Are Your Subscribers Organized? Why It’s Better to Assume the Worst
Posted by Dave McCue on June 2nd, 2009
Everybody loves features. Salespeople point out fancy features to heighten customer interest, and customers love knowing those fancy features will be at their disposal once they’ve made a purchase. Unfortunately, many of those features never actually get put to use—you may have slipped your feet into a pair of ROOS at one time, but did you ever actually use that little zipper pocket? Didn’t think so.
In the same way, a typical email client boasts quite a few features that, if used properly, can make for a much better end-user experience. However, it’s taking a long leap of faith to assume that your subscribers are utilizing any of these features outside of the basic Create-Send-Open-Reply variety. For instance, while the application of Filters (aka, Rules) can do wonders for subscribers who are frustrated with their crowded and unorganized inboxes, it’s much more likely that the emails you send are being delivered to the top level inbox along with every other non-Junk message that is received.
Preview panes are another feature that makes inbox skimming easier and more productive for recipients, but they are not a default setting on all email clients and therefore must be activated by the user.
