Hello again,%% username!

Continuing the topic of mailing lists, I would like to raise a rather holivarny question about the preference of the format of mailing lists. By the way, the results of the survey on Habré are pleasantly surprising. Weigh all the pros and cons of specific examples before throwing slippers at the dissenting 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

First we consider the main site of the corporation democompany, which is a business card site and describes the main advantages of the company, a set of services, pricing, contact information and so on. Also, this company likes to personalize its customers and asks them to register on the site as a client, indicating some information about themselves: name, surname, email, company, website.
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In theory and at this stage, this registration gives the company an overall picture of its client, which allows him (the client) to write tickets to the company's support service. Assessing the situation, we can say that the user can receive the following letters from the company:

- Confirmation of registration on the site
- Confirmation of changes in personal data
- Notification that the client's ticket was sent to the support
- Answer to the application
- Confirmation of the decision / not addressing the issue of the application

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

, %firstname% %lastname%,
% //%

, ,
%operator_name%, ,
Democompany Ltd, www.democompany.com, +7(812)123 4567

or in HTML like this:



or even like this:




What can be said about these three options? The first option is good because it performs its main function - to convey information to the client, without overloading him with unnecessary information. The second option using HTML for markup solves a similar problem, but also emphasizes the company's corporate identity with light design. The third option in this case is not so good, because it overloads the letter with its 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 of the site.

For the above newsletters, I choose option # 2 with a touch of HTML.

Blog.democompany.com

Our invented corporation at the same time can have 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 make a periodic mailing to the user without his personal consent. In the previous example, the consent of the user is not required, since committing his actions entails the generation of a message addressed to him. In the case of periodicals, permission from the client is obtained in several ways:

- When registering a user on the site, you can provide a point about 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 litter his mailbox.
- Also on its website / blog Democompany places a form, filling in which the client can subscribe to the periodic mailing.
- 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 receiving the consent of a person is included in the mailing list. But this does not mean that in the event of a person’s refusal, you should sign up with such offers weekly / daily.

Another important point: the user must be able to independently unsubscribe from sending regular correspondence in the personal account on the site, as well as via the link from the received letter. Moreover, clicking on the link for unsubscribing should not imply additional authorizations, the cancellation should be made directly, which is what many runet services sin.

And so, what kind of newsletter can a client receive from the above blog?

- The full text of news / articles at the time of publication
- Title, announcement and link to the full text of news / articles at the time of publication
- List of headlines, announcements and links to the full text of news / articles for a certain period
- Notifications of new comments to the news / article that the user has already commented

Ideally, to provide the user with the opportunity to select 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 mailings.

Full text news

, %firstname% %lastname%,

, , 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.

/ --> %url%

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

In this case, the headline news / articles can be specified in the subject line.

Short text news

, %firstname% %lastname%,

, , 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.

--> %url%

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

At the same time, the title of the news / article can also be specified in the subject of the letter.

News list

, %firstname% %lastname%,
, .

%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%
================================================

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

Comment Notification

, %firstname% %lastname%,
, %topic_url% , !

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

Or maybe HTML?

Please do not complain that I ship all the screens. I consider it necessary for the completeness of the picture and clarity.

Full text news

Short text news

News list

Comment Notification

Or that cooler?

Full text news

Short text news

News list

Comment Notification

What can you say about this?

Nothing unique. To some extent minimalistic HTML is more convenient, and to some extent more “loaded”. It seems to me that the choice will help determine the method of testing. Send a newsletter in one style, send a newsletter in a different style. Compare statistics, which letters were more attractive to most of your subscribers and led to the transition to the site, and which less. Although comment notifications can be more categorically attributed to minimalism on the basis 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 rich graphically html mailings. Whether it is a commercial offer, a seasonal action, the sale of any product, you will not be able to interest the buyer in the text version of the letter. Minimalism is acceptable in rare cases. Although not 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 HTML mailings only)

The rest of the points rather fall under the controversial point, as it did with the Blog.

- Checkout at the store
- Confirmation of an order
- Proof of payment
- Customer service department (support)
- Various notifications

Total

What can be said about all this? Do you have a simple non-commercial service / community that does not sell any products and does not make regular mass mailings? Plain / text or, at best, easy HTML to help you. 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 perfectly help you in conducting tests to study the target audience of your subscribers.