Rule #1 for beta invites: remind me what you do

Not just beta invites.<p>I often get emails along the lines of: "Annoucement! Spluttr adds 25% more foo to free plans!" or similar.<p>Now I probably signed up to Spluttr 6 months ago, took a quick look and decided I wasn't interested as I needed 25% more foo.<p>In the intervening months, you've lived, breathed and sweated Spluttr whilst I've signed up for another 20 services and forgotten what most of them are for.<p>Remind me in every email.

Also, make sure you put it on your front page. A lot of times I see a link to someone saying "look at my cool project" on HN, and it takes me a long time to figure out what the project is actually supposed to do.<p>Also, make sure you explain it clearly. Once I went to a site that had pictures of food all over it and it said "like AirBNB but for food". I could not remember at the time what AirBNB was.

And rule #2: don't ask me to spam with friends for an earlier invite.

Yes, this is a big deal. I won't go searching to find out what you do when you announce a new feature. I will however read it in the email.<p>Going a step further, if you haven't seen me in a while (say a year), send me an email reminding me I have an account with you, and summarize what you've done in that time. Remind me of my username too. This is kind of a big deal, because I sign up for everything (can't have username dilution :) ). Just because I don't use your site now, doesn't mean I won't after your new features, so as long as it doesn't turn into spam, I like the reminder.<p>Amusing anecdote: I signed up for Reddit within a year of it's launch, but really start using my account there until 2.5 years or so ago when I decided to re-evaluate it. I had completely forgotten about my earlier signup and was real bummed when I learned of my username being taken. Fortunately I was smart enough to do my "It's probably me and I've just forgotten" ritual where I try all my password variants and sure enough either I really got lucky and the old sophacles had one of my passwords, or it really was me. I probably would have been actively redditing 2 years prior if there had been a not-to-spammy email reminder once in a while.

Can someone explain to me what is meant by "Optimize for the back button?"

I agree that its a good idea to remind people what you do, especially if it takes a long time between the sign up and launch (or further communication between parties). I just put up a landing page for my startup and think I did a decent job conveying what the company does, but I'm curious, but how much is necessary to remind them (in future communications)?<p>Is a one-liner enough (i.e. "We're a crowd-sourced record label!"), or would people prefer the whole spiel (i.e. "We're a crowd-sourced record label that does this, this and this!")?

Not just beta invites and email promotions, but also emails to advisors and early investors. It's more than just a reminder of what the heck you do, it's also handing them language to talk about your business to other people.<p>For beta users, advisors and early investors - these people are going to be your advocates. You need to give them the tools to advocate for you, and a well crafted 3 sentence elevator pitch that describes your business is a huge help.

I'd also recommend asking people for their FIRST name only, and emailing people with a personal email right after they sign up for the beta. Start a conversation, ask them what their problems are, what features they want, etc. Make them feel special, and tell them "Nice idea, why didn't I think of that! I'll try to include that."<p>They're sure to remember you if you do this. You can even do automated email segmentation. If their reply has "Sent from my iPhone", you know you can send launch emails for the iPhone version to these guys. If their reply has "Sent from Droid", send the Android launch emails to them.<p>Starting a conversation also lessens the probability your launch email gets put in spam as well... I'm sure Gmail, Yahoo, etc all have algorithms where if you respond to an email address, any future emails from that email doesn't get marked as spam.