Think or die

Article from November, 5th, 2003.

E-mail marketing industry is big, real big. Over the past several years it generated billions of dollars. Yet lately people started to complain. First, they say, e-mail is not as effective as it used to be. Second, e-mail marketing is not as cheap, as it was in the beginning. Then people talk about spammers, legislation and so on. So what is happening to e-mail marketing? Well, it's becoming just like the regular advertising. It means that you have to become creative or face the consequences.

Here are some strategies for creative e-mail campaign. First, let's consider the difficulties. The problematic areas in the e-marketing are getting e-mails, getting people to open and read them, and finally to close the sales. The professionals nowadays talk more and more about viral marketing. That is the marketing campaign that spreads itself. For example, Palm used viral marketing. In the beginning, they gave away 100 Palms to people they chose. I believe just about only worthwhile software title it had was a New York restaurant guide. Suddenly some folks saw their friends that had strange looking things in their hands. And it informed them where the closest restaurant is. That's pretty cool, they thought. Some of them bought Palms for themselves and the idea spread. You know the end of the story.

How to implement viral ideas for you marketing campaign? You have to start with thinking what do you need ideavirus for - get more people to sign up? Get the existing customers to make more purchases? To increase the sale's average? Remember - the main idea behind viral marketing is that it spreads itself. Or, actually the e-mail recipients spread it. Here is one actual example that shows how it works.

One games e-tailer opened a mirror website of their online store. The only difference was the following - all prices were ten percent less. They did not register it with search engines and did not advertise it. They simply sent e-mail to all of their buyers (over 15000) that said something like this "We would like to thank you for making a purchase. We are implementing a customer appreciation program. We decided not to use any coupons or discount codes. Simply remember the name of this website. All prices there are 10% less then in our regular online store. This information is for our regular customers only and we'd appreciate if you keep it to yourself only." In less than a year, the mirror website had more customers that the regular one. Yet they did not spend a dime advertising. Why? Viral marketing. Next week we will share more case studies with you. If you know about viral marketing, drop us a line.

Next week: Viral Marketing Case Studies
Prev week: Personalizing holidays

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