Email marketing and social media are linked by a common ground of customers who have given you permission to talk with them. Whether through email subscription, Facebook ‘fanning’, LinkedIn ‘connections’, Twitter or other social networking channel, customers who opt-in to your marketing communications are opening themselves to your business or your brand. While cross-channel links from email to Facebook to Twitter (and vice-versa) are becoming commonplace, the more strategic integrations are still working their way through the pipeline to glory.
This blog post on 7 Tricks Email can steal from Social recently published on iMedia Connection caught my eye. In particular, the section “By Invitation Only” deserves close consideration.
By invitation only
“It may seem counterintuitive to limit your content to a specific audience, but doing so creates ambassadors who will share your content for you. People like to feel special, and they like to tell their friends about things that are cool. This model has been adopted with huge success by some cutting-edge online "private sale" boutique retailers. Invitations are required to create an account, and each day, an email goes out to members promoting that day's sale. Members can invite friends via email, thereby earning a referral bonus for each friend who makes a purchase. This tactic can also work as a "friends and family" event. Your subscribers get access to a special promotion, and they get to share the wealth with their friends. This can be a win-win situation: Customers feel good about sharing a deal, and the friends who received the deal might like it so much they sign up for your email marketing.”
We all love an experience that is “truly” exclusive and most of us would get busy sharing the story on the back of a memorable experience. Yet most marketers find it too difficult (too risky) to make the sacrifice of excluding the majority of their customer base to create something that is rare and unique and worthy of word of mouth.
Do exclusive clubs have a place in the marketing suite?
If word of mouth is the new currency in marketing, is it worth shunning some customers in order to create a group of passionate brand ambassadors?
If word of mouth is the new currency in marketing, is it worth shunning some customers in order to create a group of passionate brand ambassadors?