something about newsletters
Newsletters are a very good way to keep in touch with your customers and other contacts. To have a successful newsletter it also has to be usable. If it's not usable it will get deleted even without being opened.
To be usable a newsletter has to be short, mature, (without) attachments, relevant and timely: S.M.A.R.T.
- A B2B newsletter has to be short. The recipient is busy, and when they receive the newsletter they will open it and if it looks too long will likely skip it. I suggest sending more newsletters but shorter ones, where there is only one point - rather like a press release.
- For the same reasons I suggest no funny stuff - keep it mature, unless you are very sure about it!
- Attachments are annoying and unnecessary. Many corporate mail servers will strip them out anyway. Attachments should be opt in - where the recipient clicks on a link in the email to download it themselves.
- Relevence goes back to whether you are profiling your customers by their interest. If not then you can only send out bulk mails of which many recipients will find have no relevence to them. It is better to send out many short emails to targeted groups, than one long email to everyone.
- And finally, make it timely. Plan your broadcasts ahead of time so they are ready to go at the appropriate moment.
See below some examples of newsletters sent out by Pilot...
is your website usable?
Hello <user>,
A quick email to let you know that on November 9 I am giving a lunchtime seminar at Britcham titled: Is your Website Usable?
Too many website owners (and designers) value form over function. Attractiveness and professionalism count, but only as a first impression. The lasting impression is in the experience.
The key to usability lies in understanding how visitors operate. Understanding what are they looking for, how do they look for it, and what is their success criteria.
So is your website usable? Or does it only hold content that Management or the Marketing Department want to communicate? Did you hear the one about the camel being a horse designed by a committee? More often than not the same thing happens with the organization and content on your website.
For more tips on website usability see 10 Principles to make your Website more usable.
Or indeed come to the seminar.
Best regards,
Tim Hay-Edie
==========
managing director
Pilot Simple Softare
www.pilot.com.hk
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no spam please
(Hong Kong, October 8th, 2004)
Everyone knows that a diet of processed meat is not "recommended", but previously when the Integrated Medical Institute (IMI) tried to spread their message, "anti-Spam" measures prevented them. Their Internet Service Provider, like many other ISPs in town, prevents the broadcasting of e-mails to more than 40 recipients at a time. This measure is to curb "spamming" - the indiscriminate broadcast of unsolicited e-mails.
But for IMI, with a legitimate mailing list of over 1,500 patients and contacts, anti-spam meant anti-business. The process of contacting all of their patients, 40 at a time, took hours. Until Pilot stepped in with Mail++, a PC-based mailing engine that by-passes the ISP, and that can send up to 500 e-mails per minute. Now the same task takes moments.
The moral of the story? If you want to keep yourself healthy, get in touch with IMI at www.imi.com.hk. And if you want to keep your communication healthy, get in touch with Pilot at www.pilot.com.hk. Or call Keith Russell - Pilot's Head of Sales - on 2810 1110. But no spam please - we're watching what we eat...
Pilot simple.software
http://www.pilot.com.hk
world usability day
Dear <first name>,
Steady yourself. Today is World Usability Day. While you wonder why it’s necessary to celebrate such an event, spare a moment and consider everyday items you use which could do with some usability:
• TV remote controls,
• plastic packaging, particularly those wrappers on new CDs,
• miniscule mobile phone keypads.
Or experiences which really confuse:
• filling in any government form,
• customer service telephone lines,
• navigating the HSBC website.
Often you think, "I could have done this better!"
Perhaps you could. Usually things only get put right if there is an outcry. So if no one complains the usability never improves. (Has anyone else complained about the HSBC website?)
Now consider other websites you have visited recently. Some are simple, some are complex, some are easy to navigate and some are epically frustrating. A usable website can be complex while at the same time easy to navigate. It passes the usability test.
So consider your website. Honestly, how usable is it? Why not conduct a simple audit - put yourself in the shoes of your potential customer and ask:
Q1: what does this company do?
Q2: what is this company‘s core competence?
Q3: what makes this company different from the competition?
Q4: how can I trust this company?
Q5: how can I get in touch with someone?
How does your site hold up?
Your own experience will tell you that visitors to a website have a low tolerance for sites that don‘t deliver. Recent research published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology indicates that a visitor can make a negative judgment about a website in as little as 50 milliseconds!
Often sites are designed around what the owners think is useful, and not what really is useful to the customer. A competent website designer should help you with this. And it is worth getting a professional copywriter to get your message across.
Often a lot of work goes into the launch of the website, and nothing goes into the maintenance or upkeep. The site quickly becomes dated, and therefore unusable. So a site should be easy for you (or your staff) to update. Generally a customer will not return to a website unless they know it has been updated.
So how do they know it‘s been updated? One way is if they receive an email newsletter with links to new content.
How do you get a customer to read a newsletter? Make it relevant. If you mass mail out the same content to everyone your customers will learn to ignore you. Profiling your clients and targeting them accordingly improves the usability of the information.
So while you may not be able to make milk cartons easier to open, you can do something about your website. Call Pilot for a free consultation on 2810 4366.
Happy usability day!
---
Tim Hay-Edie
managing director
Pilot simple.software
[t] 2810 4366
www.pilot.com.hk
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