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This study aims to propose a novel mirroring digital content marketing (MDCM) framework that extends the current consumer-based digital content marketing (DCM) framework to encompass the provider’s perspective. Relying on the stimulus–organism–response theory, the authors posit that content stimuli influence behavioural engagement responses that, respectively, mirror the motives and self-reported engagement from the consumer-based DCM.

To empirically verify the provider side of the MDCM framework, the authors used one newsletter and one matching website with corresponding 117 weekly data points. Data were drawn from three sources for six countries: newsletter content stimuli, newsletter performance indicators and Google Analytics metrics on matching website performance. OLS and panel regressions were used to analyse the data and generate results.

The results show that content stimuli do explain the behavioural engagement responses of consumers recorded by the provider. However, the effects of the different stimuli are inconsistent: functional stimuli have both positive and negative effects, while social stimuli positively impact the behavioural engagement response. The authors further show that the newsletter engagement response influences subsequent engagement responses across channels (e.g. via the linked news media website).

Further research definitely needs to empirically verify the connection between two sides of the MDCM framework. As proposed by authors, provider-based stimuli are corresponding to the consumer-based motivations, however, which stimuli are triggering which motivations and how they can consequently be translated to both consumer- and provider-based behavioural engagement is still an open question. Different theoretical lenses could be taken in the usage of MDCM framework.

Our observations are relevant for marketers that want to use certain stimuli in their digital content, in particular a content introduced in the newsletter and the website. The authors show that stimuli are indeed related to the behavioural engagement response of consumers and that various stimuli impact engagement differently. Furthermore, the recommendations for the marketing managers of news media are to use priming across the platforms in their Web communication strategies.

This study proposes and empirically tests the provider side of the MDCM framework across two news media channels, focusing on behavioural engagement responses.

This study aims to investigate which messaging strategies employed in personalised newsletters could be used for improving the propensity of individuals to save or invest and secure their financial well-being.

The authors conducted a field experiment with 4,782 clients at an Estonian retail bank. For three months (after measuring baseline levels for a month), the participants received personalised monthly newsletters with either a praising or a scolding message based on comparing their recent investment decisions to their past decisions.

Their results suggest that newsletters could serve as an encouragement for those who already invest significant amounts each month and a reminder for those who have stopped regular investing for a month. The newsletters robustly increased investments in securities accounts for these groups.

The authors contribute to the marketing literature by examining praise and scolding messaging strategies within the same channel and company, focussing on the individual's past behaviour. They raise several hypotheses to be tested in future randomised controlled trials (RCTs).

The authors’ results show the importance of investor behaviour analysis as the effectiveness of the newsletter intervention largely depended on the type of customer it was served to. This highlights the importance of personalisation.

The results show that a given message tends to influence only specific groups of investors. Identifying these groups is valuable information for messaging strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the way one farmers’ market organization used an e-newsletter to establish and maintain their brand image as a socially responsible local food outlet. This research analyzed managerial communication efforts to promote farmers’ market products through email marketing. This analysis also revealed the positive and negative brand images that the e-newsletter communicates and how those align or fail to align with public opinion about of farmers’ markets.

The author spent 2.5 years participating in the farmers’ market organization that comprises the focus of this study, and this included conducting multiple studies using interview, survey and ethnographic methods. The data set for the present study includes two years’ worth of marketing messages from the e-newsletter campaign, which included 31 e-newsletters. Thematic analysis (Terry et al., 2017) was used to discover the dominant messages and values present. Analysis extended to textual messages, images, timing, design and overall newsletter content.

The results show that the digital communications at the Lawrence Farmers’ Market (LFM) promoted messages of getting to know your local farmer, eating fresh and healthy food and supporting local products. Additionally, the market frequently attempted to make the market accessible by communicating operating days and times. Finally, the newsletter message analysis also revealed that the LFM brand could be characterized as lacking consistency, having poor organization, and using poor design principles.

