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-clientshttp://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 the

messageheaders

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?

?