photographs, links, sophisticated layouts, elaborate fonts, and many other Webpage design elements. Using these display capabilities in episodic HTML newsletters can substantially enhance organizational learning messages.

Newsletter-style HTML emails are an excellent option if you must deliver information to far-flung employees rapidly and inexpensively. Why?

• Newsletter readers are not required to set aside time for a learning session. Email-based training programs provide learners with brief, easy-to-assimilate episodic learning presentations that are consumed on-the-spot. Learners can spend 10 minutes reviewing the email newsletter when it arrives, then continue with their job tasks.
  
  
• Email newsletters can be less threatening to learners than conventional training media. Email-based training can be designed with a casual appearance and presentation that's more user-friendly for people than logging in to a formal e-learning course.
  
  
• Email newsletters can provide immediate results with a minimum of development time. They can be rapidly created and deployed: The organization doesn't have to delay training for several months while developing an e-learning course.
  
  
• Newsletter delivery is well suited to episodic learning. Individual messages provide content in modular chunks that focus learner attention on a specific topic. This approach enables the training to reach the field more rapidly. Individual newsletter modules can be developed in a planned sequence, with delivery beginning as soon as the first issue is complete, while the remaining modules are being developed.
  
  
• HTML email can include most of the elements of traditional Web-based e-learning, including text, photos, graphics, and animations. You can also link easily to rich media, such as Flash animations, audio, video, and traditional e-learning modules, as well as interactive tests, surveys, and chats. This allows you to create and deploy high-impact documents that are memorable and effective while avoiding the high cost and complicated overhead of a traditional e-learning effort.
  
  
• Tracking features can be embedded in each newsletter. For example, you can include codes that identify when each addressee reviews specific links and other elements. This approach employs procedures developed by email marketers to track responses. Examples can be found in commercial email newsletters; look for the long strings of numbers identifying that the recipient added to links. If you want to duplicate this approach, you'll need specialized programming talent, however.
  
  To obtain a general idea of the number of people reading the message, you can track the number of hits on graphics that are displayed within the email when it's opened, or the number of times specific links were selected by readers. Links or input fields can be placed at the end of each email prompting learners to identify themselves in order to receive credit for viewing the message. For smaller groups of recipients, you can request receipts indicating that the message was opened.
  
  
• Gathering feedback or testing learners can be accomplished easily via a survey form or links to a Web-based survey or testing module. Providing a fill-in-the-blank form within the email also enables you to collect learner responses effortlessly.
  
  
• HTML emails offer accessibility. Training distributed via this method can easily be designed to conform to Section 508 requirements for access by people with disabilities. Email- and browser-reader programs should be compatible with the content of a standard newsletter. Developers can use the same 508 design techniques that are used for HTML Webpages to ensure that email-readers can access the newsletter content and the content of any browser-based interactive modules. (For tips on designing for accessibility, see Answer Geek.) Since some learners may have older computer systems and software, developers should be sure to survey users' hardware and software capabilities and take any technical limitations--such as bandwidth issues or plug-in requirements--into consideration when creating content.

HTML email newsletters can be used to address a range of training needs, including

• rapidly addressing a specific time-critical topic
• describing new policies, practices, or procedures to employees and customers
• explaining to employees and customers how to use new equipment
• informing customers of new features and services and describing how to operate them.

HTML newsletters are most effective in addressing brief topics. If you have a large-scale learning need, you can chunk a topic into shorter elements that learners can review as part of their daily routine--without requiring them to set aside time for a formal training session.

Launching your email campaign

Implementing a learning campaign using email newsletters is simpler than implementing a traditional e-learning effort. Here's how to do it.

1. Identify the audience and their individual learning needs. Consider your users' specific learning or performance needs and what expectations or content-related issues may affect the design and presentation. For example, you may find that you have several different audiences, each with unique needs. Some may require more background information, while others may need access to proprietary or sensitive information. Because emails can be forwarded easily to another recipient, keep security in mind. Sensitive information can be protected by retaining it on a password-required Webpage that you link to. You can also limit access to some message components by placing content on sites that require access from within your intranet.

Another way to address individual needs is to create several different versions of a master newsletter, with each variation customized to address most efficiently the learning needs of a particular subgroup. For example, a sales training email course could be designed to provide general information applicable to all recipients along with additional information tailored for each group of sales staff according to their customer group assignments--for example, information on computer system features that are relevant specifically to corporate customers, residential customers, or education customers.

2. Establish learning objectives and topic sequences. Determine the most logical and effective way to sequence learning objectives and content, just as you would for a standard classroom or WBT course. Take into account prerequisite topics and how the topics interconnect and build to address the objectives. Determine the appropriate delivery schedule for each content module based on the desired learning presentation sequence. Plan your development schedule so that you can build on the content created for the initial emails and continuously refine the content and your presentation approach as additional learner issues and needs are identified from feedback.

3. Design and create the content of each newsletter. Since each newsletter will address a specific, modular topic, this development process appears highly compressed when compared to traditional e-learning efforts. For example, development durations of a week or less per issue are possible. However, if more complicated media is required to present the content effectively (for example, graphics, photos, animations, interactive Flash modules, and so forth), you'll need to add a few extra days, or even weeks, to develop those items, based on the complexity of the interactive content. This is where effective planning helps ensure that you can maintain an aggressive delivery schedule. For example, if you need to create several Flash animation pop-ups to explain equipment operation, ensure that your developers start working on those elements as soon as they are identified and defined and that everyone understands the delivery schedule.

4. Send each newsletter issue to employees or customers according to your predetermined delivery schedule. For example, delivering messages on Tuesday morning may help bypass the Monday crush of email. Or, deliver training messages coordinated with product launches or implementation dates for procedural changes to help ensure that the content is relevant to readers. The delivery schedule should take a number of issues into account beyond the development time requirements. For example, if your learning campaign also requires responding to learner feedback, you'll need time to process user comments and compose and send out follow-up messages.

5. Follow up, follow up, follow up! One way to keep track of audience response is to send email messages within a few days of the original email summarizing user comments and concerns and answering questions. Another more complex follow-up process is to establish a topic Website that hosts user chats and discussion forums, provides reference links and access to back issues of the newsletters, archives user questions and comments, provides a FAQ list, and delivers a survey or test. No matter how you choose to keep your finger on the pulse of your readers, be sure to track their reactions to each email and topic, and use the information that you obtain to refine your design and content in subsequent newsletter issues.

Required competencies

The skills required for designing and implementing an email newsletter learning initiative are not overly complex. If you, your team, or your training contractor has experience creating Web-based training, you already have the skill set required for creating HTML newsletters.

Training developers with experience working on written training products can create the content using standard ISD [LTG] design and development techniques. Graphic artists can increase the impact of each issue by creating images and helping refine the layout. (The layout of HTML newsletters is best designed and implemented using Webpage authoring software such as Macromedia Dreamweaver.) Developers with experience creating Flash modules can design the interactive content.

The overall development process is usually much simpler and less costly than creating a WBT site, since you can minimize such elements as interfaces and menus, complex branching or linking, CMI essentials, and so forth.

Constantly changing learning needs within fast-moving organizations require training solutions that can be developed and deployed quickly. HTML email newsletters can rapidly, efficiently, and painlessly meet those needs in almost any type of organization.

Published: August 19, 2002