Newsletter Email Campaign
Date: July 2020 - Present
Team: 1 Graphic Designer, 2 Backend Developers, and 2 Sponsorship Organizers
As I wrap up my time as a Marketing Organizer for Hack the North 2020++, here’s a project that I’m proud to have taken ownership of—all the way from conception, prototype, and delivery! For some context, Hack the North is Canada’s biggest hackathon held yearly at the University of Waterloo with 1,500 hackers from all over the world.
Project Scope
Due to restrictions on travel and gatherings, the pandemic threw a huge monkey wrench at our plan. Not only were we forced to reimagine our usual in-person event, but we also had to figure out how to market our first-ever virtual hackathon. Although we couldn’t recreate the experience of 1,500 hackers under one roof, we could highlight all the sponsor challenges, virtual workshops, and other new learning opportunities at our event.
And since our existing social media strategy was already on full blast, email marketing seemed like a pretty cost-effective marketing channel to get applicants invested and excited about Hack the North 2020++.
I researched, curated, and wrote summaries introducing student-centric content and opportunities from our sponsors. Then, I worked with our Design and Backend team members to turn this vision into a fully-fledged campaign. For each step, here are some goals I had in mind:
reinforce the Hack the North’s brand as a learning resource / empowerment hub
build awareness of the event (+ our really cool sponsors!)
and ultimately, drive event sign-ups
Overview
Taking it from conception on a Google document …
… to prototype with the help of our Graphic Designer and then successful delivery to 2000+ recipients through our email API!
Test, Reiterate, and Grow
To be continued—checking if I can share some newsletter stats!
Takeaways
Prioritization, especially for keeping momentum on long term and recurring projects (i.e. monthly newsletter)
The importance of clear communication, especially when working cross functionally (extra details go a long way)
Get to know what other people are working on - with so many cool people on backend, design, sponsorship, you can learn a lot through osmosis