
Increasing User Engagement in Emails - estromberg
http://estromberg.com/post/17714739482/emailengagement
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AznHisoka
I may be completely off-base but has anyone tried emails with NO images vs
emails with images, and see what the difference is? Whenever I get an email
from a company initially, I see blank images, especially on top of the fold,
and in the body. That turns me off, so I just delete the email, or glance over
it and delete it... It's just plain ugly.

However, if I am able to start reading the content right away, that gives me a
chance to click through. Now, of course some emails need images, like Groupon.
But I'm talking about unnecessary stuff like your huge logo.. I don't need to
see that in every single email you send.

~~~
aslewofmice
A good email template would utilize alt tags and have as much plain text as
possible without relying solely on images for the content of the email.

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TylerE
Rule 0: If you want my eyeballs, don't stealth subscribe me to anything. Just
because I bought one widget from you does _not_ mean I want to start getting
recurring e-mails from you. Violate this, even once, and you've lost my
business.

~~~
jilebedev
Hmm, this is an interesting business opportunity. I feel the same, but let me
prod it further. I suspect the core problem isn't that you're emailing me -
it's that you're doing so out of a focus on you, not me.

Hear me out: when I go through the email-signup hullabaloo on a website, it's
usually because I really want something from there. It's probably a one time
thing, and I'll likely forget about your site and brand momentarily after I
receive the object of my attention. When you email me two weeks down the road
with some "exciting features" or "website overhaul" or "biweekly coleslaw
update of random things on your website" -- I still don't care about you or
your website, and now you've annoyed me like a dinner party guest that blabs
on about themselves after everyone's body language has made it clear they're
not listening or caring.

What I do still slightly care about is the problem you've helped me solve two
weeks ago. I imagine a neat way to engage me would be: "Hey, you downloaded
these Visio stencils from our website, but check it out - we've just updated
our stencils library with these slightly older pieces of equipment. If you've
got something old kicking around, it's worth to have a look, instead of
drawing it yourself: link. Oh, and by the way, if you want a template and some
advice on modelling a building, check out this(link) post on our forums.
UsernameXYZ has worked in several large corporations and has modelled
enterprise-scale networks. 801 of our users thought it was good advice - it's
probably worth a read!"

There is a reason people sign up for service to use it once, and that ought to
be cleverly exploited to increase their engagement. The clever bit needn't be
unscalable either - the majority of one-time users likely fit into several
common scenarios (log in to download something, log in to post something, etc)
and it wouldn't be hard to come up with a set of custom messages, each
tailored for the particular scenario. That wouldn't cover every one-time use,
but I imagine it'd be a fair stab at it.

Do you think this would be a good way to engage you, or would it still fall
into the "annoying -> immediately delete from inbox" category?

~~~
whenisayUH
You're spot on. If you make it about "what's in it for the reader or
prospective customer", their receptivity and reaction to it will be much
better. That is in stark contrast to "here's why we're great" emails which are
the norm.

The ultimate user of this is Amazon who recommend you stuff based on what
you've looked at or bought.

I think TylerE maybe in the vocal minority here (no disrespect TylerE) but the
type of customized "what's in it for you" email your talking about works. And
many users who are looking to make their lives easier actually may appreciate
it.

------
gradschool
I don't know how practical this is, but I'd be impressed as all get-out with
any company that sends marketing emails to which replies are individually read
and answered knowledgeably in case I want to follow up something in them. An
autogenerated reply that I should "simply" visit their web page seems to imply
that they consider their time more valuable than mine. Is this another case
where they've done the math and concluded that it would be too labor intensive
for them to do the right thing, or are people in corporate marketing
departments genuinely unaware of the impression they're making? I'd be
grateful to anyone on HN in a position to satisfy my curiosity about this
question.

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timjahn
Everybody I've talked to feels that faded overlays (#5 on this list) are super
annoying from a user experience perspective. And I agree.

Everybody I've talked to says their data shows faded overlays are VERY
effective at increasing email subscriber signups. And I agree based on my
data.

Weird, isn't it? Heh.

~~~
sneak
If the average user was sparked to initiative by their annoyance, we wouldn't
have the DMV.

~~~
timjahn
So, so true.

