Wednesday, 24 November 2010, 2:48 PM
I just have to show you this. I found it at Campaign Monitor and I couldn’t resist, I had to go and sign up for their newsletter.
“Iceland Wants To Be Your Friend” is the name of the website. As you’ve probably figured out by now, the purpose of the website is to get people more interested in this curious little island in the north – and to visit.
They have a pretty stripped down and textual design that they coat the website, blog, Facebook and all the rest with, have a look:
This is their Facebook Page, look at all that courier:
Unmistakably well thought out. And the same goes for their welcoming process for new subscribers via email.
On their blog under the “People” and “Places” tab they have a very obvious box to the right explaining how Iceland wants to be my friend. They ask for three things: name, email, and where in the world (literally) I live.
When I signed up, I got this:
So far, there isn’t the slightest slip in humor. It’s all been in the same funny uniform. “Iceland” then makes an appeal that you can’t refuse, that is to help ”him” find new friends. And they make the process pretty easy.
So, how does their welcome email look?
In the same entertaining and personified way, they talk about their little island in the middle of the ocean. They also explain that they won’t be that clingy and irritating newsletter buddy that invites themselves into your inbox all the time… without bringing anything. And of course, they joke about the volcano that messed up Europe’s airlines in the spring of 2010.
This whole idea, is very unique. It makes Iceland the friend you never had. You now want to visit it, call it, and post on its Facebook wall. And I like how they sprawl out the different ways you can interact and discover them. But of course this is two sided tape, the other side is they want to keep in touch with me.
A nice example to say the least. I’ve actually been to Iceland – and I wasn’t that impressed. But after this, I think I’ll give them another chance.
You can see the whole thing here.
Sarah@@@@@
Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 1:57 PM
A little while ago, I got an offer to sign up for the newsletter of a big Swedish newspaper. This offer has come four times now. But, it wasn’t until the fourth time (the subject line said “Last Chance”) that I realized it was the same email that they kept sending over and over again. It was also my “Last Chance” the third time. Sounds pretty desperate, what do you think?
Amazon sends out offers too, but they are satisfied with surfacing just once in your inbox. But, when they do, they have something interesting to say without neon Las Vegas price tags. They just put the winter necessities in the spotlight – good shoes.
So, a nice picture married to the main message – “Free Standard Delivery to EU Countries”, which is written twice for your fading short-term memory. I’m guessing I’m getting this email because I’ve bought shoes at Amazon before, so they keep track of what I’ve bought – and to me, this makes a difference as a customer. Now I know I can get around those miserable shipping costs, which is usually the biggest hurdle when it comes to ordering from overseas.
3 strong throbbing hearts for Amazon’s newsletter!
If only we had black hearts, then I’d give 2 of them to the Swedish newspapers’ newsletter.
Sunday, 21 November 2010, 12:42 AM
I’m not sure if you know or not, but we have an “I Love Email” Facebook page now. And if you haven’t been there yet, you should go there right now, it will change your life. While you’re there (which I know you are), look to the right of the Facebook page, you’ll see “Email Gallery on Facebook” link. Since we use MailChimp for sending our newsletter, we can use their application on Facebook to get more people to subscribe to our newsletter via Facebook. How?
After some genius tinkering on Christopher’s part, we now have this great “Email Signup” tab on our Facebook page… Look!
When you click the tab to sign up for this life changing newsletter, this is what happens:
Pretty awesome? Yep. Did I get a confirmation email?
Immediately, my lovelies, this email checks into my inbox!
There’s one more project for us. Here goes… So if you have a Facebook page for your company, you should be able to add this “Email Signup” tab on your private Facebook account too. This means that all of your friends can sign up for the newsletter on your personal profile page too. Think about it, all of your employees with this on their page, and all of their friends looking at it. Imagine how many subscribers they could rally up. Unfortunately, Facebook, a little over a week ago, made a change so that you can add the function on our private pages, but….the tab doesn’t show up… Yet.
We’ll keep our eyes peeled and let you know when Facebook fixes this.
If you want to read more from MailChimp about this, there’s a blog post here. A simple solution that could make it much more useful. Any of you lovely readers seen anything similar to this from another email provider? Don’t be shy, let us know in the comments!
Sarah@@@@@
Thursday, 18 November 2010, 11:43 PM
I had an excellent meeting in Copenhagen last Friday in October. Responsys has had an office in the center of Copenhagen since August, and I had the privilege of visiting them.
Responsys was rated as one of the best email tools out there in this study by Forrester Wave.
I’m pretty excited to hear about this, because they really have a wide spectrum, they look at it from the big picture, it’s not just about email for them. Email marketing together with mobile, social media, and the web can do some pretty powerful things together. Responsys has a way of working, or a method, that has awesome results in just six months. Basically, Responsys wants their customers to see them as being practical, and they also want to reach a pretty advanced level of “customer-unique” communication. All of this in six months!
With their system, you get an excellent overview of all of your customers and potential target groups. This means that you can focus on…well, just about everyone individually.
Online retailers or marketers want to know when I click on something in their newsletters. They want to know when I’m surfing their website and when I tell friends and colleagues about their company online. They want my email address, mobile number, and they want to be part of my “social networking world”. This is pretty obvious. But, the tricky part for a company is knowing which avenue or channel I like to use and which is the most useful way to interact with me. Also, when does my behavior change and what does it change to? This is what Responsys focuses on, helping customers with much more than just email.
I haven’t seen the tool yet, but when you meet someone who works with this and in a matter of minutes they explain how to revive an abandoned shopping basket, how to wake up sleeping recipients, and how to connect Twitter with email…doing it basically automatically – you know it’s good.
Too good to be true? I hope they get to join us at our Bootcamp in Åre, Sweden, and I really hope to work with them at the eCommerce Summit in Stockholm in May, 2011. Check them out with us! Responsys? Yes please.
Thanks Martin for an inspiring meeting and a fantastic Danish lunch!
Responsy’s website.
Sarah@@@@@
Tuesday, 16 November 2010, 9:02 PM
So, maybe it wasn’t the wild and savage Gmail killing monster we all expected. In fact, Facebook calls it their new “modern messaging system”. It’s going to combine email, SMS, and IM’s all in one simple flow. All of your messages will meet up in this “social inbox”, which also keeps the history of all of your conversations. The basic idea is very similar to Google Wave.
The new “messaging system” is going to integrate with mobile devices, how? Well, there’s going to be an update in the iPhone app, which should be coming soon. And whoever wants to nab that new @facebook.com, can.
350 million people use the messaging on Facebook, and 4 billion messages (including chat messages) are sent every day.
In comparison, Gmail has 193.3 million users, Hotmail 361.7 million and 273.1 million on Yahoo Mail.
Source: TechCrunch
It’s a pretty interesting system that will eliminate spam, and keep conversations between friends and people you trust on Facebook. But dare we move all of our communication under one single company’s control while they plot world domination?
