

How to get lost users to come back to your product - alexgodin
http://blog.alexgodin.com/post/47045832186/how-to-get-lost-users-to-come-back-to-your-product

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solox3
You should also know when to stop emailing them.

I have received over twenty emails from Facebook, asking me if I know Tom
Levesque, and to SEND him a friend request. Over and over, and over again. No,
I don't know a Tom Levesque. I don't need to be asked the same question
repeatedly.

~~~
jsnell
Right on.

A while back I logged into a Twitter account that had been dormant for a
couple of years, since it appeared that some good friends had started using it
more actively. As a result, I started getting email from Twitter once a week
like clockwork. Clearly not a "our algorithms determined that something
interesting happened" message, but a "our algorithm determined that you should
get a message once a week, let's pick a random event from your social graph"
one.

The main result is that I know better than to ever log in again and become a
marginally engaged user worth spamming.

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gingerlime
I also thought those fb emails, and even more so the linkedin ones where
people endorse you to be very effective. So I personally hated and admired
them at the same time.

The problem for me is that those tactics don't seem to translate so well
outside of the social-network environment. When you have customers who use
your products, and there's no personal interaction between customers, then
what can you use that's as effective to bring customers back to use your
product?

Features is perhaps the only thing, but it's not even remotely as effective in
my opinion. And features can be a double-edged sword as they are quite often
not really important to the customer.

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factorialboy
Persistent emails does not win me over. In fact when a reputed company /
product I may have once tried sends me irrelevant emails, I just use the spam
button.

Don't call (email) me, I'll call you (visit your website when i need to).

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incision
I've never used Facebook, but I'm flooded with messages from Twitter and
LinkedIn which are identical to these.

Personally, I'd be much more likely to read and consider re-signing by way of
less frequent messages which suggest _how_ the product has been improved and
_why_ I might want to come back.

Incessant "FOMO" pressure just trains me to ignore that pattern.

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kevinburke
As a side note the photos of "people I may know" on Facebook, in emails I get
and the emails in the post are mostly pretty girls.

~~~
alexgodin
Wow. It is pretty crazy that they're all female. I wonder if they have an
algorithm to figure out who's more attractive or if they just choose people of
the opposite gender.

~~~
lgray
It's probably people with a lot of friends in your area. And if you already
have a few friends, it's probably friends of those friends. Maybe pretty girls
are just the ones with the most friends?

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chris_engel
Well, I can hardly see a chance of using this in a service thats not a social
Network.

For every other kind of service/app, I would send a reminder once in a while
and/or showing the users what has changed on the service since their last
visit.

Or much more crazy: ASK them why they are not coming back. If they are unhappy
with your service. I think you might be suprised about how many valuable
answers you will get.

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carlsednaoui
Thanks for sharing Alex! Are there any other companies you think are worth
looking at in terms of email marketing?

I'm personally a fan of how well designed Twitter's re-engagement emails are.

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kunle
> Data shows that emails with questions in the subject perform much much
> better.

Would you be able to point to this? Would love the reference.

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bernardom
FYI: You blurred out the names on the image but not on the sentence above it.

