Barack Obama's at it again -- trumping McCain in his excellent use of email. This weekend his campaign manager David Plouffe announced that you can sign-up for a special email alert when Barack's Vice President is selected; even further promising to email you "the moment Barack makes his decision". And for a little extra spice you can also have the announcement sent via an SMS text message.
A few takeaways for marketers:
* Email Alerts: Marketers tend to think of the concept of "alerts" myopically. For most marketers alerts are purely used as transactional forms of communication -- nothing more. The concept of an 'alert', however, can be used in far greater customer and marketer benefitting ways. For example, why shouldn't Nordstrom offer to alert their subscribers the moment a new fashion line is available or Apple the moment a new iPod model is introduced? This is a great way to allow subscribers the opportunity to self-identify themselves as those most passionate about a particular topic.
* Click to Sign-up: The Obama example drives users to a sign-up page where they can sign-up; however, I've also seen several marketers simplify this process by simply having the call to action be completed by the click from the email. Instead of saying something to the affect of 'go here to find out more', state something to the affect of "click to sign-up". The 'click' in affect then acts as the action giving you the marketer permission to communicate with them further on that respective topic. Subsequently on the landing page the subscriber is driven to, offer a "Thank You" and confirm their subscription, while providing them an opportunity to change their mind, if they are so inclined.
All of these tactics can help a marketer better identify the varying levels of interest and activity their subscribers want to have. Far too often we think of customers as active vs. inactive, when there are many degrees of activity -- sometimes we simply need to offer the customer more choices to show us how they want to engage.
A few takeaways for marketers:
* Email Alerts: Marketers tend to think of the concept of "alerts" myopically. For most marketers alerts are purely used as transactional forms of communication -- nothing more. The concept of an 'alert', however, can be used in far greater customer and marketer benefitting ways. For example, why shouldn't Nordstrom offer to alert their subscribers the moment a new fashion line is available or Apple the moment a new iPod model is introduced? This is a great way to allow subscribers the opportunity to self-identify themselves as those most passionate about a particular topic.
* Click to Sign-up: The Obama example drives users to a sign-up page where they can sign-up; however, I've also seen several marketers simplify this process by simply having the call to action be completed by the click from the email. Instead of saying something to the affect of 'go here to find out more', state something to the affect of "click to sign-up". The 'click' in affect then acts as the action giving you the marketer permission to communicate with them further on that respective topic. Subsequently on the landing page the subscriber is driven to, offer a "Thank You" and confirm their subscription, while providing them an opportunity to change their mind, if they are so inclined.
All of these tactics can help a marketer better identify the varying levels of interest and activity their subscribers want to have. Far too often we think of customers as active vs. inactive, when there are many degrees of activity -- sometimes we simply need to offer the customer more choices to show us how they want to engage.
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