The context
To address the successes, challenges and future outlook of the media and optimize its digital strategy, the Harmonie Santé team called on Médianes to run its team seminar and define, test and optimize its email marketing strategy.
Harmonie Santé, a mutual-aid media outlet with press status recognized by the Joint Commission for Publications and Press Agencies (CPPAP), aims to help its readers take an active role in their health and society by offering health and prevention articles and advice. Following a recent name change (from Essentiel Santé to Harmonie Santé) and the creation of a new editorial newsletter (Le Fil) complementing existing editorial products (quarterly print and digital magazine, news website, emails), Harmonie Santé needed support to align the team and benefit from strategic and operational guidance on its marketing and design challenges.
Our support was divided into two phases: a management mission to prepare and lead the media team's summer seminar, followed by a strategic and operational marketing mission in the fall.
Team Seminar
Preparing the media team seminar
To take advantage of the profound changes the media has experienced and successfully approach the new school year, the Harmonie Santé team called on Médianes to prepare and lead their team seminar.
To succeed during this period, we have therefore defined three main objectives with the management team to achieve at the June 2024 seminar:
- Strengthen team cohesion: Bring the team together in a new setting to improve motivation and solidarity.
- Step back: Take a break to assess the work completed, celebrate successes, and identify obstacles.
- Inspire and drive action: Share best practices and define concrete actions for the future.
Once the objectives were defined, we sent a questionnaire to the entire team to better understand each person's needs and prepare the sessions. In parallel, we offered a one-day program built around social moments, theoretical presentations, and practical time in Médianes's facilities. Each participant also left at the end of the day with a copy of our book Creating a Media to continue the discussion after the seminar.
Seminar facilitation: between theory and practice
Drawing on Médianes' experience in media innovation and editorial support, the seminar day was structured around theoretical, practical and social moments:
- Overview of Médianes, our principles, our values, and our book Creating a Media;
- Workshop to review team accomplishments collectively and prioritize current and upcoming projects;
- Café welcome, lunch and group debriefing;
- Presentation and feedback on working methods and organizational practices in new media (trust, autonomy, rigor). Reflections on two key challenges: how to produce less but better? How to (properly) work as a team?
Learn from the seminar to prepare what comes next
Following the seminar, the Médianes team met again with the management team to produce recommendations for the short, medium and long term for the media outlet, via a written document. The objective of this report was to synthesize the discussions and reflections shared during that day, to identify priority initiatives for the coming months and to define concrete actions to take to improve the media outlet's performance.
Through this work, three priority areas were able to be identified: developing knowledge of audiences, building up expertise and rigor, and adopting a product-focused approach within the team. And a roadmap with short, medium, and long-term perspectives based on concrete actions was proposed.
Email marketing strategy
Our digital strategy optimization mission was structured around three main areas:
- A strategy aimed at increasing the readership rate of the quarterly magazine, through the creation of optimized email campaigns (marketing, editorial, design).
- Design work to strengthen the editorial and visual identity of email templates and boost engagement.
- Structuring the global email strategy: analysis and optimization of email cycles, from discovery to loyalty, including acquiring new audiences and reactivating inactive readers.
Creating an email test device
Harmonie Santé sends out a quarterly magazine every quarter, designed to help readers become active participants in their own health. The team wanted to increase the open rate for the digital magazine sent by email, and called on Médianes to design an email campaign to test during a qualitative survey conducted by a partner marketing firm.
We designed an email campaign to test, based on several strategic marketing pillars: analysis of Harmonie Santé's email campaigns; the needs and usage patterns of key personas and the email's value proposition. Our work focused specifically on email subject lines, message structure, design, and copywriting. The goal was to understand which combination would be most effective in boosting email open rates and encouraging readers to engage with the magazine.
Strategic and operational implementation
About ten emails were designed with optimized subject lines and variations (short or long versions, editorial section creations, email structure variations, introduction suggestions, text and image balance, etc.). Additional work was carried out to optimize the presentation texts and notifications related to the magazine in the Harmonie Santé mobile application.
Graphic design
Redesign and adaptation of email templates
At Médianes, we are convinced that an email's appeal depends on both its design and accessibility. The marketing strategy was complemented by a redesign of the email templates and their variations to be tested during the study.
We redesigned the layout as the starting point for the reading experience of the Harmonie Santé magazine. The objective: to strengthen the editorial approach and highlight the quality and richness of the media's formats. We worked to better structure the user journey through optimized action buttons, greater prominence given to iconography, and harmonization of graphic elements to create a reassuring environment that establishes expertise and encourages continued reading.
Two versions were proposed for testing: a streamlined version focused on editorial content, and a more visually stimulating version, with more space for colors and interaction.
Strategy and action plan for the newsletter and email campaigns
Strengthen brand recognition and engagement following a name change
Guided by the results of market research and our analysis of the existing situation, we helped Harmonie Santé structure its global email strategy (including marketing emails and editorial newsletter). We delivered a strategic brief with recommendations and an actionable plan for the short, medium and long term.
Our recommendations covered the entire email cycle, from defining the value proposition to strengthen brand recognition (essential after a name change), acquiring new audiences, the signup journey, reactivating inactive readers, through to long-term loyalty.
Regular presentation and discussion sessions were held throughout the project to best adapt our support to the team's objectives and needs.
Harmonie Santé
Harmonie Santé, formerly Essentiel Santé Magazine, is the media of members of the mutual insurance companies of Union Harmonie Mutuelles. With press status recognized by the Joint Commission for Publications and Press Agencies (CPPAP), its mission is to help its readers become active participants in their health and society. It does this in support of prevention. Through its various channels (magazine, website, newsletter, social media and mutual member forums), Harmonie Santé is committed to delivering reliable information that drives action on health, particularly prevention, on social protection and on social issues such as the environment.
