Simplicity Wins! Squarespace Email Review

/ Zach Heller

For those of you who don’t know Squarespace, you might be more familiar than you think. Squarespace is a blogging and website platform…the very one this blog is hosted on. And it’s not free. In fact, there are several layers of membership that you can sign up for.

Often those kinds of “tiered” membership options can be complex and confusing. And Squarespace clearly saw that, and decided to make a change. What a great opportunity to promote simplicity with an email to Squarespace users!

Check out the email below:

Here’s what I like: The subject line is simple and informative. It tells me that as a Squarespace user, I am going to want to find out how they changed their pricing and how it affects me. And the layout of the email is perfect. The big, bold headlines and coloring steer my eyes down the body of the email to a big “Started at $8 per month”, the primary focus of the message.

Here’s what I don’t like: $8 a month is cheaper than the previous low pricing. What a missed opportunity to promote the tool is “cheaper” or “more affordable” rather than simpler. And the one problem I have with the subject line is the lowercase wording. To me, a subject line should follow the same rules as a Title or Headline, in that all words should begin with a capital letter. If it’s not done like that, it reminds me of spam.

Overall Grade = B

Thoughts on Posting from the Road

/ Zach Heller

Anyone who’s done any digging around on my blog knows that I’m using Squarespace. My last blog, Be Innovation, was a Wordpress blog. And I made the switch for a number of reasons, and so far I’m happy with the move.

One thing that I’ve grown quite fond of on Squarespace is posting to a future date. It allows me to put in a few hours of work, get a couple days’ worth of posts done, and post them all in one sitting.

And best of all, it allows me to maintain a consistent schedule of posting when my schedule is all but that. As this post goes live, I’m flying to Kansas City.

But this future posting strategy brings up some interesting thoughts. What if tragedy struck? What if an extraordinary event happened in my life? What if my life, for one reason or another, ended?

My posts would still go up as planned. That’s a creepy thought, but it’s the reality of the world we live in. Like social media profiles which stay active after someone has passed away.

Want to take part in an experiment? If you have a blog with the ability to schedule a post in the future, write one for one year from today. Write it about the state of things, as you expect them to be. And let’s see what happens.

/ Zach Heller/ 1 Comment
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Zach Heller