Tenant newsletters often suffer from lack of readership, particularly among those for whom english is not their first language or are affecting by reading difficulties or visual impairment. At the same time, it is not cost-effective for housing associations to produce multiple versions of each newsletter to suit all likely audiences.
Arena Partnership and Integro Languages have developed the video newsletter for tenants. VideoNewsletter gives a summary of tenant newsletters in video form, accessed either via DVD, the housing association’s existing web site, email, mobile phone or services such as YouTube. Arena takes care of all filming, editing and delivery, while Integro Languages manages the necessary language translations.
Tom Bool, managing director, Integro Languages, said, “Linking audio and visual elements makes for a far more interesting medium for most people. Non-english speakers can match scrolling text in their preferred language, while learning from the spoken english narration. Furthermore, a typical 8000-word newsletter can be condensed to approximately 20 per cent of its original word count, making the service very cost efficient.”
