This nice “you’ve been gone” email reminder from Dropbox is a smart attempt to reach out to on-the-fence folks (I signed up a few months ago but haven’t used the product in a while).
At most companies, there’s plenty of emphasis on acquiring new customers — but that means you can easily wind up overlooking folks who signed up for your product but still aren’t 100% on board yet. An email like this offers a good reminder: A customer retained is worth just as much as a customer acquired.
Bardley
on 09 Aug 10Nice.
I got another good email like that from Weebly.
Subject: Weebly misses you!
Body:
We haven’t seen you for a while.
It’s been 11 days, 21 hours, 13 minutes and 37 seconds since you last logged in, and we’re starting to get really worried.
We were just getting to know each other. You created 2 sites, 2 pages, dragged on 2 elements, and then… nothing.
We were really excited for your new website, it had so much potential!
If you ran into any trouble along the way, we’re here for you. Making your own website is fun, fast and easy with Weebly. Best of all, you will have a website of your own to show to customers, clients, family or friends.
So we’ll make it really, really easy to start working on your Weebly website again: just click here!
If you have any questions, we’d love to help. Feel free to visit our Support Center or email us at [email protected].
Sincerely, The Weebly Team
Anonymous Coward
on 09 Aug 10So, have you started using Dropbox?
BM
on 09 Aug 10The thing about these emails is that they’re almost always unauthorized. Me signing up for your app should not be an explicit authorization to send me marketing emails. Email should almost always be opt in. This type of thing is almost as bad as apps that spam twitter for you.
Mike
on 09 Aug 10Do you practice what you preach? I’ve been a using BackpackIt free account for a couple years and don’t recall ever getting an email from 37s in a similar vein of the email you recognize as a good practice.
Pies
on 09 Aug 10I don’t care for this kind of spam, and I really dislike the cheap play on emotions with “Dropbox is feeling lonely :( boo hoo”
Hibiscus
on 09 Aug 10I’m a fan of email “reactivation” campaigns like this from the sender’s point of view, as a way to make sure when you’re cleaning up your lists you don’t accidentally opt out someone who still wants to hear from you.
But it can definitely be overdone, more often in snail mail. I recently decided let my subscription to Dwell Magazine lapse, and they sent me so many desperate “Don’t go!” messages that I was almost thinking about a restraining order…
Daniel
on 09 Aug 10Pies, pretty sure that’s supposed to be humor, not an actual play on emotions.
If these emails aren’t overdone they can be very effective. I signed up for DropBox over a year ago, never used it, then got one of these emails. I’ve been using it constantly ever since.
Also, while getting unauthorized newsletters is annoying, I think reactivation emails are one of those things that should be expected whenever you enter your email address into a web service. Again, if you only get one and then no more afterwards, I don’t see what the big deal is.
ML
on 09 Aug 10This type of thing is almost as bad as apps that spam twitter for you.
Sure, this can be overdone. But I think a once-in-a-blue-moon reminder on this service that I did sign up for is alright.
So, have you started using Dropbox?
I only use it when I travel (makes me feel better about things that aren’t backed up) so I do plan on using the service again soon.
Scott
on 10 Aug 10You know who badly needs to do this? SiriusXM. They could offer 2 months free to every car with a deactivated receiver, and surely reel a few back in as subscribers.
Tobias Bergius
on 10 Aug 10I don’t know. If I haven’t used their service in a while, it might be because I don’t need it.
With a lot of these web apps, signing up is so easy and you do it just to try the thing out. You actually try to find use for it while using the app, not the traditional way which has to be taken with non-free apps, where you think about if you need it before you’re signing up.
So, basically, when every site you sign up for does this reminder, it’ll become damn irritating. And you know what I was thinking while reading your the Dropbox email? I wanted to see a “delete my account” link.
Michael
on 10 Aug 10Tobias, perhaps in the future developers will be making it more difficult to sign up. Perhaps the feeling that one has “worked for” the decision to sign up for an app will lead to more trial users sticking with the software and converting to paying customers. This is only when everybody figures out how to make the big “Pricing & Signup” button and no registration form takes longer than 15 seconds.
Derek Scruggs
on 11 Aug 10As a survey company, we (ahem) survey the people who don’t convert and ask why they didn’t upgrade. The most common reason? They signed up, but then didn’t find the time to actually try the product out.
BM
on 11 Aug 10I’m still a bit hung up on the idea that signing up for an app has become an implied authorization for that app to send you email. seems wrong.
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Andre Kibbe
on 12 Aug 10@BM: IIRC, Dropbox’s signup page, like Apple’s for iTunes, has an opt-out checkbox for receiving future email.
This discussion is closed.