E-mail Form Best Practices
and
Customizing the Subscribe Process
Mass E-mail User Group
June 2009
Part I: Forms in e-mail
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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-clients
http://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 optout 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 optin) 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
message
headers
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
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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 email
• 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 nobrainer
– 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?