E-mail Form Best Practicesand

Customizing the Subscribe Process

Mass E-mail User GroupJune 2009

Part I: Forms in e-mail

• Desired outcome: a form is submitted

• Usually, the form is linked to in the message

• The forms are on Web pages (HTML)

• E-mail can have an HTML part

• Why not embed that form in the e-mail itself?

• Great idea!

Example: form in e-mail

• First, scroll past the plug for their cookies.

• A single field to submit an address for forward-to-a-friend.

Does it work? Campaign Monitor

“Given the sporadic support for forms in emails, we recommend linking to a form on a website rather than embedding it in the email.”

continued

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/entry/674/using-forms-in-email/

Does it work? Campaign Mon. II

“This is the safest, most reliable solution to pairing an email message with a form. More people will see it and be able to use it, and as a result participation will increase.”

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/entry/674/using-forms-in-email/

Does it work? Lyris HQ

“At Lyris we always recommend directing your users to an outside Web page to submit their survey or form. [...] ...while forms may work in some email clients their days are numbered. Moving your forms to an outside Web page gives you the greatest chance of success.”

http://www.lyrishq.com/index.php/Blog/The-Form-Debate.html

Does it work? MailChimp

Writing on surveys in HTML e-mail:

“Surveys are basically web forms. And forms don’t work so great when you send them in HTML email.”

http://www.mailchimp.com/articles/how_to_send_surveys_via_html_email/

What’s the problem?

• Some clients disable forms

• Some clients identify them as possible scams and warn or filter to spam folders

• Some servers block or filter to spam folders

• Some clients just don’t work

What’s the problem? II

• Forms don’t go in the plain text part– Think students, think GopherMail

• Expect a high rate of non-functioning forms– Hotmail won’t work and had a 15% market share

in March 2009– Outlook 2003, 2007 and Yahoo! Classic also fail

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/stats/email-clients

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/entry/674/using-forms-in-email/

In short

• Link to forms on the Web• If you absolutely need to know who submitted

a form, ask them, pass data into the form using the URL, and recombine the results with recipient information

• A single text field, as in the Girl Scouts example, might work but could also disservice and frustrate recipients

Questions?

?

Part II:Customizing the Subscribe Process

Subscription best practices

• Getting users to subscribe to a publication or other e-mail channel is preferred over opt-out messaging

• Subscriptions can be Web or e-mail based

• E-mail based (un)subscribes, at least with Lyris, can be tricky for some users

• Web forms are the ticket

Subscription best practices II

• Double opt-in (also known as confirmed opt-in) should always be used

• Adhere to CAN-SPAM requirements for messages sent to subscribers

• Update language in message from “opt-out” to “unsubscribe” when using an opt-in list

Our needs

• The standard confirmation and hello messages are too generic

• We were missing an opportunity to drive people toward subscribing to other e-mail publications of the University News Service

• This doesn’t apply to opt-out situations, only opt-in lists/publications

The default messages

• What is urel_uns-todays_news?

Confirmation

Hello

General problems

• List names aren’t useful for your average reader (urel_uns-todays_news)

• The e-mail commands can be problematic– A signature block can cause a request to not be

processed– The messaging from Lyris when this happens is

frustrating

Create a subscription form

Create a subscription form II

Create a subscription form III

Create a subscription form IV

Create a subscription form V

Using the form I - submit

Using the form II - confirm

We can do better!

Using the form III - confirmed

We control the web page you land on following this page.

Using the form IV – hello doc

We can do better here, too!

Create a new conf. message

• Use plain text only

• Keep it succinct

New confirm content I

New confirm content II

• Name the content

• Tweak themessageheaders

New confirm content III

• Brevity and clarity is key

Create a new hello message

• This can be multipart.

• You can track the message but... where do those numbers go?

• In short:– confirm that they’re subscribed– introduce them to the identity right away– drive them to your site & other subscriptions

Create a new hello message II

• Same basic process as the confirm content

Associate the content

Test, test, test

• Subscribe

• Confirm

• Hello

• Voila!

http://www1.umn.edu/news/subscribe/UR_CONTENT_096484.html

What of unsubscribes?

• Unsubscribe confirmation and goodbye messages can be customized, too

• Recipients using an unsubscribe link in the e-mail should not receive a confirmation e-mail

• Using an open (unauthenticated) web form can send a confirmation message for opt-in lists only

Unsubscribes II

• You’re losing a reader

• You can try to reengage them in the goodbye message

• The primary, central, “above-the-fold” purpose of the message needs to be informational, e.g., “You have unsubscribed from _______.”

What to take away

• Provide a Web form to take in subscriptions– For anything open to the public this is a no-

brainer– And it’s easy

Takeaways II

• You can’t readily get at tracking data for the hello/goodbye messages– But they’re relatively quick to customize– Quick wins can be good

• Squander no opportunity; engage your audience and identify yourself at every turn

Engage!

Not in the mood to argue fair use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PatrickStewart2004-08-03.jpg

Questions?

?