Targeting the emails...
Looking at John Kerry's and Friends of John Mcain's websites, one thing strikes me - signing up for an email update is an all or nothing thing...just one box I can put my email address into to receive updates.
Is that the smart way to handle email updates? I am not convinced it is. Nielsen's article about the 2004 newsletters talks about the issue of "user dissatisfaction on this count because they bombard users with newsletters."
If you are only sending out one email to everyone, it is difficult to make each email relevant to people. Isn't it better to let people sign up for a general overview plus newsletters about issues that interest them. That way, you could send out the general newsletter less often, and have more impact, while any specific issues would only go to those who have expressed an interest, so are:
Is that the smart way to handle email updates? I am not convinced it is. Nielsen's article about the 2004 newsletters talks about the issue of "user dissatisfaction on this count because they bombard users with newsletters."
If you are only sending out one email to everyone, it is difficult to make each email relevant to people. Isn't it better to let people sign up for a general overview plus newsletters about issues that interest them. That way, you could send out the general newsletter less often, and have more impact, while any specific issues would only go to those who have expressed an interest, so are:
- More likely to read the email
- More likely to act upon the information in the email
2 Comments:
Good call. While there is perhaps some hesitance because campaigns don't want to scare users away with a page-long questionaire, it could easily be put on the follow-up screen after the e-mail has been captured. I like your idea of having a general newsletter as well as specific subject lists.
The benefit for sending out targeted fundraising emails alone seems worth it. If one of the problems with emails is that you often don't get the demographic info that you do with mail lists, then this sure seems like a great way to solve that.
Again, this is permission marketing. Give people options to sign up for. Why not include pop-ups whereby users are notified of a new ad that's about to run and give them the option to run it via computer? Their choice.
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