Bohmann on Usability

How to Include Unsubscribe Info in Email Newsletters

Magnus Nilsson from Mondial Portabla Media in Stockholm, Sweden, comments:

I just read your article Email Notifications: Making Unsubscription Easy and have one question. You write The problem is fixed by including this information: 'You are subscribed as john@doe.com'.

This is a good suggestion, but I don't know how to make it run on, for example, a newsletter service provided by an ordinary web hosting company... or if you run your list in your own e-mail programme. Do you address only people with their own web servers and programmers, or am I missing something?

1. Collect all subscriber emails in the column Subscriber_Email in an Excel spreadsheet (or Access database).

2. Create new Word document for your newsletter. Mail Merge your newsletter with the Excel spreadsheet by selecting Mail Merge in Word's Tools menu. A window opens, now press Main Document : Create : Form Letters : Active Window. This transforms your newsletter to a Mail Merge document. In Data Source, press Get Data : Open Data Source and select your Excel spreadsheet. Your newsletter is now merged with your subscriber emails.

3. Write your newsletter in Word. Insert this line in your newsletter document: 'You are subscribed as {Subscriber_Email chosen from Insert Merge Field)}'.

4. Press Merge and then Merge to electronic email. You can edit header in Setup.

June 12, 2002 - By Kristoffer Bohmann