In December 2012, Chicago indie author Michael Coorlim was expanding his marketing efforts. The key part of his strategy was an email newsletter, to develop a base of highly engaged customers who will bring repeat sales and facilitate word-of-mouth advertising of his titles. The newsletter branding was brainstormed from his literary style of fast-paced character-driven fiction about authentic people in fantastic situations. The newsletter template was designed to be straightforward and mobile-friendly to foster engagement, and includes strategic subject lines and pre-headers to encourage opens. After only four issues, the campaigns' open rates steadily increased to 35% higher than industry average.
Ongoing strategic consulting assists Mr. Coorlim with his list growth; and in early 2015 the newsletter was rebranded, redesigned, and made fully responsive to adapt to the growth of mobile.