
WTF Am I Looking At? How Not to Send a Mail - batbkw
https://medium.com/@barakkassar/wtf-how-not-to-send-a-mail-75623472c868#.i9st5ob4m
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newscracker
On this note, I read the article and thought maybe I should feel like "WTF Am
I Looking At? How Not to Write an Article".

The title of the paragraph that says "The Problem" says this:

> Do I need a new account? “Get a New Account” is the the only obvious button
> I’m prompted to click. Yet, when I click it nothing becomes any clearer.

That is not a clear enough problem statement for some random person on the
Internet to understand what the author is even talking about at first read!
Instead of a long winded article (which Medium as a platform seems to
attract), where the problem is explained in terms of the solution, and which
still didn't seem clear by the end, the problem could've been explained better
initially.

Edit: The article about "Tappers and listeners" that was linked to was great!

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batbkw
fair point!

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reacharavindh
Is it really that common to refer to email as mail? I had a different
imagination when I clicked on the title...

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batbkw
i did think about that when writing the headline and post. i hope you don't
feel bait-and-switched. it seemed to me that in context of web the e was not
necessary. next time i'll consider putting back the e.

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reacharavindh
No, the title rang a bell because I was recently concerned about sending my
Passport over mail to an embassy for VISA. So I wanted to know if there was
something crazy about mail :-)

The post interesting nevertheless. I've had my share of similar email
experiences as well.

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barkbro
Just FYI, the credit/debit card company is often stylized as "VISA", and the
travel document is a "visa".

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reacharavindh
True. I stand educated and corrected. [can't edit the post anymore though]

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ninkendo
How about just don't send spam?

If you really "get into their head" you'll find what they really want is no
unsolicited email at all.

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FriendlyBeard
I work in higher education, which means there are _a lot_ of {terrible} emails
sent out daily. Recently I've started educating the senders on how to be more
effective, as well as not just copy and paste event listings from our website
to Mail Chimp.

It's a challenge teaching people how to be more effective in their emails
communications.

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spiderfarmer
"Get in their head"

Perfect advise. And if that's not possible: Ask someone in your target
audience to give you feedback.

You don't need A/B tests, fancy markup or the newest marketing patterns if the
gist of your message is misunderstood.

Ideally, the gist of the message should be in the subject line.

