Newsletters in the Inbox

I was editing a "real" magazine when the tidal wave of desktop publishing hit the consumer market. The newsletter as we know it was born. Early ancestors of the blog, the newsletter suffered from that most hideous of curses -- design flexibility. And believe me, it was flexed. Until its spine broke. Okay, so newsletters got a bad reputation as a result. Like one notch above the mass-produced Christmas letter in terms of egotistical editorial endeavor -- and that Christmas letter had suddenly become -- what? -- the Rognar Family Newsletter!

My editorial co-conspiritor at that time, Les Cowan, actually went on to be editor of a magazine called -- oh so self-referential! -- "Desktop Publishing." (With the editorial stance of: "We do this so you don't have to" I suppose.) Here's a newsflash: novelty happily wears off pretty soon.

But newsletters remain. And I found myself sucked into a project that required me to puzzle out this question: where does the newsletter end and the email marketing begin? What exactly is a subscription when I'm more incented to send it to you than you are to read it? Seems like a fruitful topic for examination. After three years of practicing and testing, I'm still examining it.

So I met a fellow online (properly introduced) who has the right stuff and has some experience with the magazine/newsletter/email/subscription nexus, and we got into a conversation about it. His name is Vince Golla, and I'm still waiting for his next comment, but I wanted to talk about it here a bit.

Here's what I said to Vince:

"I'm interested in finding a better way to present a "magazine" style experience via a web browser -- or something that takes the essence of that special experience and improves upon it - have you done any thinking about this? Our solution was to handle each issue as a standalone microsite, to minimize distractions from the key messages that were most important at that moment in time -- using a stripped down web format to really suppress the interconnectivity of the web presesntation and force it into a more focused box -- it made for a 10 minute monthly bite of info for the audience (which helped with repeat visits), and the glories of cross-links were right under the surface -- one link down. (See, I don't think a website is the same animal as a magazine -- and I see the same sort of thinking in your online magazines). I'm pleased with how that worked, but am still interested in other approaches.

I've also been thinking about the interesting interface bumptop (bumptop.com) -- which is presented as a desktop, of course -- but what about if it wasn't used for a desktop (I already have a desktop that works pretty well right in front of me) but was used instead as a form of magazine presentation? I'm really interested in this -- I'm sure you've been at editorial meetings where the issue's articles are being sorted, sequenced, rearranged, deferred to next issues -- needs for sidebars are uncovered in these discussions, and in general the group does a mashup on the issue's projected content.

How about if the online magazine offered this type of "push it around and arrange it as you like" interface, in addition to the more formal serial interface? For a very conservative model, I've been interested in the eBook concept for digital magazines for years, but SO clunky and prioprietary -- have you seen the web site: http://www.websitemagazine.com/ look on the low left side for the "sample digital issue" -- they've applied the eBook model to a flash presentation -- one big drawback, though -- could it possibly load more slowly?

And what about offering both interfaces for the same magazine and letting the reader choose? Why not?"

Why not, indeed? But Vince is busy right now, so I'm waiting for his next comment. In the meantime, I decided that it was time to look at the face of the world beyond my own inbox. I sent out a call for help via LinkedIn's new question feature:

Constructing a list of very good and very bad online magazines/newsletters/subscription sends -- do you have any examples to share?

I got 17 direct replies and about 150 examples sent to my inbox. All the examples sent were in the good category -- I can say categorically that no one remembers the name of a bad email newsletter. It's kind of the opposite of the Anna Karanina definition of families (remember? All good families are the same, all bad families are different?) In this case, all the good ones were very different from each other in any way you can think of, and the bad ones were all the same: "They were bad -- I don't remember them."

I'm still paging through the examples, but I promise an analysis at some point soon -- Oh, and in a tidy coincidence, a v. smilar topic has just popped up in Ask E.T: Recommended Magazine Layouts...

