My About Face With Subscription Interface
Subscription Interface? Why should that matter in an e-mail newsletter? I want to see content. I want to see media. I want up to date information on what the campaign is doing with my donation. Where is the candidate making appearances this week?
Then I sat and thought about it, and realized I was wrong.
Subscription Interface is one of the more important steps in a successful newsletter.
Most voters aren't as technically savvy as your average GSPM student. If they want to get the Bush/Kerry e-mail newsletters, they have to go through an elaborate process to even start (or end) the subscription. Even the Washington Post newsletter had an aggravating unsubscribe feature requiring you to remember your user name and password.
We've talked a lot in the class about retail politics. You might have the greatest product ever, but if you can't get people in the door, you'll never sell your product. A successful subscription interface allows you to attract customers and "sell" your candidate and his/her message. The first step is to get them in the door.
2 Comments:
I completely agree. Several times i have found myself interested in suscribing to several websites, but then I have to confront their suscription interface and I cannot deal with it. They should be simple, they should not waste your time as many of them do. Overall, suscription interfaces should not scare users away.
In a perfect world, we could all click wherever we want and access everything with no questions asked. Unfortunately, we're only going to have that world if websites are able to get our personal information without asking - privacy I'm certainly not willing to give up.
Most subscription interface are needlessly annoying, but until we come up with a better way to document users we must live with them.
If you are annoyed by them, do what I do and enter the names of big Broadway stars. I love to get email addressed to Ms. Idina Menzel!
El Jorge, thanks for nominating my post! Have a happy day off!
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