This research extends the knowledge of how farmers’ market organizations engage in brand image management. While there are scores of studies on consumer preferences, we have very few that analyze the ways farmers' market organizations spread key brand ideas to consumers. Additionally, this research offers other implications for nonprofits, looking to improve their brand image with limited resources.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of one of accounting practitioners' most widely‐used client relations techniques. By evaluating the effectiveness of the newsletters that accountants provide to small business managers, the paper critically assesses their role in contributing to accountants' overall strategy for developing relations with their substantial small business manager client base.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with ten accountants who have provided newsletters to small business clients. The interviews were motivated by the results of a questionnaire administered to a sample of small business managers. The interview findings offer valuable insights into accountants' rationale for providing newsletters to their small business clients and accountants' assessment of the effectiveness of newsletters as a client relations technique. Analysis of the findings is informed by media richness theory.

The findings indicate that, despite their apparent popularity amongst professional accounting firms, newsletters are an ineffective method for developing relations with accountants' small business manager clients. The effectiveness of accountants' newsletters is diminished by the generic impersonal nature of the newsletter content that managers of small firms cannot relate to their own circumstances and by newsletters' technical accounting and tax content that small business managers have difficulty understanding.

The paper contributes to redressing a gap in research regarding the effectiveness of newsletters in accountants' relations with the economically significant small business sector, while better informing practitioners' development of their advisory relationship with small business managers. Rapidly emerging social media alternatives to the widespread practice of distributing newsletters to facilitate relations with small business clients are introduced as an emergent phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of social accounting at the micro level and examines the use of social reporting for constructive purposes through internal communication devices. It explores the discourse adopted by a large organisation in social accounting and reporting (workplace flexibility) through employee newsletters. In doing so the paper seeks to answer two research questions. First, what workplace flexibility practices are evident in the employee newsletters? Second, do management use discourse (including self-accounts) in newsletters for self-serving management control purposes or for the emancipatory purposes of benefiting employees?

Content and discourse analysis are used to examine “workplace flexibility” practices portrayed within the newsletters. This study explores the discourse adopted by a large Australian financial institution, in its social accounting disclosure in employee newsletters. It does so by examining the discourse adopted by the organisation in relation to one aspect of social accounting, that is, “workplace flexibility” in the employee newsletters over the period 2003-2007.

The paper finds the financial institution used its internal newsletters to influence employee attitude and behaviour, not as claimed for social “betterment” – justice, welfare, emancipation. The possibility of social accounting's emancipatory potential was suppressed by those responsible for providing the accounts. The paper found that management used discourse (including self-accounts) in the newsletters for self-serving management control purposes and not as claimed for benefiting employees.

The idea that the organisation provides workplace flexibility for the sake of benefitting employees is questionable. The discourse found in the newsletters suggests that flexible work options instead appear to be aimed at garnering employee loyalty, with subsequent employer benefits of improved organisational performance. The organisation used the discourse on workplace flexibility to blur the boundaries of work and life and persuade the employees to work harder and longer, to continuously increase productivity. In doing so, the organisation camouflaged its own economic sustainability and profitability as workplace flexibility.

A number of informal biological newsletters have a limited circulation. In addition to social news some of these contain information about research in progress, research material, and select bibliographies—these are called research newsletters and an analysis is made of the contents and scope of twenty‐two of them. The bibliographies are of several types and that compiled from the publications of the recipient's newsletter is discussed and its cover compared with that of Biological Abstracts. Suggestions to improve the usefulness of the research newsletters are made.

Members of Parliament (MPs) want to communicate their ideas, messages and activities to their constituents. Within the modern political campaigning era the central party organisation has dominated most political communication through its control of national media management. As a result many MPs have sought to reach constituents via their local media. The rise of the post‐modern era has encouraged many MPs to consider unmediated communication via the internet. E‐newsletters represent a mechanism by which MPs can reduce their reliance on party hierarchies and journalists to communicate with constituents. This article will look at the growth of e‐newsletters, and whether certain factors make some MPs more likely than others to provide an e‐newsletter. The findings suggest that e‐newsletters are a slow‐moving bandwagon, with MPs in marginal seats and certain parties more likely to hop on, but that MPs have not yet escaped from the straitjacket of the centrally controlled campaign.