Oh, and I can tell all question-responders to knock it off on the "it depends" answer, designed to show off your own excellent analytic skills. Of course it depends, you nitwits, why do you think I'm asking for concrete examples? I bet their spouses are delighted that they're addicted to the internet. I can hear them now: "Honey, do you think we should talk to Sara's teacher about her appalling grades?" "Well, now..." pause for puff on pipe "I think it really depends, dear." rich chuckle "You have to consider what the teacher is trying to tell us when she sends those grades home -- of course our response would depend on our understanding her motivations." He'd be killed if it were me the mother of Sara -- but no, she's taken the easy way out and pushed him out of bed and towards his computer in the family room and here he is answering my question with the same kind of self-insulating, conditional, nonsense.

This passion has roots in that primal self-loathing -- it's the preening type of answer I was guilty of before I caught myself in a little self-examination. The answer you should be writing is to "tell" not to "show."

More on newsletters soon.

Online Ephemera

Darryl Siry writes about a wish for exploding emails in his blog, Marketing 2.0. I started thinking about how very limited our settings are for the email communication channel, and also how rigid the walls are between different types of online communication channels. I started writing about this in a response to his post, and just to be really annoying, I'm going to copy it here:

"You're talking about establishing a set of "types" for email, I think, and the one you describe is the "ephemeral" or perhaps "touchback" email -- yeah, I wish they would just dissolve after a day or so -- I'd put subscriptions that arrive in email in the same type.

LinkedIn has recognized the issue of time value in a communication by offering the sender the option of withdrawing a message -- but you know they're not digging into someone's email inbox to extract a sent message.

It's an information architecture for electronic messages -- you're asking for type-specific features: Dissolve, for instance, or I can add, file or strip attachment or announce yourself in red -- some of these are built in to email clients now, but they're all receiver-set. Your innovation here is to recognize that this is a mature enough medium to drive some standards that we can all agree on and so can set up some new sender-set categories (aside from URGENT and DO NOT FORWARD)that help us all with inbox overload.

My husband teaches this stuff day in and day out so it's a nearby concept for me. Yeah, it's a great idea -- I'm sending you an email and I know because I'm smart that the message is ephemeral and should fade if not read in an hour, so I have that setting on my email client -- and the mail will disappear if not read in that time.

I'm sure there are other useful categories that we can all agree on -- and here's the inevitable question -- Is it technology or training? or a combination? Maybe this is finally the time for the etiquette of electronic messaging.

The messages you describe probably ought to be delivered in an IM type interface, rather than the lockbox of email -- or twitter perhaps. Isn't it time for all our messaging systems to start to integrate with each other based on our communications intentions rather than the type of application interface I happen to have open at the moment?

I send a lot of IMs into email inboxes, and I send messages that should be leaving an audit trail into an IM conversation, just because that's where the conversation started...I think this is a cresting issue."

I'm still thinking about this. I spend some minutes each week explaining to some colleague what Twitter is. I've come to decide that it's just a pipe with a very small diameter -- and you can set up the pipe to send from or receive to a wide variety of -- what? -- sinks? clients? It's so fun because it's like Legos or Hot Wheels tracks or Zoobs. For a while,you can amuse yourself just setting it up and taking it down again. (Reminds me of the ancient Kliban cartoon that was captioned, "Henry could amuse himself for hours with a pencil," and it showed a dazed looking fellow standing up and holding out a pencil for inspection.)

But the concept that sticks in my head is this: we're very hide-bound about the ways things work right now when it comes to communication channels, very conservative.

The phone rings, you answer it. People tell my husband all the time that they'll be fired if they don't answer all their e-mail. (It's probably for a different reason, BTW) I've watched my pre-teen daughter try to juggle tens of IM sessions at the same time, growing increasingly frantic as I hear the dings and the doors. When I looked over her shoulder, every single one of them was dull to the point of absurdity -- to me at least. She did not seem to enjoy the experience much, but she never turned a chat away that I ever saw. You poke me,I answer?

Surely one of the things that will change as we move towards universal instantaneous connection is this one: At some point, the receiver gets to say, "No, Thank You." I think manners is going to have this one turned around: It will be rude to get all snitty when you don't get an immediate reply.

