Hello again,% username%!

Continuing the topic of mailing lists, I would like to raise a rather holistic question about the preference for the format of mailing lists. By the way, the results of the survey on Habré are pleasantly surprising. Weigh all the pros and cons on specific examples before throwing slippers at the disagreeing opponent. As examples, the fictitious Democompany corporation and its various projects, which to one degree or another use mailings to their users / clients, will be considered.

Democompany.com

The first we will consider the main site of the democompany corporation, which is a business card site and describes the main advantages of the company, a set of services, pricing, contact information and more. This company also loves to personalize its customers and asks them to register on the site as a client, indicating a little information about themselves: last name, first name, email, company, site.

In theory and at this stage, this registration gives the company an overall picture of their client, which allows him (the client) to write tickets to the company's support service. Having assessed the situation, we can say that the user can receive the following letters from the company:

- Confirmation of registration on the site
- Confirmation of a change in personal data
- Notification that the customer’s ticket was sent to support
- Response to the application
- Confirmation of the decision / non-solution of the issue of the application

What do we have? Five letters of the same type, which can be arranged in plain / text like this:

Здравствуйте, %firstname% %lastname%,
%Текст подтверждения/уведомления/ответа%

Спасибо, что обратились к нам,
%operator_name%, служба поддержки клиентов,
Democompany Ltd, www.democompany.com, +7(812)123 4567

or in HTML like this:



or even like this:




What can you say about these three options? The first option is good because it performs its main function - to convey information to the client, without overloading it with unnecessary information. The second option using HTML for markup solves a similar problem, but also emphasizes the corporate identity of the company with a light design. The third option in this case is not so successful, because it overloads the letter with design, thereby distracting the addressee from the basic information, which is not so much. In this case, do not turn the letter into a page on the site.

For the above newsletters, I choose option number 2 with light HTML.

Blog.democompany.com

At the same time, our invented corporation can maintain a blog in which it publishes interesting press releases and interesting articles on the subject of its business. From here comes another source of email newsletters.

Before I talk about him, I would like to make a small digression. You do not have the right (well, at least from the ethical side) to periodically send out to the user without his personal consent. In the previous example, the consent of the user is not required, since the commission of his actions entails the generation of a message addressed to him. In the case of periodicals, permission is obtained from the client in several ways:

- When registering a user on the site, you can provide an item on your regular mailing. The user must be able to unsubscribe, which means you should not operate on the fact that since the person is a client of the company, he is obliged to clog his mailbox.
- Also on its website / blog Democompany places a form, filling out which the client can subscribe to the periodic newsletter.
- If the client did not deign to subscribe himself, an email is sent to the client, in which the company asks if% username% wants to receive the newsletter? And only after obtaining consent, a person is included in the mailing list. But this does not mean that in the event of a person’s refusal, one must subscribe weekly / daily with such proposals.

Another important point: the user should be able to independently unsubscribe from regular mailings in his account on the site, as well as by the link from the received letter. Moreover, clicking on the link for unsubscribing should not imply additional authorizations, unsubscribing should be done directly, which many Runet services sin.

So, what kind of newsletters can a client receive from the aforementioned blog?

- The full text of the news / article at the time of publication
- The title, announcement and link to the full text of the news / article at the time of publication
- A list of headers, announcements and links to the full text of news / articles for a certain period
- Notifications of new comments on the news / article, which the user has already commented

Ideally, provide the user with the opportunity to choose the frequency and format of messages, as well as a partial refusal (for example, from comments).

I will give examples of plain / text versions of the above mailing lists.

Full text news

Здравствуйте, %firstname% %lastname%,

Спешим сообщить вам, что, Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

С оригиналом новости/статьи Вы можете ознакомиться здесь --> %url%

Пресс-центр компании Democompany www.democompany.com, +7(812)123 4567

In this case, the heading of the news / article can be indicated in the subject line.

Short text news

Здравствуйте, %firstname% %lastname%,

Спешим сообщить вам, что, Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

Более подробно вы можете ознакомиться с материалом перейдя по ссылке --> %url%

Пресс-центр компании Democompany www.democompany.com, +7(812)123 4567

In this case, the heading of the news / article can also be indicated in the subject line of the letter.

News list

Здравствуйте, %firstname% %lastname%,
За прошедшую неделю мы опубликовали ряд интерсных публикаций, которые наверняка Вас заинтересуют.

%date% %title%
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.%read_more_link%
================================================
%date% %title%
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. %read_more_link%
================================================
%date% %title%
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.%read_more_link%
================================================
%date% %title%
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.%read_more_link%
================================================

Пресс-центр компании Democompany www.democompany.com, +7(812)123 4567

Comment Notification

Здравствуйте, %firstname% %lastname%,
Топик, %topic_url% в котором вы примнимали участие подлежит дальнейшему обсуждению, и без вас там никак не обойтись!

Пресс-центр компании Democompany www.democompany.com, +7(812)123 4567

Or maybe HTML?

I ask you not to complain that I’ll ship all the screenshots. I consider it necessary for completeness and clarity.

Full text news

Short text news

News list

Comment Notification

Or is that cooler?

Full text news

Short text news

News list

Comment Notification

What can be said about this?

Nothing straightforward. Minimalistic HTML is more convenient to some extent, and more “loaded” to some extent. It seems to me that the testing method will help determine the choice. Spend a mailing in one style, send a mailing in a different style. Compare the statistics which emails were more attractive to the majority of your subscribers and led to the transitions to the site, and which less. Although comment notifications can be categorically categorized as minimalism by the principle of notifications for democompany.com.

Shop.democompany.com

Here I will not torment you with an abundance of screenshots, because it is obvious that for marketing mailings it is necessary to resort exclusively to graphically rich html mailings. Whether it is a commercial offer, seasonal promotion, sale of any product, you will not be able to interest the buyer with the text version of the letter. Minimalism is acceptable in rare cases. Although not everything is so simple. For a tick and for this moment I will give a number of mailings:

- Advertising of goods, services and everything that you can advertise (this item falls into the category of exclusively HTML mailings)

The rest of the items most likely fall under the controversial item, as was the case with the Blog .

- Checkout at the store
- Order
confirmation - Payment confirmation
- Customer service department (support)
- All kinds of notifications

Total

What about all this? You have a simple non-profit service / community that does not sell any goods and does not perform regular mass mailings? Plain / text or, at best, light HTML to help you. A solid company? Pay a little attention to your style. Marketplace, marketing giant? HTML only! And to what extent? Study your target audience and be happy. Our service will help you perfectly when conducting tests to study the target audience of your subscribers.