Email: Still the “Killer App”
I’ve worked in the online sphere since 1995, and I really can’t remember a time when email wasn’t dubbed a “killer app.”
A new study confirms that the moniker still applies. (The grain of salt: It was conducted on behalf of a company that specializes in email.)
A few of the study’s findings that caught my eye:
- 67 percent of respondents prefer email as a communications channel over other online vehicles. (Take that, Web 2.0!)
- Monthly emails and content and frequency options positively impacted a company’s reputation. (Here’s an earlier post on this topic.)
- Email will be as central to online commerce and communications in the future as it is today.
- More than 88 percent of respondents said they would like organizations to give them more choices over the content and frequency of the emails they receive, including options on advertisements, special offers, articles, newsletters, white papers and other specific content options.
The last bulleted point is an important one. That’s true not only because of the significant response, but also because creating a system that accurately reflects the many kinds of emails sent by a college or university is a big job. I know, because I’ve been there.
In my previous life as a web director at a large public university, I was part of a group tasked with creating efficient methods for alumni and friends to manage their email preferences. Using email addresses pulled from the institutional database, we sent mass emails to hundreds of groups—folks who graduated from specific academic programs; people who attended arts or athletic events; participants in outreach activities. All these and countless fundraising appeals, several dozen e-newsletters, plus the occasional survey.
The email calendar often was jam-packed in December, when there’d also be numerous holiday greetings; lots of year-end e-solicitations; and football bowl tours and game information … at least in winning years. One December, we had a mass email scheduled every work day for three weeks straight. Most of those were sent to small groups; even so, there was plenty of audience cross over.
Plus we knew that some units maintained their own email lists and sent mass emails that we didn’t know about until they occasionally landed in our in-boxes.
The institution’s policy was that each email offered the option of unsubscribing from that specific type group (e.g., e-solicitations from the College of Engineering). We established dozens and dozens of email drop codes in the institutional database, so users could make discrete decisions about the type of emails they wanted to receive.
Managing those codes became a challenge. We needed enough to accurately reflect the audience segments. But we didn’t want them to proliferate so much as to become unwieldy. On the web page where users could select their email preferences, we listed all the popular options, but omitted some of the more esoteric groups. The system worked, but it didn’t offer the user the level of control requested by 88 percent of study participants.
It takes a savvy and complex system to accurately reflect the nuances and diverse audience segments of a large, multi-faceted organization.
Nine out of 10 in this study wanted more control over the kinds of emails they receive. That statistic clearly confirms that a regular and systematic review of the email preferences web interface available to alumni and friends is time well spent.
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