My godmother, Mary, is like that, and I love her very much for her understanding. "Oh, heavens!" She says, "I don't know how you young people manage these days. But do stay in touch."

Why Can't You Start Building the Web Site?

For any site, basic target audience definitions (personas), content goals, and site-specific content categories mark a starting point for the development of content strategies, information architecture, and a site’s content plan.

Are all these things necessary? No, they are not necessary to build a site.

But they are necessary to build a successful site.

Without these elements, the site has no defined role in the business strategy. There is nothing material to measure that would demonstrate the success of the site. The task of collecting content for the site will always be an exhausting and demoralizing scramble.

The first step in planning for a web content strategy (or any web strategy), is to invest in the development of these elements in sequence:

• Business goals with respect to the target audience,
• Target audience definitions (personas),
• Content goals that support the business goals, and
• The content categories that will create a connection between the voice of the web site and the person who represents the target audience for the site.

These elements are also the first step in assessing a site’s ROI, both for investment in content development and all other investments in the site.

The most crippling gap in this sequence of planning elements is this: Specific business objectives.

If the site’s sponsors have not identified specific enough business objectives, it will not be possible to determine how they relate to the target audience – and that connection must be clear before anyone can create clear and specific content goals for the site. As a result, the site will fail.

Some Specific Examples

Chances are good that your subject matter experts already have a good idea of the audience persona (keep in mind that their assumptions ought to be tested with some validating research.

For instance, a starting point might be:

Real Estate Product Persona

Real estate owners and property managers who control a medium to small portfolio of non-habitational real estate. Their primary concerns are maximizing revenue, minimizing expenses and providing services to tenants. They make the buying decision or have significant input.

• We assume that this person really knows the business.
• This person is over-extended, always responding to emergencies.
• They are managing staff in several locations and may frequently face the loss of a key employee, like a building manager.
• They choose the timing of maintenance and renovation investments.
• They may not have the daily structure to schedule maintenance and inspections as systematically as they would like.
• They are concerned about interest rates, the quality of their tenants, their contracts and changes in laws that affect them.
• If they report to investors, they spend time developing these reports.

(And now you have something you can really work with as you think about how to build and populate the site)

Once the persona is defined, you must develop one or more specific business goals with respect to this target audience. “They will buy our product again” is not specific enough to drive a content strategy. “They will buy again out of loyalty” is an example of a specific enough business goal (though it's pretty minimal) – to support this business goal we can develop a content goal like:

“The Real Estate Tycoon will strongly identify with the voice of the site and will see and come to trust that the site’s voice is always sympathetic to his primary worries and that the site’s content will provide an immediate, usable action plan against his primary worries so that he can sleep better that night.”

Loyalty is an emotional quality, so the responsive content goal is likewise oriented to an emotional response.

A content goal that clearly states the nature of the connection between the specific business goal and the audience’s actual reality will permit the creation of a site content strategy and content development plan that is likely to succeed.

For instance, in the example above, the resulting content plan might call for the creation of an industry team persona (a sort of real estate Betty Crocker) who speaks to the site visitor as a person talking to another person. This is not hard to do, and if it is likely to create a sense of personal loyalty at the time of renewal, then it’s an idea worth testing. The content plan will include many such ideas:

• The tone of the article headlines and intros is sympathetic rather than matter-of-fact.
• Loss Control content for this site must include immediately usable action plans and must not include long-term maintenance advice.
• Content must be focused on the top of the mind worries of this person, and must not include content that he would consider trivial (even if our Loss Control experts disagree).
• Since we’re assuming he’s plagued with worries, we don’t want to publish the “gotcha!” Lessons Learned on this site – these are the stories of tiny errors creating large losses.

The selection or commissioning of content itself should be easy with an adequate content plan.

A more business-like example of a persona-specific business goal that can feed a useful content goal is: “They will renew because they know that the loss-control tools that this vendors has supplied have saved them money in the past year and they expect the savings to continue.” This goal is not emotional – the responsive content goals will feature cost savings in the lead position.

