Fundamental Email Mistakes

A few days back, I have written about Delighting Users with Email in Three Simple steps. Immediately after I published that post, I got another email from a company called MineKey. You can see the screen shot of the mail below. What impression does it leave about this company?

• Dear Blogger: Don't I have a name??
• I am excited to let you know: Ok, so What?? What is in it for me?. See the difference it makes, if we rephrase as "You will be excited to know"
• Syndicate your Blog posts: Understand your end users. They are bloggers alright, but they may not be in the same line as you on the technology front. Tell them in plain simple terms. Have a simple,"Reach Wider Auidence" for the subtitle and then explain the technology behind.
• Uploading your OPML: Use action oriented language. "upload your OPML". Same with the joining the published network, use action!!
• Please let me know: Compare this with the way Briow requests for feedback. The users have to take time to provide you feedback, so respect them and their time.

Also check out the above message at the fag end of the mail. (I scroll down more than a page to get to this). Not only was all the scrolling unnecessary, but also this message at the end robs of the slightest sympathy I have for Minekey.

Remember in an email, you are writing to a real person and marketing your product to him/her. Break away from your corporate mould and speak human.

PS: Being a IIT KGP alumni startup, I have soft corner for Minekey and want them to succeed big time, in spite of being disappointed with their offerings. The main reason for this disappointment, some simple small things that are they are doing wrong. In a near future post, I will review the user experience of Minekey.

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Delighting Users with Email in Three Simple steps

You have registered with for a product or service on some site. How many times did you repent the move later. You get spam all the time and there is not break from it. Recently I got a mail from a company with which I registered a while back. It turned out that this company has launched a new web site and wanted the users of it's previous products to try the new one.

If it were a normal promotion mail, I would have thrown it to the trash. However, in this case I was pleasantly surprised and decided to write about them. Check the mail I received.
The company is frenchtutorial (A very good product they got) and the new site is Briow. The reason I am delighted

• Dear Ramjee: address me by my name and not like Dear User et. al. This is a no brainier, but I find many companies missing this step.
• Bangalore: This requires a decent amount of work in preparing the mailer. How many companies do you see taking the pain to customize the mailers to you the user.
• The tone of the mail, is not to just let you know of the product but also one of a request where your feedback is sought.

I used Briow, not a great tool, but I would still use it because of this mailer. The overall user experience is high!!

The above mailer is a beautiful usage of automated mass mailing and personalization.
Three simple steps to mind while sending your mailers:

• Use Personal Salutations.
• Use personal details intelligently in the copy(mailer).
• Give user the respect he deserves.
  

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