1. E-mail Form Best Practices and Customizing the Subscribe Process Mass E-mail User Group June 2009

2. Part I: Forms in e-mail 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!

3. 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.

4. 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/

5. 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/

6. 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

7. 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/

8. 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

9. 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/

10. 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

11. Questions? ?

12. Part II: Customizing the Subscribe Process

13. Subscription best practices Getting users to subscribe to a publication or other e-mail channel is preferred over opt- out 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

14. Subscription best practices II Double opt-in (also known as confirmed opt- in) 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

15. 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

16. The default messages What is urel_uns-todays_news ? Confirmation Hello

17. 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

18. Create a subscription form

19. Create a subscription form II

20. Create a subscription form III

21. Create a subscription form IV

22. Create a subscription form V

23. Using the form I - submit

24. Using the form II - confirm We can do better!

25. Using the form III - confirmed We control the web page you land on following this page.

26. Using the form IV – hello doc We can do better here, too!

27. Create a new conf. message Use plain text only Keep it succinct

28. New confirm content I

29. New confirm content II Name the content Tweak the message headers

30. New confirm content III Brevity and clarity is key

31. 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

32. Create a new hello message II Same basic process as the confirm content

33. Associate the content

34. Test, test, test Subscribe Confirm Hello Voila! http://www1.umn.edu/news/subscribe/UR_CONTENT_096484.html

35. 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 e- mail Using an open (unauthenticated) web form can send a confirmation message for opt-in lists only

36. 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 _______.”

37. What to take away Provide a Web form to take in subscriptions –For anything open to the public this is a no- brainer –And it’s easy

38. 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

39. Engage! Not in the mood to argue fair use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PatrickStewart2004-08-03.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PatrickStewart2004-08-03.jpg

40. Questions? ?