What I refer to as content goals here are closely related to High Value Scenarios (HVS) in the world of interaction design.

For a site to be successful, its developers must see at least one specific business goal with respect to the target audience that can be accomplished, supported, or influenced by the intelligent use of web content or a web-based application. Further investment in content for a site for which we cannot articulate this connection does not make any sense.

Oh, and without the objective or goal, how in the world will anyone even know if it's been successful?

The Emotional Appeal: Bambi

Contextual note: Pathos, Ethos, Logos, the trinity of types of suasion.

And for today, Pathos. The appeal to the emotions.

Once upon a time, when I was consulting in communications strategies, I had a client, a very nice organization, a non-profit who hired my company to provide advice and training for their directors in their pursuit of money, the annual capital campaign. They already had enough money to pay us, happily. They knew they could do better in these annual campaigns, so they were looking to tap into our expertise.

So the first thing we did was arrange to tour around their many sites in the greater San Francisco area, to get an idea of what they were asking for money to actually support. They were wonderful about the tour, very friendly, knowledgable, clearly passionate about their work -- and here's a surprise -- they were all friendly knowledgable and passionate. I began to wonder about their fabulous recruiting process -- usually there are a few clinkers. So we met tens and twenties of friendly, knowledgable and passionate staff members, and toured tens and twenties of sites, centers, and programs.

And what they did there, what they did for each community they became part of -- well, it was what was needed, whatever was needed. Childcare, preschool, after school teen basketball leagues, esl classes, temporary housing, a subsidized lunch, a safe place to meet up with your kids, parenting classes, swimming classes, summer school, elder outreach, social dancing, bridge tournaments, whatever.

Okay, so I'm ready to write a check at this point.

We go talk to the program directors -- the people who needed training in how best to ask for money in this capital campaign. We asked, "Who are you asking?" and it turned out to be foundations, big local companies, civic organizations, whatever, whereever. They had all the speaking dates and appointments, they just weren't sure what to say.

So, a little non-plussed (seemed obvious to us, but then, we're the experts...), we arranged for a three day training session and wrote the curriculum. And the day dawned, we all showed up and got to work on helping these kind people learn to ask for money by tugging on heart strings.

And it was really hard. They really didn't want to. They were hoping we'd give them charts, a cost benefit analysis, a way to reach the cynical and hard-bitten on their own terms. So, we also did that, but never swerved from our recommendation -- use pathos, not logos. Or if you just can't bring yourself to use emotion, then at least use ethos -- speak from your own authority as a person.

There wasn't any solid logic available to them, but they had a powerfully compelling case. They were just uncomfortable about presenting it that way.

We had twelve people to train, and they all felt this way -- it just didn't seem fair. It felt manipulative, it felt undignified. We showed them the video tapes of their arguments based on emotion -- they were good -- they'd work! And yes, they agreed that this was so...but still. And that was the end of the first day.

We went back to the office, puzzling over how to rehabilitate the argument to the emotions, how to make it professionally respectable.

The next day, we showed up with a newly edited tape for the group and we started off with a quiz: "We're going to show you an argument and you're going to tell us if it's to the emotions, to logic or based on a person's authority." Okay, they all agreed, as nice as ever. And we rolled the tape.

A minute later we stopped the tape and said, "Well?" The hands shot up, and we had an excited discussion. We rolled the tape again, stopping it after thirty seconds: another lively discussion. A minute, 30 seconds, a minute, a minute, 15 seconds. More discussion, more excitement.

By the first break, the group had figured it all out. After the break, we had them do their presentations again, leaning on the emotional appeal, as we'd taught the day before -- and they were GREAT! Dignified, professional, and very heart-rending. They told tales about specific children and how their organization's services had made a difference in their lives, specific seniors, people ill unto death, new immigrants, a whole collection of specific faces came out in their presentations, and it was great. They added on -- going to places we couldn't lead them (after all, we're not altruists, and can only think along those lines so far...). They talked about how grateful they were personally to be able to put their life's work into these types of meaningful programs -- they turned the corner on the pathos and brought it back to ethos. Very elegant.

