“Your Year with NPR One” End-of-Year Email
Overview
Inspired by the popular Spotify Wrapped campaign, which collects users' listening data into fun, concise visuals, we wanted to create a similar experience for our listeners of NPR One with an end-of-year email campaign. Why? The winter holiday season is a time for reflection and giving. People often think and reflect upon the past year. They are also more likely to donate to their favorite charity or organization. How might we use an end-of-year campaign to increase engagement and create a new opportunity for donation requests?
This project required interdepartmental collaboration. As the sole designer on this project, I worked with product mangers of Mobile, Email, and Revenue to ensure this campaign is not only informative and fun (people love data!) but also functional.
Process
Gather Inspiration & Examples
I used reallygoodemails.com and emails I’ve personally received over the years to see how other companies use their end-of-year emails. Some learnings:
Use brand colors across the entire email to strengthen brand identity and differentiation
Comparing the user’s stats to the average stats is a way to make the data feel more relevant
Constraints
What data might we want to use, but don’t have the source for it? Additionally, since we only had one Data Analyst on this project, we had to be conservative about what kind of stats we could provide.
How can we add NPR brand elements into the email without hiring an additional illustrator for new designs?
Refine Content
We decided to highlight two main pieces of information:
Total number of minutes of content and stories the user listened to during the last calendar year
Most played podcast, and lets them know if they qualified as one of the top listeners for that podcast
The user’s local NPR station logo is also displayed, along with the message: "If every NPR One listener gave just 1 cent for every minute of listening in the year, we would raise more than $23 million for public radio journalism." The statement is followed by a compelling call-to-action, urging users to donate and share images of their personalized email on social media. This cross-promotion strategy not only encouraged listeners to support their local NPR station but also spread awareness about NPR One and the impact of their donations.
I think adding illustrations wherever possible is a great way to elevate a brand while including that humanistic touch, so I was glad when I found illustration assets created by Irene Rinaldi that were used for NPR’s About page. These individual assets were available for NPR to use in any other future projects, so I decided to incorporate them into the email.
Final Design
Results & Audience Feedback
Below are some examples of our listeners who excitedly shared their stats on Facebook and Twitter! By leveraging the power of social media and personalized messaging, we were able to engage with our audience and drive donations in a creative and effective way. The launch of this campaign was a great success and continues to be sent out at the end of every year.
