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Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

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Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#81

Post by encom »

eatingCake wrote: post #64
bonoboTP wrote: post #54

I really hate these cheesy lines that are "excellent" according to the article, like: - "You had enough fluff marketing content and so did we. So the absofreakinlutely BEST thing you could do right now..." - "Writing this from my couch at home, hoping to find you safe and well at yours. It's been a busy summer! I wanted to share more about out 2.9 release..." No, just no. Leave me alone, we aren't friends, you did no…

> Perhaps American culture is more receptive to this As an American I don't think people like corporations feigning social intimacy either.

But it happens all the time (according to my tiny sample size). A tong time ago, I was in an American coffee shop (probably Starbucks, I guess), and they asked for my name. I found that very strange and weird. You would neither be able to spell or pronouce it, so let's just go with James.

This trend is beginning in Denmark as well, and I don't like it. It'd be easier for everyone if you just assign me a number and announce that when my drink is ready.

I also encountered store greeters, which was the most bizarre thing ever.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#82

Post by machello13 »

encom wrote: post #81
eatingCake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps American culture is more receptive to this As an American I don't think people like corporations feigning social intimacy either.

But it happens all the time (according to my tiny sample size). A tong time ago, I was in an American coffee shop (probably Starbucks, I guess), and they asked for my name. I found that very strange and weird. You would neither be able to spell or pronouce it, so let's just go with James. This trend is beginning in Denmark as well, and I don't like it. It'd be easier for everyone if you just assign me a number and an…

> But it happens all the time

Doesn't mean people like it. I think there's also a difference between a low-level employee being friendly personally to me because it's their job and also it's just polite, vs some marketing employee being "friendly" to the 500k people on their mailing list.

It's also always worth noting, is the case with many countries, the US is very diverse. People in NYC probably think very differently about this vs. people in L.A. or Boise, Montana.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#83

Post by wtracy »

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #48
continuational wrote: post #16

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.

Your first point is a personal bugbear. Its worst form is when the tone of the email is personal (first name in title, photo of said person, signed off by said person and bonues points for graphic of hand written signature), but it comes from a no-reply address. I once received one of these after I was mistakedly billed too much for a product. The person involved had a C suite type role at an ISP. After a bit of sear…

> but it comes from a no-reply address.

I consider that an antipattern in and of itself.

Unless you have a truly abysmal average CLV, replies should be directed to a system that first filters out (and acts on) bounce messages, simple unsubscribe requests, and obvious spam, then dumps everything else into a ticketing system.

Exposing an avenue of communication (which is what email fundamentally is) then trying to pretend that it doesn't exist is just obnoxious.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#84

Post by asveikau »

As I skimmed this I thought about reading text on my phone. When there is no formatting, the text flows pretty well. There aren't obnoxious colors or flashy imagery and the phone's dark mode gets respected. So, in our increasingly mobile-centric life, I think that HTML-less or minimal-HTML is probably a better reading experience.

That said, most people probably don't sit down to read text in emails most of the time, especially from a business.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#85

Post by thewakalix »

tgb wrote: post #24
qwerty_123 wrote: post #5

I caution the use of emoji, I've seen so many stack overflow job posts with memey use of emojis and it just makes me cringe and I find it hard to take the company seriously.

Why can't I just disable emoji in email subjects in gmail? I'd definitely like to.

I never thought I'd see the lack of unicode support in my terminal as a feature...

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#86

Post by marcosdumay »

leephillips wrote: post #13
marcosdumay wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think the article's author didn't even think about separated onboarding and confirmation emails. He's just stating that you can use the confirmation one for onboarding too.

I have seen those separated emails. I agree that they add nothing, and I imagine their conversion is much lower than a single email (they don't bother me, I'll just ignore another message). I do agree that onboarding is best done on-channel, but adding an extra link on the email you are sending anyway can only help.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#87

Post by currymj »

encom wrote: post #81
eatingCake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps American culture is more receptive to this As an American I don't think people like corporations feigning social intimacy either.

But it happens all the time (according to my tiny sample size). A tong time ago, I was in an American coffee shop (probably Starbucks, I guess), and they asked for my name. I found that very strange and weird. You would neither be able to spell or pronouce it, so let's just go with James. This trend is beginning in Denmark as well, and I don't like it. It'd be easier for everyone if you just assign me a number and an…

the real point of the store greeters is to limit shoplifting -- they hang around the entrance watching people and may check people's receipts against what they are taking out of the store.

making them say hi and act friendly to everyone is just a way of camouflaging this and making it seem less hostile.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#88

Post by jandrese »

encom wrote: post #81
eatingCake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps American culture is more receptive to this As an American I don't think people like corporations feigning social intimacy either.

But it happens all the time (according to my tiny sample size). A tong time ago, I was in an American coffee shop (probably Starbucks, I guess), and they asked for my name. I found that very strange and weird. You would neither be able to spell or pronouce it, so let's just go with James. This trend is beginning in Denmark as well, and I don't like it. It'd be easier for everyone if you just assign me a number and an…

Coffee shops ask for your name so they can write it on the cup to make sure you get the right order at the pickup counter. It's a quality control measure. I guess they could ask you to think up a random number instead, but some people would find that mildly offputting I think .

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#89

Post by dqv »

asplake wrote: post #42
sp332 wrote: post #2

Good points in here, but I disagree about using a person's name as the From address. If I'm getting an email from Notion, I want it to show up as "From: Notion" in my inbox, not "From: Ivan". I have several companies that do this and I never know who the email is from, which adds some cognitive friction I don't need when triaging my inbox. You can put your name in the subject line if you want.

Right. Further to this, I consider it spammy when the same organisation uses a range of different From addresses in its mailings. I have unsubscribed from lists for this triage-hostile behaviour.

I see it as the exact opposite. If organization sends me marketing from marketing@ and order details from orders@, I easily have a way to quickly delete or classify marketing@ as spam. I can't do that if they send everything from the same email.

Re: Lessons learned from onboarding emails with no HTML styling

#90

Post by GordonS »

bonoboTP wrote: post #54

I really hate these cheesy lines that are "excellent" according to the article, like: - "You had enough fluff marketing content and so did we. So the absofreakinlutely BEST thing you could do right now..." - "Writing this from my couch at home, hoping to find you safe and well at yours. It's been a busy summer! I wanted to share more about out 2.9 release..." No, just no. Leave me alone, we aren't friends, you did no…

I just assumed this was an American thing; as a Brit, I find it so cringey it almost hurts, and I'm embarrassed on their behalf.

I wonder actually, if anyone here customises their emails based on the mark's home region?

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