E-lert Newsletter Redesign: Content & Audience Growth Strategy

Role: Lead Content and Communications Strategist

Content Strategy ● Audience Development ● Editorial Planning ● Email Marketing ● Stakeholder Engagement ● Template Design

Project Overview

I identified an opportunity to modernize the Child Welfare Information Gateway's monthly email newsletter, E-lert, which serves child welfare professionals, mental health and legal practitioners, and families navigating the child welfare system.

The existing template was visually outdated, hard to scan, and underperforming on key engagement metrics. I initiated and led the full redesign end-to-end, owning the content strategy, editorial structure, and stakeholder management from concept to launch.

The Challenge

The E-lert newsletter had a loyal audience but wasn't living up to its potential.

The existing newsletter suffered from:

  • Outdated visual design inconsistent with the organization's brand

  • Poor content hierarchy that made it hard for readers to scan

  • Limited mobile responsiveness

  • Lower-than-industry-average engagement metrics

  • No editorial framework to guide consistent content decisions

My Approach

  • Analyzed historical performance (open rates, CTRs, unsubscribes) and benchmarked against similar organizations’ email strategies to identify gaps and opportunities.

  • Restructured the editorial framework by:

    • reorganizing content into clear sections for hierarchy and scannability

    • prioritizing key call to actions with prominent placement

    • adding a “flex” feature to serve as flexible content space

    • implementing shorter, more impactful headlines and action-oriented copy

    • translating regular monthly features into shorter, visual ads

  • Redesigned the template in GovDelivery to reflect the new content architecture — modular, scannable, and brand-consistent.

    Optimized for both mobile and desktop.

    Designed a new branded banner and footer, and both ad space templates.

    Introduced consistent use of buttons and white space for easier navigation.

  • Partnered with the product development team, gathered feedback throughout, and iterated before full launch.

The redesigned newsletter featured:

  • ​​​​​​​A modern, mobile-first design with clear hierarchy

  • A newly designed branded banner

  • Consistent branding and visual identity

  • Simplified navigation with modular content blocks

  • Stronger CTAs that guided readers toward priority actions

  • Two "ad" spaces for recurring features

The Solution

The Results

Within the first 6 months post-launch, the newsletter achieved:

“Lex led the E-lert redesign with impressive independence and clarity. She developed the workplan, content strategy, and visual design while mastering new skills with limited support. She quickly became our go-to expert for GovDelivery templates.”

— C. Lalonde-Hanna, Senior Manager of Marketing and Communications

“Lex embraced challenges, sought solutions proactively, and delivered a high-quality redesign that set a new standard for our subscriptions. The new E-lert was our first mobile-friendly, modern, fully branded template and was widely praised by the team, project leadership, and the client.”

— K. Zagar, Executive Director or Child Welfare Information Gateway

Key Takeaways

This project demonstrated my ability to combine marketing strategy with editorial instincts to deliver measurable results. By leading the project end-to-end, from content architecture and editorial planning to template design and stakeholder management, I strengthened one of the organization's most critical communications channels and grew an engaged audience of over 30,000 readers.

BEFORE

AFTER

Next Project