I have always been hesitant to utilize email campaigns, mostly because I (like Patrick) consider myself an email newsletter hater, and I don't want people to hate me too. But I think Patrick brings up a good point, that people will be less likely to hate you for emailing them if they remember who you are and why you're bothering them. I get a newsletter every month from Dreamhost, so I'm never surprised or irritated when it shows up, because I expect it, and they're usually at least a little funny.
This is super valuable advice. One of the biggest issues I've seen in the technology world is forgetting that we are (often) not the target customer or the largest moneymakers.
There's a kind of minimum barrier of entry to interact on the places we like to hang out (knowledge, interests, etc), so a lot of people tend to get used to everyone being at that level of intelligence/tech savvyness. Then you launch a product that any "tech" person would easily be able to navigate and use, but someone who still mixes up which one is the mouse sometimes might still have some problems with it.
Exactly. And the average web user does not have the aversion that we (techies) do for email. Most people don't use RSS or Twitter so email is their primary medium for online communication.
This was brought home for me vividly last year. I sent an email out for Halloween to a few hundred people, neglected to send one out in November, and got an email from a lady in Kansas asking if I could please resend the November newsletter because her Yahoo must have eaten it. People like getting emails?! People like getting my emails?!? The newsletters are nowhere near my best writing: here's this month's holiday, you should play bingo, here's how. But at least some people miss them when they don't get them.
I swear, there is so much we don't know that we don't know about our customers.
Comments
I have always been hesitant to utilize email campaigns, mostly because I (like Patrick) consider myself an email newsletter hater, and I don't want people to hate me too. But I think Patrick brings up a good point, that people will be less likely to hate you for emailing them if they remember who you are and why you're bothering them. I get a newsletter every month from Dreamhost, so I'm never surprised or irritated when it shows up, because I expect it, and they're usually at least a little funny.
This is super valuable advice. One of the biggest issues I've seen in the technology world is forgetting that we are (often) not the target customer or the largest moneymakers.
There's a kind of minimum barrier of entry to interact on the places we like to hang out (knowledge, interests, etc), so a lot of people tend to get used to everyone being at that level of intelligence/tech savvyness. Then you launch a product that any "tech" person would easily be able to navigate and use, but someone who still mixes up which one is the mouse sometimes might still have some problems with it.
Exactly. And the average web user does not have the aversion that we (techies) do for email. Most people don't use RSS or Twitter so email is their primary medium for online communication.
This was brought home for me vividly last year. I sent an email out for Halloween to a few hundred people, neglected to send one out in November, and got an email from a lady in Kansas asking if I could please resend the November newsletter because her Yahoo must have eaten it. People like getting emails?! People like getting my emails?!? The newsletters are nowhere near my best writing: here's this month's holiday, you should play bingo, here's how. But at least some people miss them when they don't get them.
I swear, there is so much we don't know that we don't know about our customers.
Thank you for pointing it out again. We are not our customers.
I'm now heading towards mailchimp to finish and put online my email collecting form.
'Your Mom' is one of the best customers on the web. I always keep that in mind.