Existing literature has agreed that during elections party web sites are primarily an information tool. This study seeks to identify to what extent political parties have developed a distinctive role for the Internet as a communications channel.

Research data were based on content analysis of the web sites and e‐newsletters of parties contesting the 2005 UK General Election, and interviews with party e‐campaigners.

Party size determined whether they had an integrated online communication strategy or not. The Internet did provide a discrete role, that of recruiting new members, encouraging donations and mobilising volunteers. Whereas previous research has focused on the web as an election campaign tool, this study found that it was e‐mail, especially pass‐protected e‐newsletters to party members.

The traditional view was that parties used their web sites primarily to promote information. This study suggests that they only do so partially. Parties do not use their web sites as part of an integrated communication strategy supporting the messages carried by other channels. In 2005 UK parties began to develop a positive reason for having an online presence, namely as a resource generating tool, particularly in mobilising volunteers. Previous literature had considered whether parties had entered into dialogue; this study further defined this into asymmetrical and symmetrical two‐way communication. The results suggest that it is smaller parties who are more likely to use two‐way symmetrical communication.

This paper aims to analyze the opinions of newsletter editors in the Sierra Club in an effort to understand the roles an editor and newsletter content play in building relationships in an activist setting. There are two goals: to examine editorial decision making in an activist organization; and to examine the role of interpersonal interaction as part of an organizational‐public relationship (OPR).

In‐depth interviews with 14 Sierra Club newsletter editors examined issues related to newsletter content choice, issue frames, sources, and mission.

The findings illustrate normative practices for grassroots gatekeepers. Editors saw their role as facilitating relationship building and activism among members. This has theoretical implications for OPR theory by suggesting a new facilitative relationship type.

As all qualitative research, the findings of this study are not generalizable. This study is further limited because it focuses on a single organization and one communication channel.

Most editors suggested that content selection was based on the expertise of the editor or an editorial or executive board. This provides strategic communication opportunities for both the national and the grassroots organization, if the editorial decision making model is identified by strategists.

Mid‐level gatekeepers, such as newsletter editors, are an important public to study because of their potential impact on key publics. This paper provides both practical and theoretical implications. Practical implications include insights into how some activist gatekeepers make decisions and into information salience.

In partnership with The Rockefeller Foundation, the RAHS Program Office (RPO) of the National Security Coordination Secretariat at the Prime Minister's Office in Singapore has undertaken the innovative approach of the Searchlight function to systematically make sense of the current contextual environment to be better positioned to anticipate the future of poor and vulnerable communities. This paper aims to outline the approach taken and to offer a glimpse into the next steps.

Using the expertise and knowledge from the Searchlight newsletters, RPO applied its SKAN‐to‐Trend Process to funnel down newsletters and generate themes for investigation. The process is augmented by the RAHS 2.0 system, to collect and classify data generated to analyse and understand relationships therein, and anticipate as well as discover emerging issues.

The scenario building tools allowed the RPO analysts to use systems thinking to build systems maps and influence diagrams to help identify critical drivers based on influence and to understand the relationships between driving forces. From the systems map, critical feedback loops were identified and analysed, and evidence marshalled to support alternative policy options to help overcome the vicious cycles of the poor and vulnerable communities.

Although the approach may seem limited in terms of breadth, it does provide a more in‐depth study of relevant insights and themes.

The selection process was done by analysts whose selections will necessarily be subjective depending on each of the analysts' worldview and leanings. This was balanced by gathering a team of analysts from RPO from diverse backgrounds, from the sciences and engineering to the arts.

It is evident that the expanding gulf of growing inequality will tear the social fabric because poverty and inequality are so intricately linked.

The paper shows that, as a visualisation partner, RPO will present a diversity of perspectives through the utilisation of its risk assessment and horizon scanning processes and tools to help understand the pathways of poor and vulnerable communities.