Weird problem with my newsletter :)

[Emmanuel]

I suppose when you publish your first title like me, everything is a weird problem...

I got a reasonable amount of people (compared to traffic) signed up for my newsletter, BUT: not one person confirmed the subscription (I send an e-mail and people can click on a link to confirm; I don't want to allow someone to sign up someone else).

Probably there are a few phony cases (I got 123@mail.com, etc. signing up :)) but surely at least some would confirm?

Maybe the confirmation e-mail goes into junk mail, or my mail is poorly worded, or it's something else I haven't seen?

Do you guys have that problem, or suggestions?

Thanks [once more] !
Emmanuel

[Andy]

Yes, Emmanuel.

It's obviously poorly worded - to figure out that you'd probably should give the example here to let another guys (not me ;) ) to check at first. :)

And looking from the distance probably something is broken in confirmation part - have you checked everything carefully with average PC system - XP?

[Emmanuel]

Here's what it looks like (sorry, I don't mean for you to sign up just to see it, although you are welcome to! :))


Hello !

You have just requested a subscription to our newsletter. You will be the
first to know when we release a new game, short story, novel, or important
article !

If you didn't request to subscribe, don't worry, you don't need to do
anything at all and you can just ignore this e-mail.

If you would like to proceed with the subscription, just click on
the following link:

http://www.funpause.com/newsconfirm.php?id=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thanks !
The team at FunPause


Andy: the confirmation system works fine, I've tried it from friends' PCs with their e-mail address..

[mahlzeit]

Too much text. When I read, or rather skim, this message it isn't immediately obvious I still need to click the link. Put the confirmation link at the very top, something like this:

-------
Hello,

Click here to confirm your subscription to the FunPause newsletter:
http://www.funpause.com/newsconfirm...xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

blah blah blah why this is necessary blah blah blah
-------

[alfie]

Too much text. When I read, or rather skim, this message it isn't immediately obvious I still need to click the link. Put the confirmation link at the very top, something like this:

-------
Hello,

Click here to confirm your subscription to the FunPause newsletter:
http://www.funpause.com/newsconfirm...xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

blah blah blah why this is necessary blah blah blah
-------

Good point, mahlzeit.

Emmanuel have you considered using a company like YMLP.com to manage your subscribers and the sending of newsletters? Sign up on my site (you can unsubscribe after you have seen how it works).

[Andy]

Correction for mahlzeit version (good and correct in common but):

Hello,

Thanks for your attention to news from our company. (Or something of this type)
Click here etc...

and without blah blah blah - or may be one short blah ;)

Peoples would like to get your "Thanks" for their attention - especially in our full-of-spam era.

REM: Well. I'll sign up to your newsletter Emmanuel to check how unsubscribtion works ;) :D

[Andy]

Cheater! :mad:

I don't know how to unsubscribe from your newsletter now Emmanuel. :)

[Emmanuel]

Cheater! :mad:

I don't know how to unsubscribe from your newsletter now Emmanuel. :)

Heh. As the blurb says, you can unsubscribe using a link that will be in every newsletter that's sent (before that, you don't get *any* email at all from it anyway).

Do you think it's an issue?

(I can drop you from the list right now though if you like, just tell me so)

Thanks for taking time to test it!!

Emmanuel

[Andy]

I don't know really - we have the option to unsubscribe from our one in any moment at our site.

The procedure works in common if you got two my subscribtions.

And yes... ;-) Unsubscribe me please right now.

[Emmanuel]

I don't know really - we have the option to unsubscribe from our one in any moment at our site.

I suppose I can do that from the site (but then anybody can unsubscribe you, or do you confirm too?)

And yes... ;-) Unsubscribe me please right now.

Done (both of your entries) !

Emmanuel

[Jim Buck]

Also, I would remove the space between the word and "!". It makes it look like a scam letter from Nigera. :) (Actually, I would remove the "!" altogether and change it into something less "shouty".)