And what unlocked them? We showed them commercials. Commercial after commercial and asked them to apply the concepts of persuasion that we'd taught them the day before -- how is this company trying to persuade you? What type of appeal? Did it work? Why did it work? How could they have made it work?

All the participants jumped in to this fascinating parlor game -- not just watching commercials, but evaluating them. And they saw that the argument to emotions is very powerful, very commercial, and it can be very dignified.

Somehow, the commercials gave their own campaign for donations a sort of commercial validity, and they saw that to fail to use all the tools that capitalism uses to sell a sponge would be no service to their noble organization.

They had a very successful annual campaign that year, and for years after.

Rhetoric and IA: I see no differences

Okay -- that's why I called it Rhetoric - IA. I actually have a university degree in Rhetoric -- it's right there on the diploma -- from Berkeley, no less. I really like the idea of becoming expert in rhetoric in the city that deplores its use. But it's okay, I'm a Berkeley native, so I guess whatever I do anywhere is a reflection on my home town.

I had a point to make, however -- I wanted to illustrate the complete overlap between the two disciplines, and it's a celebration of sorts because it looks like there's finally a real job that goes right to the heart of what I love. AND OH YES I love rhetoric -- it's engineering with words. I was an exhausted engineering student when I stumbled into my first rhetoric class: Rhetoric 30, taught by Dan Melia -- and I was a deer caught in the headlights after that.

It was an article of faith that half of the class (which was the introduction to the basic principles of rhetoric) did not stick around to the end, but I really didn't notice. I moved my seat from the back to the front row and came early and stayed late. It was amazing to me that people, other people, really thought this way, and I'd been hiding my bizarre compulsion to analyze communications all these years...and now I could get A's with it. After the first passion, I noticed that my former engineering classmates thought my new discipline was ridiculously difficult -- and yes, it's not for anyone who isn't just fine generating reams of prose. (et tu blogosphere?)

And people were passionate about it, too. Dan hated the deconstructionists -- and he thought I should too, but I was actually blown away by the ideas -- and I'm still deferring my judgment on this philosophy...maybe it's the way communication is indeed mediated by the web...maybe the writer disappears into the text...maybe the reader is the one doing the writing. That's what's going on in user experience one-on-ones, after all. But Dan was all about the page and the podium, not the web. And the medium is the message after all.

The deconstructed web is the coldest place of all (in media terms) -- particularly the web environment of an anonymous corporate site.

So the curriculum lead the little student sheep along the path of the classics -- We actually studied Aristotle in the same way a mechanic would study a Merck's Manual. Here's the piston, here's the camshaft, here's the pathetic trope, here's the catharsis, now you do it. Then we looked at Plato -- not all of him, just a few dialogues, but what dialogues they were: Gorgias!!! My darling Gorgias, gorgeous Gorgias.

Okay, now this is reealy important in today's evil world: Plato held that no one could be allowed to take up the hideously powerful tools of rhetoric unless they had first been grounded in and ground down by the puffing, strutting strictures of Ethics. Like handing a gun to a -- what? an evil person, I suppose. Here's a digression: long long before Jesus and his Good News, Plato was the earliest person I've read who clearly believed in the transforming power of having something explained to you. So, he didn't say that only good people should get to use rhetoric -- his desire was far more mechanical -- only people who had been lectured to about Ethics should get to use rhetoric. I hear and obey, master.

But, you know, Berkeley is always conservative and obedient, so, in tune with the Platonic stricture, we sheep were also dipped in the bath of Ethics before we were turned loose with our weapons. Now, this was in the early 80's, when Greed was Good -- in fact, it was at Berkeley, just across campus, in that same window of time, that Mr. Boesky was busy telling a B-School class that very thing. The rise of the faceless giant corporation -- what are one's moral obligations with respect to non-human entities? That wasn't covered.

Next time: Bambi, the pathetic.