You can’t just tell me to pause my life while your application does something important.
Whether it’s generating a large report, resizing an image that’s been uploaded, or just delivering notification that their purchase has been successful, emails are a very useful way of notifying people that something they’ve requested has been ready. If you don’t force your user to sit around waiting for something to be complete, they are likely to be a lot happier when it does finish.
Luckily for application developers everywhere, email predates even the internet. This means it’s a simple solution to implement, and you can pretty much guarantee that everyone who is using your site will have an email account. They are happy to give it out, as an email address is quickly becoming the de-facto authentication method on the web.
If your application has any point where the user will have to wait, it is worth giving serious consideration to sending an automated email out when it is done. Happy users are the best marketing tool you can have!
Pros:
- Engaging: Email newsletters allow you to gain users back who might have navigated away from your site. They allow for a more personal approach to marketing and sales. Amazon and Ebay are especially good at this, recommending products to their users through an email, pulling them back to make another purchase.
- Confirming: Most sites have a user engagement flow. This is basically a route that a user should take through your site. The issue is that sometimes, you need to do something that doesn’t quite fit into the regular flow. Invoicing is a great example of this. The customer has just bought a product; the last thing you want to be doing is presenting him with an opportunity to download the invoice. You want to be pushing for more sales, and advancing him in the sales funnel...so an email containing his invoice means that his attention isn’t distracted from the next step along.
- Notifying: Sometimes, you need to let another person know when someone does something that affects them. Facebook emails you whenever someone tags you in a picture, and your application can do the same. Whether it is just an email confirming your account has been activated, or whether it’s a message that your boss has added you to an important project, an email is the perfect way to let the rest of the team know what’s going on.
Cons:
- Overloading: If anything, email is too effective! The average business email account receives somewhere around 100 emails a day, and if your email does not directly affect the course of their day, there’s a fair chance it will just go unread.
- Aging: Email has been around for a long time...as has the software people use to read emails. While sending text emails is always reliable, the prettier you want your email to appear, the more work has to be put in making the email look right in the majority of the email clients out there.
