What marks out a high-quality online newsletter? This question has now been systematically evaluated by media experts from Hanover’s Technical College, who have developed the first scientifically-based test for online newsletters. In a pilot project, a comprehensive criteria catalogue was drawn up to help assess the quality of newsletters.

Based on the test criteria, the scientists gave newsletters from four different banks – Postbank, ING DiBA, Commerzbank and Citibank - a thorough examination. Result: Postbank’s private customer newsletter emerged as the winner on points. The Postbank newsletter achieved the best scores for valuable content, user-friendliness and data security.

Previously, the specialist press tended to consider individual aspects of Internet newsletters. Now, the Hanover media experts have analyzed these online media from all different angles and used a detailed literary analysis to identify practical standards for good newsletters. Over 450 criteria were drawn from more than 300 specialist sources, relating to content, language and target group orientation, layout and technology, and data protection and security.

“As systematic evaluations of websites have been the norm for some time, a comparable scientific standard for online newsletters was long overdue”, says Prof. Stefan Heijnk, online expert from the Journalism and Public Relations study group at the Hanover Technical College, on his motivation for the project. “Our newsletter test can be used to examine any newsletter from all aspects. The result is not only to display their respective strengths and weaknesses as clear as day, but also to help formulate quite specific optimization proposals.”