Making the most of automated e-mail messages
Howard Lake | 6 January 2004 | News
Newsletter confirmations, unsubscribe responses, autoresponder replies and other automated e-mail messages are often overlooked as valuable marketing tools, according to Jakob Nielsen.
In last month’s Alertbox column, usability expert Jakob Nielsen looked at how automated or transactional e-mail messages are seldom as effective as they could be as marketing tools.
“Thank you for your message”, “your donation has been received”, “you have successfully subscribed to our newsletter”, “you will receive a response within 24 hours”, “thank you for your pledge”. Charity Web sites are sending out thousands of standard, automated e-mail messages every day. Although they are valuable tools in developing and retaining customers, have you reviewed how good they are recently? Or are you using the standard blurb that the system designer created for you?
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Nielsen observed users reacting to 40 sample automated email messages, examining how they interacted with the email in the in-box view and read individual messages. His report looks at how these messages can be better written and constructed in order to satisfy the customer or donor, and avoid appearing as spam in an over-filled in-box.
Not surprisingly he recommends that messages should be brief, and that writers must focus particularly on the content of the subject line and “from” field. For example, messages with the subject “Important information” tended to be deleted.
While confirmation e-mails can build trust, a badly constructed message can harm an organisation’s brand.
The full 108-page report on the usability of confirmation e-mail and transactional messages is available at $199.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.