Maybe because there’s no comments yet for an item that hasn’t gone on sale?
I think there was talk in the other thread about suppressing it for meh-button-clickers and purchasers, but not sure that’s actually going to happen. About the only thing you can do (other than ignore it) is to unsubscribe… it’s really only meant for folks that don’t check at launch.
@ACraigL Since it doesn’t tell you what the item is I am not sure why it matters when it comes out. In that respect it is irrelevant (at least to me anyway).
@Kidsandliz I get that. It’s just that the redacted comments seem to be a pretty prominent feature of the email. Actually, looking back at it, 75% of the content (if not more) is all about how it’s selling. If it was sent before the sale, the format would need to be changed pretty drastically.
@ACraigL Personally I think it is stupid to send these to regulars. Based on what I have seen of them so far, if I wasn’t a regular, I’d (personally) find them annoying spam since it doesn’t tell you what is being sold. My personal opinion is so far they aren’t even funny or entertaining (which is why I find them stupid and thus in the spam category). Since apparently right now they are getting more people to click through and buy (I think I read that on another thread) so they are unlikely to change the format of it…If the goal is $ (clicks and buys) then I doubt it matters much to them what the rest of us think since we can opt out. Now if they noticed a drop in sales/visits from the regulars that they could attribute to this they’d probably pay attention to our comments. Meanwhile the delete button is your friend (along with unsubbing). I haven’t unsubbed yet as I keep hoping they will tweak them enough they are actually worth reading. Also since I don’t buy much and these emails aren’t going to change that (because lack of awareness isn’t the reason), so they probably don’t care about my opinion anyway. The only way I’ll buy more is if it is free and this is a business, not a charity, so that is unlikely to happen. LOL
@Kidsandliz The goal of the email certainly isn’t “$ (clicks and buys)”. If it was, it would be much more effective to surface what we’re selling and photos and price and the amount off MSRP and a giant BUY IT button.
@shawn So, the purpose is not to drive $'s, and it’s basically useless spam? @snapster said he couldn’t ignore that sending the email with product details drove traffic for that other site. If you’re not providing details and not trying to drive $'s, what exactly is the rationale?
I mean, it’s easy enough to unsubscribe (and I did). But curious about the reasoning…
My takeaway, after living through this situation before, is that a daily email that surfaces the product’s name, a product photo, it’s price, an MSRP discount amount, and a giant buy it button is actively harmful to a daily deal site with an engaged community over the long term.
The problem is, that type of email is precisely the type that converts better over the short term for every metric Amazon uses when they evaluate marketing email. When you measure clicks and buys and conversion rate of this type of email you’ll find it’s off the charts compared to the teaser email we’re doing at Meh. So at Amazon, you spend more time tweaking the font-size, making the buy it button more prominent, and surfacing the bullshit MSRP comparison more “above the fold” and pat yourself on the back when you see more clicks, more buys, and higher conversion rates.
Meanwhile, what you’ve done over the long term is taken your active and engaged audience that used to visit the site regularly to check out the day’s deal and then stuck around to organize a superhero thing with other members of the community and you’ve turned them into passive customers who feel like they’re experiencing the full site through the lens of their mailbox.
So, I’m not interested much in tracking if the email is driving $, clicks, and buys. My only interest in those numbers would be to make sure they’re not too high. If they are it could be a sign that the email is harming the community we’re looking to build and grow.
@shawn So maybe mention an interesting/funny/outrageous/whatever thread in that email and put a link to that if that is your goal? And to encourage that kind of thread (or any kinds of threads you want to encourage) periodically reward that behavior by randomly choosing one that is mentioned and reward the thread initiator and one participator in that thread with free crap/a free fuku they otherwise would not have gotten? Yah know - reward the behavior you want type of thing… (grin)
@ACraigL ha, yes. this works just fine when the attributes are “colors” like red, green, and blue. but not so great when the attribute is “pick the product set you’re buying”. We’ll have to work on that.
I find the teaser to be silly and a bit funny. But that’s all I expect from it. I often have forgotten what the daily deal is by the time I read the email. “Oh yeah, they’re selling deekerspocks today. Naw, still don’t need any more.”
I know it’s not an issue here, and rather welcomed at that, but the teaser email today contained a quoted f-bomb, @cranky1950’s “Geez the new fucking speaker docks”.
While I take no issues with that for what it is, it struck me as odd that it would be in the email. It further explains how this one ended up in my spam folder and I almost missed it as a result.
@ACraigL Yes, if @snapster is trying to get new customers that actually buy stuff instead of just playing in the forums they might want to watch their language.
@shawn
I’m trying to follow here, but it’s the middle of the night, so perhaps I’m less than awake.
OK, I never look at this email…never even seen it. Mostly cause I never look at any email if I can help it.
But I get it, the point of designing the email is “not to convert”. And so you tweak it so that it doesn’t convert.
Yeah, community, participation, all that. Good stuff.
