- The paper demonstrates that strategic placement of organizational messages boosts recognition in bulk emails through an 8-week factorial experiment.
- It employs a 4x5x5 factorial design integrating both organizational and employee preferences to test variables like subject lines, top news, and message order.
- The findings highlight a hybrid personalization approach that balances employee interest with strategic content placement to enhance overall engagement.
Multi-Objective Personalization in Multi-Stakeholder Organizational Bulk E-mail: An Analysis
This paper details a field experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Minnesota to investigate personalization strategies in organizational bulk emails, specifically within a university setting. Conducted over eight weeks, the experiment rigorously evaluated the impact of personalized bulk emails on both strategic and tactical communication goals involving multiple stakeholders. The investigation employs a factorial design to test variables such as subject lines, top news placement, and message order regarding recognition, interest, and reading time.
The bulk emails, termed newsletters in this paper, serve as a communication channel for relaying organizational messages like policy updates and administrative plans. However, these emails face the challenge of aligning the organization's intent with the recipients' preferences. Hence, personalization is explored as a potential solution to enhance employee engagement while satisfying organizational communication objectives.
Experiment and Methodology
The paper utilized an 8-week field experiment involving 141 university employees, implementing a 4x5x5 factorial design. This design allowed for in-depth analysis of different personalization strategies involving subject lines, top news, and message order. Employees' preferences were collected via surveys and considered alongside the organization's preferences, determined through input from communication editors. The personalization incorporated both perspectives to optimize message relevance.
Key findings revealed that placing "important-to-organization" messages within the most visible sections, such as subject lines or top news, improved recognition rates. However, the desired "read-in-detail" rate was not significantly affected unless the messages aligned with employees' interests.
Tactical and Strategic Goals
The paper splits its objectives into tactical and strategic goals. The tactical goals focus on boosting recognition and perception of organization-prioritized messages, while strategic goals aim to enhance overall employee engagement and interest in these emails. The findings suggest an inherent tension between these goals, underscoring the importance of strategic placement and blending of organization-preferred with employee-preferred content.
The results articulate that tactical goals like recognition can be effectively addressed through message placement in prominent positions; however, strategic goals like sustained interest and reading time require a more nuanced approach, balancing content relevance.
Implications of Findings
Practically, the research suggests that organizational bulk emails can benefit from a hybrid personalization approach. Mixing employee-interest content with essential organizational messages appeared to yield the best overall engagement. Theoretically, it signals a broader understanding of multi-stakeholder communication dynamics, advocating further research into balancing personalization with strategic communication.
Future developments could explore more granular personalization techniques, including content adaptation based on real-time user data and feedback loops that continuously refine message relevance. Moreover, enhancing mechanisms for stakeholder preference acquisition could elevate the personal relevance of bulk emails, thereby optimizing both organizational communication efficacy and employee engagement.
In essence, the paper highlights that while tactical goals can be efficiently addressed through strategic message placement, achieving comprehensive strategic objectives demands a more elaborate understanding of recipient preferences and communication context. This research could inspire future studies focused on refining multi-stakeholder communication in various organizational settings, thereby enhancing the role of personalized content in fostering effective communication channels.