Some of the biggest commercial email senders are social media platforms: we’ve touched on that recently with a case about Pinterest.
Twitter however isn’t sitting on the sidelines either when it comes to email marketing design: they’re improving their emails, and tinkering with subject lines as well.
Let’s look at the changes of their subject line notifications – since June 25th they’ve changed the subject line of their new follower notification. Here’s an example:
Everything below ‘Emailblog, you ave new followers / a new follower on Twitter is from before June 25th. Why have they done it? To have you open that email of course, and find who the new follower is! So subtle yet so effective: one example of how to do better email marketing: don’t give away everything in the subject line, especially if it’s a notification.
What does the inside of such a new style notification look like? Here’s an example:
The email shows the profiles of the ones who followed you, including dedicated buttons to follow them on Twitter. At the bottom the option is available to see all followers, as well as some administrative options. Not bad for a notification email, right?
What if I’m really not that active? Twitter tries to persuade me to log in again and follow some users (also new style notification):
Subject line: We missed you on Twitter. Well, Justin Bieber isn’t really an attractive option for me to follow: the Dalai Lama might be a better suggestion. What’s also interesting to see is that it’s more prominent than in the previous email shown: the forgot password option. As if people who are out of the Twitter loop for a while might forget their password. Surely not, or do you?
For comparison’s sake, here’s one similar style notification email from February (subject line: Discover more on Twitter):
The subtle changes in the header style are the only difference, except for the button: view your home page vs view all suggestions. What would make you click to Twitter?
Because that’s what it’s all about: Twitter wants you to be active on their platform. More visits = more activity = more ad views / clicks for the advertisers. The subtle subject line change tells it too.
I quite like the subtle designs: not too bumpy or pushy: their suggestions algorithm could be better though – maybe based on who I already follow (or lists I made) instead of ‘famous’ people.
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