

Ask HN: Internal Messaging vs. Emailing Users - xyclos

Within our application we have an internal messaging system for users.  Recently our marketing staff has asked for a feature to allow them to mass message using our internal system rather than sending emails.<p>My first response is that it should be better in most cases to send emails.<p>What is everyone&#x27;s opinion on this? Should it be acceptable for us to message our users within the application, or should we only use email?
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dangrossman
I think there are situations that warrant both, and lots of companies do both.
For example, Google has an alerts button in many of their apps that shows in-
app messages about new features or issues that need your attention. They also
send mass e-mails for more important notifications like policy changes.

You can give your marketing staff the power they want without any in-house
development by popping [https://www.intercom.io/](https://www.intercom.io/)
into your app. It handles both in-app messaging and real e-mails, with a
system for segmenting users so you can send messages to only the groups that
need to receive them, e.g. only trial users or only those that haven't logged
in recently.

