VERIFY (verifythis.com / @verifythis) is a national cross-platform, fact-checking media organization that answers viewer and reader questions about what’s true and what’s false among trending news and viral claims on social media. VERIFY is unique in the fact-checking community because we have a personal connection with our followers. We receive daily questions from subscribers and non-subscribers alike via direct message, email, and text. Our team promptly responds in a way that is helpful and conversational, and we’ll often answer our viewers' questions in our newsletter. VERIFY is also unique because of our straightforward article structure; we state the claim, we provide the answer, we show our sources and we explain the conclusion through facts. Listing credible sources is one of the most important part of our published stories; we regularly link to our sources and only publish stories that use at least two primary sources to verify the answer.
On May 5, 2021, VERIFY launched a newsletter to be emailed each weekday morning. Rather than being text-heavy like many news-based newsletters, VERIFY's was designed with visual presentation in mind. The layout is mobile-forward and uses easy-to-scroll-through ‘cards’ that give subscribers quick access to daily facts on trending topics. For readers who are interested in learning more and have the time to dive deeper, links are provided throughout the email to VERIFY’s articles, social media posts, and videos.
Each ‘card’ is a new section with a title and graphic icon to keep the newsletter visually organized, clean, and easy to follow. Graphics were also designed for ‘true’ and ‘false’ conclusions, story sources, and ‘read more’ buttons while showcasing the VERIFY Brand. Our high open rate demonstrates that the VERIFY newsletter’s design and functionality continue to stand out in subscriber inboxes.
In less than a year since its May 2021 launch, the VERIFY newsletter has grown from only a handful of subscribers to more than 11,000 and counting. The average open rate in 2021 was 40% with a record-high open rate of 52% on a single day—much higher than expected in the industry.
The heading of the newsletter has a modern design that calls attention to the VERIFY brand and contains a CTA that prompts subscribers to contact the VERIFY team with questions they would like verified. Next is a quick tease of the issue’s stories to entice our subscribers to continue reading and a second CTA to share the newsletter with friends. We then move on to our ‘Question of the Day.’
