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Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

blog.palabra.io

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Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#11

Post by marcosdumay »

leephillips wrote: post #4

I disagree with the premise of the article: “Every SaaS company must start their onboarding sequences with a welcome message that is sent when a user joins the platform. This is a must by now, since everyone who signs up will expect some sort of confirmation of their transaction.” These emails invariably waste my time. They repeat what the website already told me when I signed up. If I sign up for your SaaS, I expect…

Hum... As an example of what the article calls "everyone", I do expect that email.

I will not read it, just mark it read and archive. It is not the contents that are important, what is important is that your email is set correctly, and receiving the service's emails without problems. So, any future issue can be solved over email.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#13

Post by leephillips »

marcosdumay wrote: post #11
leephillips wrote: post #4

I disagree with the premise of the article: “Every SaaS company must start their onboarding sequences with a welcome message that is sent when a user joins the platform. This is a must by now, since everyone who signs up will expect some sort of confirmation of their transaction.” These emails invariably waste my time. They repeat what the website already told me when I signed up. If I sign up for your SaaS, I expect…

Hum... As an example of what the article calls "everyone", I do expect that email. I will not read it, just mark it read and archive. It is not the contents that are important, what is important is that your email is set correctly, and receiving the service's emails without problems. So, any future issue can be solved over email.

You have a point there. But haven't they already sent you the confirmation email?

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#15

Post by wenc »

marcosdumay wrote: post #11
leephillips wrote: post #4

I disagree with the premise of the article: “Every SaaS company must start their onboarding sequences with a welcome message that is sent when a user joins the platform. This is a must by now, since everyone who signs up will expect some sort of confirmation of their transaction.” These emails invariably waste my time. They repeat what the website already told me when I signed up. If I sign up for your SaaS, I expect…

Hum... As an example of what the article calls "everyone", I do expect that email. I will not read it, just mark it read and archive. It is not the contents that are important, what is important is that your email is set correctly, and receiving the service's emails without problems. So, any future issue can be solved over email.

I agree with this. The welcome or confirmation email is a transactional email -- I don't really read it (I usually mark as read too -- takes 1 sec), but I expect it to be there.

(This is distinct from an onboarding email. I don't need onboarding emails. Some site combine confirmation + onboarding into a single email -- that's ok with me.)

It's a searchable historical record that I once signed up for something under a certain username. Also, it's important for password recovery and such (not a best practice to be sure, but not all sites support 2FA).

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#16

Post by continuational »

I don't want to hear from "Ivan". If you send template emails while pretending they're personal, that will come off as dishonest.

If you use emoji in your communications, I will think you're not very professional.

These emails tend to end up in my spam folder.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#17

Post by Swizec »

In this thread: lots of grumpy people forgetting that if you’re on HN you are weird and not representative

I email 10,000+ engineers 3x+ per week. Individually they’re all grumpy and ugh about email. En masse, only 0.01% of them unsubscribe and 24%+ read the emails. Many even email back saying how wonderful they are.

And yes adding emojis to both subjects and emails themselves helps. The open and engagement rates improve.

Including your name in the email gets some complaints, but open and engagement rates improve.

Sending lots of [relevant] email gets some complaints, but open and engagement rates improve.

At the end of the day it’s all about brand. Are you trying to look corporate bland or personal and quirky? What works depends on your target market. I wouldn’t send emojis to 50 year old bank execs. But talking to 20 and 30 year old engineers? You bet

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#18

Post by jiux »

While on the topic of onboarding emails and how the read focuses around early stage company development, what I would like to also see is a breakdown of lessons learned with SMTP services and how to approach for an early stage company.

Anyone have any advice/recommendations/suggestions?

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#20

Post by duxup »

leephillips wrote: post #4

I disagree with the premise of the article: “Every SaaS company must start their onboarding sequences with a welcome message that is sent when a user joins the platform. This is a must by now, since everyone who signs up will expect some sort of confirmation of their transaction.” These emails invariably waste my time. They repeat what the website already told me when I signed up. If I sign up for your SaaS, I expect…

Amen. It's just marketing bullet points / emotional statements about the product and so on.

I just signed up. I want to use the thing, give me some tips to get started and do something productive quickly, not a link burred under marketing, straight up spell them out in the email.

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