Send Better Automated Emails
written by Allan on January 03, 2011
Few things frustrate me more than automated emails that leave me confused and feeling like the sender wasted my time. Here are a few points to make your emails feel less automated, more readable and more actionable which will increase the conversion rate of the email.
Salutations Stranger!
There's nothing worse then "Hi allan" or "Hi AllanBranch". The greeting is suppose to make the user feel like they know you. Automated emails are easily spotted because of this. Just cut to the point, drop the fake greeting, why are you emailing me?
Make every character matter.
Realize every letter you write, every sentence, every moment you use of your readers time is an opportunity to impress or to push them unsubscribe to your app, email or newsletter.
Make every character matter!
Matter? Yes we use extra words in LessAccounting for personality to breathe life into our app. You should be using each word to inform and bring action to the user or to make them smile.
Less Linkage
If you want the user to click and take action from your email, remove all the other distracting links. Email readers have the mind of a child, don't dangle other links in front of us. That means if you have a signature on the email, remove the links from it.
What devices are they using?
We use Litmus.com to track our emails and see what our users are reading our emails on. What did we find out?
That "other 17%" well 4% of those are the iPad. So we're making damn sure our emails look nice and well formatted in these readers.
What do you want me to do?
Be clear, if you want your user to do something tell them.
Example:
Step 1 – Log into the app
Step 2 – Navigate to "my account"
Step 3 – Add billing information
Real Life Example
The other day Spreadable.com, a tool to help promote word of mouth referrals, send me an automated email.
Thanks again for being a part of the Spreadable beta! As we mentioned last week, we’re offering you 50% off of your first three months of Spreadable for helping us shape the app.
We know you’re busy with the holidays, so the offer is good until January 21st of 2011. To sign up on the discounted plan, simply log in into the app and enter your payment details into the My Account section. If you decide not to continue using Spreadable, not to worry – we’ll automatically shut off your account after 30 days.
Happy Holidays,
The Spreadable Team
p.s. We got some great news yesterday. ReadWriteWeb named us one of the Top Small Business Tools of 2010 (along with the iPad no less).
Here's how I would have changed it:
Hello Friend!
Because you've been so helpful during our Spreadable beta, and because we love you!, we’re offering 50% off of your first three months!
Step 1 – Log into Spreadable
Step 2 – Navigate to "My Account"
Step 3 – Enter payment details and get 50% off for the the next 3 months
Step 4 – Start to see the power of word to mouth marketing!
Happy Holidays,
The Spreadable Team
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We were named one of Top Small Business Tools of 2010 along with the iPad!
Personally I love dashes
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They make the user feel like the content is sectional and they get less overwhelmed.
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Now go implement some improvements in your app.
Allan loves his family more than breathing. He lives in Panama City, Florida & grew up washing cars at his family's car washes. Oh and Allan hasn't worn underwear since 2004.
5 Comments
Some good ideas here but I disagree with a couple of things.
I would have left the p.s. in there instead of putting dashes in because it attracts attention (after I read about this, I realised that I almost always read the p.s.). A single line at the end separated by dashes looks more like an email signature to me.
And what’s up with “because we love you!,”? I think proper spelling and punctuation matter.
Good suggestions. I wish the folks at 37Signals would read this regarding Basecamp. Their HTML e-mail is an improvement over their old text-based one but there are a ton of links in the thing. Looking at a todo I see:
Now if the content of the message includes a link itself then things get even more confusing.
@Alex, I respect your opinion, for us, having personality and creating emphasis! are worth breaking the rules for. We all need to do what’s best for our app. :)
@Eric, The thing to remember is the purpose of the email (like the purpose of everything else in your app) is to make money. We have a client who’s site is a shopping cart. They do things that make it harder for the user because for them it does translate into more purchases. (Yes, they’ve tested.) Maybe it’s the same to 37S. We all need to do what’s best for our app. :)
Jason Fried at 37 Signals has spoken and written about the same topic. I love the idea of respecting your users time as if it was your own. Should you eliminated all of the steps and just say:
“Enter your payment details to see the power of word to mouth marketing!”
There is no need to restate the first part of the email again or tell people to login.
Nice post. Especially the “What do you want me to do?” advice.
I just posted a related article with a slightly different twist. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think.
http://blog.rassemblr.com/2011/01/user-registration-follow-up-email-a-check-list/
Cheers!