Artfully designed and managed company newsletters have the
potential to create a strong, emotional bond with a customer that
is not easily severed, according to a study recently released by
Nielsen Norman Group, based in Freemont, Calif. “Newsletters feel
personal because they arrive in your inbox - you have an ongoing
relationship with them,” said Jakob Nielsen, an NNG principal. “The
positive emotional aspect of newsletters is that they can create
much more of a bond between user and company than a Web site can.”
Surprisingly, the study found that many subscribers are reluctant
to “unsubscribe” to a newsletter, even when they no longer read it
regularly. The reason: many subscribers say they develop an
emotional attachment to a newsletter that they are reluctant to
sever. The NNG study comes on the heels of a similar report
released by DoubleClick, an Internet market research firm, which
found that consumers are much more likely to respond positively to
email than to more traditional advertising, such has direct mail.
Specifically, DoubleClick found that recipients opened 37.3 percent
of all promotional e-mail sent to them during the third quarter of
2002. E-mail about business products and services were read most
often, 47.3 percent of the time, while travel and consumer products
and services followed at 42.5 percent. Perhaps an even more telling
statistic: 8.5 percent of recipients used a link embedded in the
e-mail to get information on a product or service. The NNG study,
“E-mail Newsletter Usability,” distills information about scores of
successful newsletters into 79 design rules and strategies. Among
them are: Realize Going In, You’re Playing With a Powerful Medium:
While newsletters can create a bond, “the negative aspect is that
usability problems have much stronger impact on the customer
relationship than they normally do.” Indeed, the study found that
badly organized sign-up pages cost newsletters 22 percent of their
potential subscribers. Don’t Waste Potential Subscribers’ Time: “On
average across the newsletters we studied, the subscribe process
took five minutes, much too long for the simple functionality
that’s involved,” the report said, adding that only fee-based
subscriptions should take longer than two minutes. Red Star Travel
of Seattle takes a simple approach. All that’s required to receive
its e-mail newsletter is an e-mail address. Cruise Shop Travel,
based in Albuquerque, N.M., has the same minimal requirement, as
does Travel Ladies (www.travelladies.com). Don’t Be Overly Nosy:
Jeanne Jennings, a design consultant and columnist, recommends
asking for just five to seven pieces of information on a
subscription page. Don’t Make a Subscriber Feel Like a Target:
Jennings said that asking for lots of information will make a
registrant wary. “People will either abandon the page without
subscribing or lie. Neither of these furthers your cause,” she
said. Be Honest About How You’ll Deal With a Subscriber: “Include
elements that increase registration rates, such as links to a
sample issue and your privacy policy,” Jennings said. She also
recommends summarizing your privacy policy in a sentence or two and
posting it on the subscription page. Both Airfares.com of Phoenix
and Azumano Travel of Portland, Ore., clearly assure visitors that
personal information will not be resold. Deliver on Your
Newsletter’s Promise: Even though virtually all company e-mail
newsletters are free, they still must deliver on their promises to
the subscriber, according to Nielsen. “The cost in clutter must be
paid for by being helpful and relevant to users and by
communicating these benefits in a few characters in the subject
line,” Nielsen said. Keep It Simple: While you’d think the
simplicity maxim would be mind-numbingly obvious, NNG researchers
found that 27 percent of all newsletters were never opened. “In
subjective comments, users basically said that newsletters are good
if they cut down the time it takes users to accomplish something,
or if they are quick reads that don’t feet frivolous,” he said.
Publish Regularly: “A regulator publication schedule lets users
know when to look for the newsletter and reduces the probability
that it will be deleted,” Nielsen said. Travel the Rainbow, based
in Corrales, N.M., publishes a weekly e-newsletter to disseminate
sales information and last-minute deals. Design for All Major
E-mail Readers: Test subjects were distributed almost evenly among
AOL, Hotmail, Netscape Mail, Outlook and Yahoo! Mail, Neilsen said,
adding, “It’s also common to find people using Eudora, Lotus Notes
and a broad variety of mainframe systems.” Given that each of these
e-mail readers has a different way of displaying newsletter content
and of filtering spam, Nielsen recommends previewing your
newsletter design on each system before launching. Don’t Play Games
With the ‘Unsubscribe’ Function: Understandably, companies that
amass legions of subscribers are reluctant to say goodbye.
Consequently, many are tempted to make unsubscribing an arduous
process. Bad move, Nielsen said. Not only will it irritate people,
you’ll continue to irritate them each time your unwanted newsletter
shows up in their inbox. “Users are substantially more critical of
a slow unsubscribe process,” he said. “Once you want out, you want
out quickly.” n Joe Dysart is an Internet speaker and business
consultant based in Thousand Oaks, Cal