But wouldn’t the non-conversion rate be even higher if the daily email were such obvious spam that no-one ever saw it? That it got you all onto someone’s blackhole list? Or if every email were a rickroll or similar? Or contained an obvious and painful daily earworm or headline-worthy gross image?
Or if it never got composed and sent at all?
So what’s the point here again? To prove that you can send an email that "looks* like a marketing email, except that it isn’t, and it nearly always fails? Is this a marketing team in-joke? Or a pretend-we’re-busy so we keep our jobs thing? Or a “prove that we’re nuts” by perversely sending a marketing email that isn’t a marketing email thing? A tinfoil-hat thing?
Huh???
Anyway, I promise to look at your precious daily email and have it fail to cause me to buy, if you start sending me a custom daily text or whatever telling me how amazing the marketing email is or isn’t. Deal?
@f00l The way I understand it, is that the email is to draw in the people who don’t visit meh on a regular basis. Instead of making the email something that gives the mehmber all the details (and possibly short-circuits a visit to the site because the item or price doesn’t interest them), the team is trying to create a communication that will intrigue the reader enough to make them click through to the site and hopefully interact with the community (whether or not they buy the item). In other words, they are trying to build a strong community, because that will be what makes meh (and any derivative sites) a success in the future. On the heels of deals-woot antagonizing their community and killing off their business as a result, I find it refreshing to see that @snapster and his team are acknowledging the value of a loyal community.
As for the style and quality of the email content, @snapster said it is a work in progress that will be tweaked with the input of VMPs before it is rolled out to the community at large. (Which also means that that most of us receiving the email right now are the ones who need it the least.)
@f00l De nada. I think the information regarding the email experiment got lost amid the discussion about circuit breakers, and I can certainly see how people could be confused about the goal(s) for it.
Maybe because there’s no comments yet for an item that hasn’t gone on sale?
I think there was talk in the other thread about suppressing it for meh-button-clickers and purchasers, but not sure that’s actually going to happen. About the only thing you can do (other than ignore it) is to unsubscribe… it’s really only meant for folks that don’t check at launch.
@ACraigL If I got pissed off over every unwanted email I received I would be a raging maniac by now. Send it, don’t send it, whatever.
@ACraigL Since it doesn’t tell you what the item is I am not sure why it matters when it comes out. In that respect it is irrelevant (at least to me anyway).
@Kidsandliz I get that. It’s just that the redacted comments seem to be a pretty prominent feature of the email. Actually, looking back at it, 75% of the content (if not more) is all about how it’s selling. If it was sent before the sale, the format would need to be changed pretty drastically.
Not that I have a problem with that.
@ACraigL Personally I think it is stupid to send these to regulars. Based on what I have seen of them so far, if I wasn’t a regular, I’d (personally) find them annoying spam since it doesn’t tell you what is being sold. My personal opinion is so far they aren’t even funny or entertaining (which is why I find them stupid and thus in the spam category). Since apparently right now they are getting more people to click through and buy (I think I read that on another thread) so they are unlikely to change the format of it…If the goal is $ (clicks and buys) then I doubt it matters much to them what the rest of us think since we can opt out. Now if they noticed a drop in sales/visits from the regulars that they could attribute to this they’d probably pay attention to our comments. Meanwhile the delete button is your friend (along with unsubbing). I haven’t unsubbed yet as I keep hoping they will tweak them enough they are actually worth reading. Also since I don’t buy much and these emails aren’t going to change that (because lack of awareness isn’t the reason), so they probably don’t care about my opinion anyway. The only way I’ll buy more is if it is free and this is a business, not a charity, so that is unlikely to happen. LOL
@Kidsandliz The goal of the email certainly isn’t “$ (clicks and buys)”. If it was, it would be much more effective to surface what we’re selling and photos and price and the amount off MSRP and a giant BUY IT button.
@shawn So, the purpose is not to drive $'s, and it’s basically useless spam? @snapster said he couldn’t ignore that sending the email with product details drove traffic for that other site. If you’re not providing details and not trying to drive $'s, what exactly is the rationale?
I mean, it’s easy enough to unsubscribe (and I did). But curious about the reasoning…
@shawn What @forestoney said… guess I am a really bad reader (well skimming) to so totally misunderstand the purpose… LOL
@forestoney @Kidsandliz Let me try to be more clear.
My takeaway, after living through this situation before, is that a daily email that surfaces the product’s name, a product photo, it’s price, an MSRP discount amount, and a giant buy it button is actively harmful to a daily deal site with an engaged community over the long term.
The problem is, that type of email is precisely the type that converts better over the short term for every metric Amazon uses when they evaluate marketing email. When you measure clicks and buys and conversion rate of this type of email you’ll find it’s off the charts compared to the teaser email we’re doing at Meh. So at Amazon, you spend more time tweaking the font-size, making the buy it button more prominent, and surfacing the bullshit MSRP comparison more “above the fold” and pat yourself on the back when you see more clicks, more buys, and higher conversion rates.
Meanwhile, what you’ve done over the long term is taken your active and engaged audience that used to visit the site regularly to check out the day’s deal and then stuck around to organize a superhero thing with other members of the community and you’ve turned them into passive customers who feel like they’re experiencing the full site through the lens of their mailbox.
