A common challenge facing CU departments is the need to communicate effectively with constituents. At CU Denver, Academic Services Manager Crystal Gasell found a solution to this challenge through the use of MailChimp.

Looking for better ways to disseminate different information to students, faculty, and special interest groups – at Denver downtown and on the Anschutz Medical Campus – Crystal’s office had struggled with list-servs and paper flyers. However, they couldn’t obtain either the impact or data analytics they needed to make their communication practice more effective.

 So they implemented a MailChimp platform, process, and campaign in order to generate more timely and effective messaging to constituents.

With the new tool, Crystal designed a newsletter template and created a monthly publication schedule that incorporates team editing and review. Every month, the newsletter team looks at the MailChimp report and reviews statistics (open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate). Then they make the appropriate adjustments to their newsletter topics – and to their ever-critical subject line.

Thanks to their new newsletter tool, the office has accomplished their initial goals:

• Create a single, regular communication between CU Online and constituents
• Allow for easy opt-out/opt-in by constituents
• Provide analytics to CU Online to improve communication
• Improve relationships between CU Online and constituents

Overall, the implementation of MailChimp to streamline and improve newsletter analysis and delivery has contributed to the office goal of redefining communications at CU.

Learn about the CU Online experience reading Crystal's submission to the CU Shared Practices (CUSP) website.

And then ... consider sharing your experience with us. Submit your best practice-implementation to CUSP.  

We want to hear from you! Submit by April 30.