eNews: what new photo upload?

June 19, 2020


Winter's here - quick grab the camera

As we bemoan the arrival of the cooler (ok colder) months, it's not all bad, especially when it comes to photography. When the sun's shining, grab the camera for some cracking shots. With the sun tracking lower in the sky, the colours become more saturated and more striking. It's a great time to refresh those homepage gallery photos. 

Just remember to keep the sun behind you and watch out for your wonderful subjects squinting. And the best tip of all; if you want a photo to have greater impact, just get closer.

The image below was taken at 2pm in July. You can see the long shadows and the intensity of the colours. Taken on an iPhone X in panorama mode - and with no filters.



Recent News Gallery of Images

So you've created a recent news article for your website (or your new eNews) and you just don't have a picture that works.  We can help!  We've created a bank of images that are perfectly sized for the articles on your website. You can download the full set here.  If you think of one we may have missed, email helpdesk@sponsor-ed.com.au and we'll add it to the bank.

eNews Support Material

Firstly, we've extended the eNews trial - just let us know if you'd like to be setup. Have a play over the next six weeks; create a small test subscriber group with a few staff and parents and take eNews for a spin. It's so easy to create a beautiful, contemporary newsletter parents will love to read - looks fab on a mobile too.

To help you with your eNews trial and launch, we've created a video and cheat sheet that you can refer to when you are creating your first eNews.  There is also a set of images that you can download that are right-sized for your articles.  Click here for the support material.

And as an aside, you can see below that you can add video to your eNews. It's hard to do that with a PDF style newsletter.

eNews Demo V1 from The sponsor-ed Group on Vimeo.



What's Your Communications Strategy?

"We put a newsletter out once a week and have a website and Facebook page". Mmmmm that's not a strategy. A few years ago I asked a number of schools what their communications strategy was.

The first response was contorted facial expressions. Squinting eyes mainly and pursed lips. Followed by a lingering glance up at the ceiling like this had to be a trick question. That meeting spawned a curiosity that lead me to pull apart 200 school newsletters in search of the answer; why do schools communicate?

Here’s what I discovered.

Firstly, I realised that I’m the only person on the planet that has willingly read 200 school newsletters. No mean feat!
I discovered that you create only two types of content and in two time-frames;

  • Logistics; this is what you want parents to do. Bring a form in, register for parent teacher interviews, remember a date etc
  • Public Relations; this is what you want parents to feel. It’s how you want to be seen – you want to manage perceptions.

Further, around 15% of the content you create is logistics and the remainder is PR. Now here’s the paradox. Parents value logistics content over PR yet it’s the lesser of the two content types by volume. See if little Johnny (yes clichéd name I know) rocks up to school in his uniform and it’s footy fun day and everyone else is in their Bulldog’s jumper (go the dogs….hey I’m writing this and I can put in any team I like) then Johnny’s mum will be thumping the reception desk asking why she wasn’t told.

Let’s swing this and look at PR content. There’s no great stress if a Grade 5 parent hasn’t read anything about the Grade 2’s for several months. Yet it’s important to you. It’s your story.

The newsletter research culminated in the model shown below. In the diagram you’ll be able to find a home for every piece of content you’ve ever created. Your writing is either logistics or PR based and you write in only two timeframes. I've labeled this as 'Timely' and the creatively labeled 'Not Timely'. Hopefully this will help you realise what you’re writing for.

Writing logistics content is easy; it’s factual, short and sharp. Writing for PR is a little more from the heart and should be informed by your school’s key messages. What are key messages? Well that’s enough for now, we’ll talk key messages next time.

Denis Masseni 


Denis is sponsor-ed's director and Monash University sessional lecturer in digital communications (bio)



Two New Developments You're going to Love

Pssst. We can't contain ourselves any longer. We have to tell you. We're getting close to giving you the ability to add video to your homepage gallery and it's awesome. Drum roll please, the next biggie is a new, simpler way of loading photos onto a webpage. You don't have to leave the page to load an image. No more going to MEDIA. Yep, all done on the page. It's probably a little more awesomer (yes I know that's not a word) than the video in the homepage.

Does it ever stop at sponsor-ed?

Coming soon.......

Cheat Sheet - Text Wrapping

Ever wondered how to get that text wrapped around a picture just so? With this guide you can learn how to wrap text around images on your website so your page pops for your visitors. Click here for the guide. If you like this, there are plenty helpful tips here.

As always, please email helpdesk@sponsor-ed.com.au should you need further assistance.