[Andy]

At least it comes well through all my Spam filters at Yahoo. That's really what I was trying to check by my subscribtion.

So, yes, Emmanuel - another guys are right. The problem probably lays in the wording of the request. You weren't call to action in the very first moment. So, you should check how it works after changes you made.

REM: This is really weird - "everybody" subscribes - nobody confirms... :confused:

[Emmanuel]

This is really weird - "everybody" subscribes - nobody confirms... :confused:

Well not "everybody" but a decent rate (who wouldn't want to sign up for free stuff ? :))

Well, as incredible as it is, the wording did help. I reworded the confirmation message and got people that confirmed their subscription now (two out of two so far, we'll see if that trend continues ;)

I learn something every day!

Now... about these sales.....! :)

Emmanuel

[Andy]

Now... about these sales.....! :)

Hopefully you weren't asking them for confirmation of their order through email? :D

[Emmanuel]

Hopefully you weren't asking them for confirmation of their order through email? :D

Haha. You would think so, considering my current conversion rate !

There's a gotcha somewhere too for the sales, but haven't figured it out yet. I did reduce the number of bogus order hits (people that go to the order page and never continue) a lot by putting the price in the game (people just went to check the price), but my CR hasn't moved an inch. Not even a statistical error ;) The demo and/or the order page may not be doing their job as much as I'd like them to, but I'm still looking for the answer :)

Emmanuel

[Hamumu]

Good thread, I got few confirmations too, and looked at my verify email to find that it was also "bottom heavy". Reworked, lets get more confirms!

[Andy]

I'm wondering really why to ask for confirmation at all?
Going to sell that BS..ty Double-Opt'ed lists or what?

We just send the newsletters to everybody who have subscribed. And they get unsubscribe link in every newsletter. And we are never cheating. And yes - some idiot can subscribe somebody else - billgates@MS.com etc. But this is very rarely really.

Speaking about your orders Emmanuel. Well. :( Look. Big Fish publishes one new game every day now. :eek: And not all of them are bad - really most of them are good and solid.
EDIT: I forgot to mention huge amount of free web games around. And I've found that a lot of them - not bad one day creations but pretty nice timekillers too.
So... market is overloaded and this is obviously decreases the convertion rates for everybody. Especially for starters. Still got a wish to survive? I'd say develop next games Emmanuel - harsh but true. Develop them unique on the level where nobody else can't reproduce them.

REM: I didn't play your game - not my genre. BTW. Just for sure. Meaning I'm stating here just common ideas. OK? ;)

[Emmanuel]

And yes - some idiot can subscribe somebody else - billgates@MS.com etc. But this is very rarely really.

Yeah but if it happens, people will get rightly annoyed at FunPause, and we don't want that :) Maybe you lose signups from people that feel insecure about how their email address is handled, if you don't send a confirmation e-mail? (just curious).

Andy, you're right about the market being crowded. That's why we decided to publish original games. There already are many shooters and puzzle games, we could make one, maybe we would find some smart bonuses and fun stuff that the competition doesn't have, but, who would EVER hear about our game? It'd be buried under hundreds of ads from realarcade for competing products, and number #335 on the list of its category on shareware sites.

We have pretty good placement so far on DL sites with Garden War. I just need to figure out how to satisfy more customers and convince them to get the full version.

I don't believe in the "it's the economy's fault" or "it's the market's fault" excuse -- it may be true, but that's no reason for me to stop working hard at least :) (not saying that it's what you were suggesting)

Do try the game if you have 20 mins even if it's not your genre -- it's a strategy game specifically designed for non-strategy players. Maybe I should point that out more :)

[Emmanuel]

I am amazed by the fact that I do get confirmations now just by switching paragraphs in my confirmation e-mail. I did learn something new from you guys again :)

But - there's more: 100%, all, every single one, of the signups come from pages where you can read the "Sign up.." blurb without scrolling down. Same principle at work, or what?

I wish I could fit all of plimus' order thing in one screen now :)

[Nexic]

I think that you should simply not use confirmations.