PSX-5 Evaluating the Impact of an Online Newsletter on Virtual Stakeholder Engagement with Extension Educational Materials

Abstract

Abstract University Extension programs traditionally disseminate agricultural information via in-person meetings and hardcopy publications even though universities have progressively transitioned towards delivering educational materials online over the past few decades. Given the demographic characteristics of beef cattle producers, who are predominantly older and tend to adhere to traditional practices, it is crucial to understand how the implementation of different content delivery strategies impact their engagement with online educational material. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of implementing an electronic newsletter on stakeholder engagement with beef educational online publications. Engagement with online material provided on the University of Georgia (UGA) beef extension website (ugabeef.com) was evaluated 12 months before and 12 months after the UGA Beef Tips n’ Advice newsletter was launched using Siteimprove monthly reports. The newsletter was delivered monthly to an email list of beef cattle producers and industry professionals that previously attended in-person Extension programs provided by the UGA. Content of the newsletter included articles written by beef Extension Specialists, resources on current market updates and industry performance trends, and resources for upcoming Extension programs. Response variables included overall number of website visits, number of unique visitors, and overall number of pages within the website that were visualized. Each month was considered an experimental unit (n = 24) and data were analyzed using the MIXED procedure of SAS with the fixed effect of the email newsletter status (before versus after newsletter launch). The overall number of monthly visits to the website increased by 259% after the newsletter was launched (before: 99.17 ± 13.39 and after: 307.69 ± 12.87; P < 0.01). Moreover, the monthly number of unique visitors increased by 210% (before: 99.17 ± 13.39 and after: 307.69 ± 12.87; P < 0.01). Similar results were observed for the overall number of pages visualized, where the 12 months before launching the website had fewer page visits in the 12 months before the newsletter was launched compared with the 12 months after launching the newsletter (before: 170.92 ± 36.86 and after: 613.62 ± 35.42; P < 0.01). In conclusion, the use of an online newsletter increased stakeholder engagement and resulted in greater producer outreach through the UGA beef extension website.