So, I’m not interested much in tracking if the email is driving $, clicks, and buys. My only interest in those numbers would be to make sure they’re not too high. If they are it could be a sign that the email is harming the community we’re looking to build and grow.
@shawn So maybe mention an interesting/funny/outrageous/whatever thread in that email and put a link to that if that is your goal? And to encourage that kind of thread (or any kinds of threads you want to encourage) periodically reward that behavior by randomly choosing one that is mentioned and reward the thread initiator and one participator in that thread with free crap/a free fuku they otherwise would not have gotten? Yah know - reward the behavior you want type of thing… (grin)
@shawn Our customers ask us, “How do you make money doing this?” The answer? Volume.
@Kidsandliz… everyone should buy more free stuff…
I have a problem with the teaser email too:
The whose buying this image is broken. Anyone else have that?
@MrGlass Yep.
@MrGlass it is known. we’re fixing it.
@katylava
I’m amused that catshirtswoot wasn’t redacted …
I’m just watching that ‘space’ for it to be actually entertaining.
Maybe it’s not aimed at the majority?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
/giphy I don’t care
I just realized it’s not much of a teaser if it has the product name in the chart…
@ACraigL Yeah I just noticed that too LOL This might be an experiment of the “throw a rock in the pond and see what happens” variety (grin).
@ACraigL ha, yes. this works just fine when the attributes are “colors” like red, green, and blue. but not so great when the attribute is “pick the product set you’re buying”. We’ll have to work on that.
@shawn Or just change the choices to “pac-man” and “not pac-man”.
@ACraigL @shawn or change them to “blowing the most money” and “blowing less money”…
I find the teaser to be silly and a bit funny. But that’s all I expect from it. I often have forgotten what the daily deal is by the time I read the email. “Oh yeah, they’re selling deekerspocks today. Naw, still don’t need any more.”
/giphy shrug
I know it’s not an issue here, and rather welcomed at that, but the teaser email today contained a quoted f-bomb, @cranky1950’s “Geez the new fucking speaker docks”.
While I take no issues with that for what it is, it struck me as odd that it would be in the email. It further explains how this one ended up in my spam folder and I almost missed it as a result.
@ACraigL Yes, if @snapster is trying to get new customers that actually buy stuff instead of just playing in the forums they might want to watch their language.
@sammydog01 Also, they should include close-up pictures of nipples. People with money to spend love nipples.
@medz I prefer butts myself, but to each his own.
@sammydog01
/image nipple
/google 2 girls
2 Girls 1 Cup (Actual Video) - Video Dailymotion
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa70vx_2-girls-1-cup-actual-video_fun
@shawn
I’m trying to follow here, but it’s the middle of the night, so perhaps I’m less than awake.
OK, I never look at this email…never even seen it. Mostly cause I never look at any email if I can help it.
But I get it, the point of designing the email is “not to convert”. And so you tweak it so that it doesn’t convert.
Yeah, community, participation, all that. Good stuff.
But wouldn’t the non-conversion rate be even higher if the daily email were such obvious spam that no-one ever saw it? That it got you all onto someone’s blackhole list? Or if every email were a rickroll or similar? Or contained an obvious and painful daily earworm or headline-worthy gross image?
Or if it never got composed and sent at all?
So what’s the point here again? To prove that you can send an email that "looks* like a marketing email, except that it isn’t, and it nearly always fails? Is this a marketing team in-joke? Or a pretend-we’re-busy so we keep our jobs thing? Or a “prove that we’re nuts” by perversely sending a marketing email that isn’t a marketing email thing? A tinfoil-hat thing?
Huh???
Anyway, I promise to look at your precious daily email and have it fail to cause me to buy, if you start sending me a custom daily text or whatever telling me how amazing the marketing email is or isn’t. Deal?
@f00l The way I understand it, is that the email is to draw in the people who don’t visit meh on a regular basis. Instead of making the email something that gives the mehmber all the details (and possibly short-circuits a visit to the site because the item or price doesn’t interest them), the team is trying to create a communication that will intrigue the reader enough to make them click through to the site and hopefully interact with the community (whether or not they buy the item). In other words, they are trying to build a strong community, because that will be what makes meh (and any derivative sites) a success in the future. On the heels of deals-woot antagonizing their community and killing off their business as a result, I find it refreshing to see that @snapster and his team are acknowledging the value of a loyal community.
As for the style and quality of the email content, @snapster said it is a work in progress that will be tweaked with the input of VMPs before it is rolled out to the community at large. (Which also means that that most of us receiving the email right now are the ones who need it the least.)
@gio
Thx for explaining to my befuddled 4am brain. Huh, subtle. Makes a sort of sense now. I think. Mehbe.
@f00l De nada. I think the information regarding the email experiment got lost amid the discussion about circuit breakers, and I can certainly see how people could be confused about the goal(s) for it.
@gio “This is where the poo comes out…”
@stinks But it sometimes comes out of the mouth…