“Expiry notice”... 🥁 7/10
Once upon a time, in a land far away, a website domain was coming up for renewal…
Are you on the edge of your seat? No?!
Thing is, these days, armies of in-house copywriters are responsible for that sort of stuff. Complicated, technical, fiddly comms about complicated, technical, fiddly products and services.
For all the buzz about “storytelling”, sometimes there’s just no way to sex it up.
In those cases the instinct is often to battering-ram the complexity into a cupboard and lash the handles together. Then back away tiptoe by tiptoe.
Clearly – in the eyes of your reader – this is not an optimal solution. Hard things are hard, and you don’t make them easy by pretending they’re not. Which leaves a (largely untapped!) opportunity for you to strengthen your relationship with your customer by addressing this complexity head-on. No sexing-up required. (Stealth messaging, if you will. I wrote about another example of this back in August.)
I first experienced the hard-things-are-hard revelation a few years ago at a fintech company. I was A/B testing some conversion copy that gave instructions for how to upload documents. TLDR, the longer, more detailed explanation I’d written outperformed all the “hey ho let’s pretend it’s easy!” variants.
And a wee while ago I got an email that reminded me how big this opportunity continues to be.
The backstory:
I’ve got a website. In practice this means I pay for the “www” thing and a place for it to exist. It’s my duty to keep it alive. Sometimes I have to feed it things, like money. Sometimes I have to take it to the groomers for a copy and design upgrade. Sometimes it’s unwell and I’m bombarded with maintenance messages. In my head I see it as an aging tamagotchi that was handed to me at the school gates by my future children (shout-out to Mama Nunn!). As you can tell, an expert I am not.
I’d rather not think too much about my website… except when I need to ensure its survival for another year.
Which brings us to the email below. Who’s ready to pounce?
If you enjoy this teardown, please consider flicking it on to someone else who’d get a lot out of it (and if someone fabulous forwarded it to you, you can subscribe here, it’s free!).
Sender anonymised to Xxxx out of courtesy. Have a hunch? Guess away…
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject line: “ICANN Domain Expiry Courtesy Notice”
I cann...not understand this acronym. Huh. But reading on, I know what a domain is. Oh yes! I have one of those. Plz don’t expire on me, my precious! Better open the email hadn’t I?
“Hello -
This is an automated courtesy email that you have one or more domain names with renewal dates within 30 days:
Domain name corissanunn.com
Expiry date 2020-09-29”
An automated email that’s NOT pretending NOT to be an automated email? Perversely, I quite enjoy that. Have I been doing this job too long?
“About this email
You have been sent this email because you are the listed owner of a domain name. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) requires that all domain registrants are reminded that they have domain names that are coming up for renewal.”
Well blow me down! Pennies from heaven! Is this… can(n) it be… a techy email that’s made an effort to explain what’s going on? Yes. Yes!
“These notices must be sent at approximately 30 days and again 5 days prior to the renewal date of the domain. An additional reminder must be sent approximately 3 days after the renewal date in the event the domain is not renewed.”
OK, it won’t win any awards for style or accessibility, but THIS IS HELPFUL. YES. YES. I’m starting to feel like the Herbal Essence lady in the 90s telly ads, bellowing into a waterfall in ecstasy.
“Depending on your communication preferences, you may receive an additional reminder from Xxxx including specific information about the automatic renewal status of your domain(s).”
Well I’ll be damned if I can remember my communication preferences. Grr, I have to go and find out for myself whether my domain is set to renew or not. Mind you, having worked in tech for a few years, and judging by the rules and regulations at work behind the scenes, I can guess that the reminder would come from an opposite corner of the universe to this email. So I do have some sympathy for the hedging.
“You can view and manage domains in your Xxxx account at: <link>”
Oh go on then.
“If you have any questions or require any assistance, please contact Xxxx at <email>.”
The support email address here is the same as the sender’s email and the reply-to. The company are acknowledging that this is a fiddly topic by offering contact details. Again, YESSS! (No-reply? No thank you.)
---------- End ----------
Conclusion:
Email Teardown Club score = 7/10
It’s a sign of the times that a message with so much room for improvement can still land well, due to the simple fact that it bothered to give the background for something complicated and technical.
Had the email failed to explain WTF is going on, I might’ve replied with an eggy “so is my domain set to auto-renew or not?”.
Instead, it left me in such a good mood that I happily dredged out my login details.
Such is the show of good faith from a bit of extra effort. It’s one of the comms world’s most under-exploited superpowers.
How might you put it to use?
Cheerio,
Corissa
P.S. Need a hand with your emails? Or know anyone who’s looking for help? I’ve got some availability at the mo and would love to chat, just hit reply!
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These teardowns are my gut reactions as a customer, mashed together with my copywriter background, to investigate how messaging really lands outside the sender's ivory tower. I’m only a sample size of one. Agree or disagree with my take? Reply and tell me! I love exploring other perspectives.