Is It Possible to Be Too Friendly?
Posted on January 15th, 2009 in Marketing, Usability | 6 Comments »
I just sent out the WebWord Newsletter to my subscribers. It was deliberately a friendly note. My tone was quite casual and I was not formal.
Within just a few minutes I received notice that a subscriber dropped. The good news is that this subscriber provided me with some feedback:
“The tone is too friendly and familiar, i first thought it was spam.”
So, this raises many questions. Here are just a few…
1. Is it possible to be too friendly and familiar with subscribers?
2. How formal should email be? What about newsletters?
3. What are subscribers really expecting from you?
4. What is the distinction between formal and informal?
5. Are you losing subscribers by being too casual?
There are a bazillion more questions I could ask. But really, at the end of the day, I’m not going to change my style much. The reason is that I am tired of stuffy emails from stuffy companies. I am going to probably get less formal over time.
I very much intend to build a stronger relationship with my list. That means being more personal. It’s what I would like and it’s what I will do.
If I lose subscribers for being a “nice guy” or for telling the wrong stories about my personal life, I’m fine with that. It’s more important to be me than it is to be one of … them. I know you know what I mean here.
Implications for the design of email newsletters? What do the usability professionals and UX’ers have to say?
~ John
6 Responses
Be true to yourself JSR! Great work :)
[...] Is It Possible to Be Too Friendly? [...]
Well, of course the answer to those questions is very context specific. I think one thing to do though, is try to be consistent so people aren’t thrown off and become suspicious. If you start casual then they’ll recognize that throughout the messages. If you ever saw Dreamhost’s monthly newsletter it sends out to customers, it’s very casual and generally lacks professionalism. That’s part of its charm though and is consistent from each newsletter so I know what to expect from reading it. It’s generally comical yet also provides important updates about services.
I subscribed a couple of weeks ago so the last newsletter was the first I received. I also thought it was spam because
- of the repeated, caps “YOU”
- it called me ‘a trusted webword subscriber’ – this is making me feel totally strange and think that the author doesn’t know anything about me
- it was about the author’s stuff and questions and not giving anything back
- the tinyurl didn’t help either in building some trust (HTML emails anyone?)
I gave it a chance though – after searching the name and remembering that indeed I subscribed hoping for some interesting content. Nothing so far :|
My opinion – you are asking the wrong question, John. The message was too different. Didn’t sound like you on the first pass. Friendly, not friendly wasn’t the issue. You repackaged your “brand”, i.e. communications style. I’ve seen other sites with styles from stiff to very casual and chatty, that’s not so much the issue. Introduction of change can cause some reactions (good or not so good) in the target audience.
Liked the link to the $300 Million button. Maybe because it confirmed to me that I wasn’t alone in my behavior and wants (I just want to buy something, I don’t want a relationship.)
I think that when you provide a service or product for the general public, they expect a professional form of communication. If instead a camaraderie format between friends or casual acquaintances discussing ideas is the format, then that is definitely the time for casual communication. In today’s times, you have to be careful about being too familiar with people you don’t know, much less changing a format on them. Some people would see a false sense of familiarity that preempts a request for money.