People don't write bad emails because they don't care. They really do care, but the emails that come from startups are often written with a mixture of fear of being perceived as spam, and a lack of understanding of how to connect with people.
Before I started an email startup, I would probably have written the same types of emails. It's amazing that once you start to focus on something, you notice the little things.
I taught a class a few weekends ago on how to write better emails (slides: https://speakerdeck.com/sudonim/write-emails-people-will-rea... ). I'm happy to help anyone (for free) who wants to do things better than they are now. Contact info is in my profile.
Yes, I think they certainly don't write bad emails because they don't care. They might write bad emails because they care too much. They may think about their product constantly, so stating the obvious about it doesn't even come to mind (and I generalize horribly here).
Good slides btw, worth checking out for anyone. Many startup email writers may be even too conscious of following the AIDA guideline and thinking that in order to grab the reader's attention, they have to open with the feature or the announcement, instead of reminding what it is that they do. Happy you address the 'noreply', too.
Am I reading any of this data incorrectly? Is this a case where the answer really is, "it depends"? Or is there truly one format that is better than the other?
Right now my position is that for the effort, you're better off writing good content than worrying about your template.
We've seen really strong performance from simple formatting (bold, italics) where the focus is on building a relationship with the user:
"Hi, I just saw you signed up and wanted to help you get started". This is meant to feel hand-written.
I saw that thread and rather than make unsubstantiated claims in response, I want to get a better understanding of when you should use a highly-styled layout and gather some data.
Multi-column in my opinion is way out. It's a mess on mobile, and you probably shouldn't do it. A great example of a nice single-column, styled email is campaign monitor's newsletter.
Yes, the "fear of being perceived as spam" is certainly something we all have. I really feel like stating what our company does would be like "Hey I'm company X trying to sell you Y you don't care about".
Well, if you don't tell us why you are emailing and what your company does, then the emails just come off as:
"Hey, I'm company X and I'm not going to say much other than we've updated stuff based on feedback other people provided but I'll include you in that group."
You then go on to say:
"Version X.beta{4.3} is ready for release and you want to thank me for my support."
Finally....
"Follow us on twitter where we won't post anything because we don't want to spam you their either."
Now, I vaguely remember signing up to get info on something a long time ago, and you might be those people, but I don't have a clue. And now you don't even have the courtesy to let me know who the hell you are? How we are related?
No, no, it's even worse than that.
You are a company that proposed an idea, and I asked to be informed when more information was available. You've already got me listening. I'm interested. I want to be told why I should give a damn about you. Instead, you have the nerve to tell me that my interest is not worthy of your time and effort to spend a few minutes trying to sell to me?
"Hey I'm company X trying to sell you Y you don't care about"
I already asked to be sold! I already showed I cared! If anything, you've taken my first bit of feedback and told me to fuck off. I'm not worthy. Why?
Because you are scared.
And it gets better. You aren't selling to me sends off warning lights. So, why should I rely or buy from a company that has proven they:
1. Don't want to sell their product.
2. Don't listen or trust my input.
3. Don't believe in what they are doing to try and sell their product.
4. Don't even want to tell people who are interested about how to get their product.
I want to support cool new ideas. I've got money. I'd rather see it go to a cool new startup then a frappe-latte-mocha-chocolatte-ino.
So stand up and be an adult. Be a leader. Say "Here is what we built, here is how it helps you, and this is where you can buy it," because if you don't do that, you are really saying "I don't care.
"I finally decided it was time to launch my own company, with Charles and Stan."
Unless you haven't announced it yet, why aren't you talking about it? Why aren't you sharing it? Is what you are doing worthless? Then it doesn't matter. But is it something worthwhile? Then share it!
Hey Charlie, the second slide was just another example showing contrast between plain and fancy -- more of a talking point during the class. Both of them were reader submitted so I didn't have any data.
It's something I'm interested to test a little more. In general, plain text is a pretty safe, high performing option. However, I've heard that a well designed HTML email has done better in A/B tests. I want to find the proof.
Awesome. Yeah, I feel like it's the kind of thing where people opening their data could be really useful for everyone. (Though I recognize the difficulty in accounting for all the variables in terms of audience, message, design, etc.) I signed up for your newsletter; if you ever do scare up more data on it, it could make for a great note.
Comments
People don't write bad emails because they don't care. They really do care, but the emails that come from startups are often written with a mixture of fear of being perceived as spam, and a lack of understanding of how to connect with people.
Before I started an email startup, I would probably have written the same types of emails. It's amazing that once you start to focus on something, you notice the little things.
I taught a class a few weekends ago on how to write better emails (slides: https://speakerdeck.com/sudonim/write-emails-people-will-rea... ). I'm happy to help anyone (for free) who wants to do things better than they are now. Contact info is in my profile.
