Like anyone else trying to lead a normal life in this country, we’re choosing to keep our political beliefs to ourselves. But, because we can’t help ourselves, we decided to judge the candidates the best way we know how: by analyzing their email game.
So let’s jump right in nice and easy. Today, we’re just going to sign up for each candidate’s newsletter.
Signing Up: Clinton
We started with Hillary’s first. This is normally where we’d show you a picture of a popover asking for an email address — because that’s pretty standard these days, right? — but we can’t. Because there wasn’t one.
In fact, nowhere on the front page is there a specific link for a newsletter. There isn’t even some sort of archive for older newsletters that may have been sent before we signed up. There is this, though:
So, we filled it out, and were sent here:
We declined to donate since there seems to be a failure to immediately let us know what we just signed up for. Kudos for trying to get those dollars though. And here’s the email we received:
Really kind of … boring. And what’s with all that white space between the last line of copy and the footer? Also, no unsubscribe option or a link to a preference center? And zero social media icons. Not off to a great start here, but we received the email in a matter of seconds, so that was a plus.
Let’s take a look at the Donald’s sign up process.
Signing Up: Trump
Jumping over to Trump’s page, again no popover to immediately grab an email address. And again, no clear indication of where to sign up for a newsletter, and no newsletter archive. Like his opponent’s, there is a “Join” CTA:
So again we click, but now we actually get something a little more substantial than Clinton’s process:
We immediately know that by signing up here, we’ll be getting updates about Trump’s campaign. And look at all those fields to catch subscriber information. Plus a CAPTCHA at the bottom to help cut down on collecting bad email addresses. Let’s take a look at the email we received immediately:
The design, like Clinton’s, is lacking — but at least there’s a little more substance to it. Again, no unsubscribe or preference center links in the footer but, hey, at least the social media icons are there — no matter how off they look.
Round One Goes To …
We’re giving it to the Donald, though both campaigns look like they could use some serious help in this department. We’ll tune into the next round after we receive our second emails from both campaigns.
Also check out 3 Emails We’re Highlighting This Week and 3 Emails We’re Digging This Week.