RE: UKNM: Nielsen on Mailing List Usability

[John Handelaar]

> -----Original Message-----

>

From: ownerchinwag [dot] com [ownerchinwag [dot] com]On">mailto:ownerchinwag [dot] com]On Behalf Of Alberts,

> Rob

> Sent: 21 August 2000 14:05

>

To: uknmchinwag [dot] com

> Subject: UKNM: Nielsen on Mailing List Usability

> 

> 

> Salient points at:

> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000820.html


Agreed - everyone go look.

 

> He says fulfillment is far more important than "marketing tricks". Okay -

> but cannot have one without the other.


It was at this point that I started to feel you weren't really

following what Nielsen's saying.  "Marketing tricks" *are* bullshit.

He gives examples of things like asking people to uncheck tick

boxes, screwing around with the wording in order to double-negative

people into accepting junk mail, and resetting options in

forms when users make a single mistake.


Paraphrasing this section:  This crap is bad *for you*, not just

your users, because everyone who didn't want junk mail who you

send your crap to will think progressively worse of you, every

time you do it.  Meanwhile even things like 'opt-out' boxes

cause users to think ill of you because either (a) you trick them

into getting junk mail, or (b) they notice that you've tried

to do so, and that pisses them off.


What he missed out (being where he is) is the additional danger

of threatened legislation to ban opt-out collections and the

use of addresses collected in that way.  If your email marketing

is important to you, it's probably best not to engage in

practices which might force you to dump your whole list and

start again.


In any case, I'd rather have 1,000 "Really want it" members of

an annoucement list than 20,000 "most didn't uncheck the box"

any day - *because it would work better*.


> I liked the apologia for accidental spam. There was a thread here 

> regarding

> getting off LastMinute recently. Read him for further reason not 

> to jump to

> conclusions and label legitimate email as spam just because you fail to

> unsub.


Again, why that would be incorrect is that our recent thread

about lastminute (and Ministry, IIRC) was that people were unable

to get out of the spam cycle.


If you read the Nielsen piece again, you'll see about 5 club-you-

over-the-head references to putting unsubscribe information on

every message you send (he says in the footer; I reckon you should

put it in the _header_).  That, and make damned sure it works!


I don't mean to tick you off </lie> but if anyone thinks that

good marketing, on- or offline, involves causing members of

the public to associate your brand with really irritating junk

mail, it's time to find a new career.


And I don't want to hear about proportions as a lame-arse excuse

either (eg: "Fewer than 10% of our 10m messages were unsolicited

so that means we're 90% OK").  Every fucked-off customer is 

another bucketload of cash flushed down the bog in the long run.  


jh


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John Handelaar


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