We strive to find the people in our industry who have something worth sharing. We’re curious about email because we believe it’s the most used product on earth, and it’s the channel that more businesses grow by than any other. Yet, it can be annoying to use, get, and send. That’s why we’re exposing the best of the best and curating a great collection on ReallyGoodEmails.com — when we’re not interviewing the giants.

It sounds like you’ve been doing Square emails.

With a few years of experience in email development, I thought I was pretty quick at writing code by hand and using snippets in Coda. After being introduced to task runners (like Grunt) and myriad other tools, I realized that automation can enable a much greater volume of work, and I can build emails faster with little to no errors.

Can you share one or two examples of small changes that you have tested in your emails that.

Previously, we sent a single reminder email 10 minutes after signup to people who hadn’t finished activating their Square account. People are busy (especially business owners) and sometimes need multiple nudges. Currently, we send reminders one, three, and seven days after signup. In each reminder email, we share simple tips for starting and running a business on Square. As a result, we’ve seen a huge spike in activations and improved our seller education.

We also integrate personalized messaging when emailing sellers with account-related information. We found that any specific data included beyond the recipient’s name nets significant gains in open rate and engagement with the links, and helps sellers understand the value of tools available to them. Examples include using the dollar amount we can offer sellers with capital, the number of customers that sellers can reach with Square Customer Engagement — our CRM software — and specific transaction data in support messaging requiring action from sellers.