User Communication conundrum
Promotional emails are irritating. Period. There are no two ways about it. You hate it. I hate it. Our users hate it. Brands often cross that thin line between communication and miscommunication. Fundamentalists may disagree but in this age of disruption, the word fundamental is often a synonym for orthodox or traditional. It is almost cliched to say that each and every step in any walk of the company should be defined by innovation and backed by data. But that’s true nevertheless.
Email People Read
Users have become a lot smarter nowadays. Hence the assumption of high selling has almost gone out of the window. It’s black and white. Credible and good mails get read. Others don’t. It’s simple. Mail segmentation is the key. It is of utmost importance to define goals of each mail. Once the goal is defined, everything else falls into place. IT still needs the garnishing of a creative brain and keen understanding of user behaviour and you are on for the perfect recipe for effective user communication.
The bucket list
Though it is part and parcel of segmentation. But it needs rigorous testing and breaking down of statistics of actions that is of maximum value for the company and the user. For the sake of simplicity breaking the communication into transactional, triggered and promotional will help big time.
Transactional : Based on user action. This trumps all criteria and user will receive them no matter what. However defining transactions and transaction bundles is the real challenge that needs to be addressed at the very beginning
Triggered : Can be further broken down to Activation, retention and resurrection. Activation cycles or onboarding cycle needs of brainstormed upon. It will differ from company to company. For me showcasing the value the values of the app has worked. In some cases, it might be something else. The best selling products or customised wish list or even free coupons. Whatever works. Retention emails regular emails that are engineered to keep the users hooked to the app. Resurrection again can be broken down. Into users who are inactive and users who have uninstalled. depending on the metric followed this can be combined into one bucket or can be separate cycles
Measure
The outcomes, open rates and CTR need to be regularly monitored. This will give you a fair idea about the effectiveness of the campaigns. NPS is another method of reactivating of old users. User behaviour. Though it’s almost trivial to reintroduce the Hook Model here again, but still its wisdom holds true here as well. The triggers need to be well defined backed by sound logic. This is the real deal.
Email and beyond
Whenever we think of user communication, we only think of email. However, there are a lot many facets to it. Notification, SMS. Notification is another form of communication that sometimes oversteps the boundaries. If designed in sync with emails can result in greater click through rates.
User communication is easy. Stop being that annoying girlfriend. And start being that good friend.