Yes, I think they certainly don't write bad emails because they don't care. They might write bad emails because they care too much. They may think about their product constantly, so stating the obvious about it doesn't even come to mind (and I generalize horribly here).
Good slides btw, worth checking out for anyone. Many startup email writers may be even too conscious of following the AIDA guideline and thinking that in order to grab the reader's attention, they have to open with the feature or the announcement, instead of reminding what it is that they do. Happy you address the 'noreply', too.
Great deck! Out of curiosity, one of your slides seems to say that plain text emails perform better than HTML (i.e. fancy) emails:
Plain text: $17,500, Fancy: $4,300.
A bunch of replies in this thread have people saying HTML emails perform better than plain text ones:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4856529
Am I reading any of this data incorrectly? Is this a case where the answer really is, "it depends"? Or is there truly one format that is better than the other?
Hey Mike,
Right now my position is that for the effort, you're better off writing good content than worrying about your template.
We've seen really strong performance from simple formatting (bold, italics) where the focus is on building a relationship with the user:
"Hi, I just saw you signed up and wanted to help you get started". This is meant to feel hand-written.
I saw that thread and rather than make unsubstantiated claims in response, I want to get a better understanding of when you should use a highly-styled layout and gather some data.
Many of our customers like to use our "light" layout ( https://raw.github.com/customerio/skins/master/Light/light_s...) for transactional emails and put their logo up top. There's a bit of styling, but it is really subtle.
Multi-column in my opinion is way out. It's a mess on mobile, and you probably shouldn't do it. A great example of a nice single-column, styled email is campaign monitor's newsletter.
http://campmon.createsend.com/t/ViewEmailArchive/y/78AABCA56...
Yes, the "fear of being perceived as spam" is certainly something we all have. I really feel like stating what our company does would be like "Hey I'm company X trying to sell you Y you don't care about".
Well, if you don't tell us why you are emailing and what your company does, then the emails just come off as:
"Hey, I'm company X and I'm not going to say much other than we've updated stuff based on feedback other people provided but I'll include you in that group."
You then go on to say:
"Version X.beta{4.3} is ready for release and you want to thank me for my support."
Finally....
"Follow us on twitter where we won't post anything because we don't want to spam you their either."
Now, I vaguely remember signing up to get info on something a long time ago, and you might be those people, but I don't have a clue. And now you don't even have the courtesy to let me know who the hell you are? How we are related?
No, no, it's even worse than that.
You are a company that proposed an idea, and I asked to be informed when more information was available. You've already got me listening. I'm interested. I want to be told why I should give a damn about you. Instead, you have the nerve to tell me that my interest is not worthy of your time and effort to spend a few minutes trying to sell to me?
"Hey I'm company X trying to sell you Y you don't care about"
I already asked to be sold! I already showed I cared! If anything, you've taken my first bit of feedback and told me to fuck off. I'm not worthy. Why?
Because you are scared.
And it gets better. You aren't selling to me sends off warning lights. So, why should I rely or buy from a company that has proven they:
1. Don't want to sell their product. 2. Don't listen or trust my input. 3. Don't believe in what they are doing to try and sell their product. 4. Don't even want to tell people who are interested about how to get their product.
I want to support cool new ideas. I've got money. I'd rather see it go to a cool new startup then a frappe-latte-mocha-chocolatte-ino.
So stand up and be an adult. Be a leader. Say "Here is what we built, here is how it helps you, and this is where you can buy it," because if you don't do that, you are really saying "I don't care.
---
Then I go to your profile here on HN.
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=louischatriot
"I finally decided it was time to launch my own company, with Charles and Stan."
Unless you haven't announced it yet, why aren't you talking about it? Why aren't you sharing it? Is what you are doing worthless? Then it doesn't matter. But is it something worthwhile? Then share it!
Sell me! I asked for it!
Those slides are fantastic. Seriously great content, especially the "start the e-mail with the template" slide. Thanks for linking that.
On the second "simple or fancy" slide, what were the results of the data on that? Same (general) results as the first slide?
Hey Charlie, the second slide was just another example showing contrast between plain and fancy -- more of a talking point during the class. Both of them were reader submitted so I didn't have any data.
It's something I'm interested to test a little more. In general, plain text is a pretty safe, high performing option. However, I've heard that a well designed HTML email has done better in A/B tests. I want to find the proof.
Awesome. Yeah, I feel like it's the kind of thing where people opening their data could be really useful for everyone. (Though I recognize the difficulty in accounting for all the variables in terms of audience, message, design, etc.) I signed up for your newsletter; if you ever do scare up more data on it, it could make for a great note.