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.”

(Ben Ardito: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/26787.asp)

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?

Dominos do a great job when it comes to the design of their emails.  They're all nice and neat and are consistent with their site.  They use great photography that does exactly what it's meant to - make you hungry.

They do an even better job of timing.

I love (and hate) the fact that they make me eat pizza every other weekend because of my Friday afternoon pizza alert.  Take this example reminding me that it's cheaper on a Tuesday.

Subject: It's Cheaper Tuesday Order Online Now

But it's not all juicy toppings and tasty, tasty cheese... I think there's a few things that could definitely be done a little better.

Lets start with the Order Online CTA.   Having it hidden down in the bottom corner seems a little, well,  hidden (and inconsistent with their website).

Also, let's not forget that apart from the T&C's, it's all images - and not an ALT tag in sight!

In any case, it's a nice example of good timing.

And i hate you for it ;-)

When it comes to email marketing, is customer attention a valuable resource that should be managed with care? Or is it more like a commodity that can be used as needed?

With email marketing, it’s generally easier to send broad-based communication to an entire list than it is to segment, customise and target. The relatively low cost of email negates any savings in terms of reduced volumes. Why spend time slicing up your list when the direct cost saving may only be a few hundred dollars?

For DM, the high cost of print and distribution ensures that you need to get your segmentation and targeting to an economically optimum number that will generate the response you need.

However, we are seeing that over time, lists grow tired. Customers start to switch off after a succession of emails fails to spark their interest. This is measured through declining open rates over time. Unsubscribe rates are low but steady, which indicates that most customers are not opting out. They are not being as receptive as they were to begin with.

Does it pay to invest in getting this right?
What’s the return on investment for keeping a customer’s interest?
What’s the opportunity cost when they switch off?
When it comes to email marketing, is it quantity or quality that we are seeking?

We'd like to hear your thoughts.

A Crystal Ball on the Marketing and Communications business

Well done to the iMedia team (DMG) for putting on a successful event with the Brand Summit 2009. Two nights and two days at Cypress Lakes in the Hunter valley made for 48 hours well spent.


The schedule included an impressive line-up of speakers including:
- Dr Jeffrey Cole on “How everything is blowing apart” and “Why Everything is coming together”
- Peter Williams from Deloitte on innovation, collaboration and porous product development
- Don Peppers on how marketers can take lessons on social networking from bees
- Rohit Bargava busting myths and providing practical guidelines for social media marketing
- Simon Cheng on building an online community that helped fight the fallout from Swine Flu
- Karen Ganschow on how Telstra is using a Twitter team to manage positive and negative chatter
- Mehrdad Baghai looking at the various structural models that drive collective action
- Matt Whittington from Optus on the ‘now’ of mobile content and marketing

Returnity was proud to have been badge sponsor for the event. We liked the presentation, we liked the people and we loved the opportunity to be part of a fantastic production.

Returnity has just released a new web site and it's not just a pretty face. Sure the design looks slick but there is also plenty of substance with detail on our full range of services and few things you probably did not know about us:

• Intelligence
• Production
• Technology
• www.returnity.com.au

Since 1999, our roots have been firmly embedded in the Technology space, with our very own email marketing software, react providing our core product offering and the central platform for services.

The real growth and the fun stuff has been gained through our people, the account services and Production team working hand in hand to deliver digital marketing services that generate amazing results for our clients.

More recently we have added a third dimension to the business, Intelligence. When we asked clients what they wanted to see more of, the response came down to this:

• making sense of the numbers, not just reporting them
• providing local expertise; and
• developing winning strategies from the data

The combination of these three pillars - Intelligence, Production and Technology - gives Returnity a competitive advantage that is unmatched by any of our competitors. And it delivers meaningful results for all of our clients, whether that is 'selling more stuff', 'finding new customers' or 'fostering loyalty'.

And if that's not enough, then some of this is bound to satisfy your curiosity:

• Showreel
• Case study: David Jones
• Case study: AGL
• Returnity on Twitter
• Returnity 10th birthday coming soon!!