The Email Wars

I am always on the look out for testing programs, sampling programs that drive online to offline behavior. Now when it comes to my morning ritual of stopping at the “corner” Starbucks to kick start my heart I love when I actually get to test the campaign on myself.

So the first step was the email. Got it. Loved it. Simple. Great clear header copy that I could read in 3-4 seconds to drive my eye down to the goal. Little too much fluffy copy in between me and the goal, but the relevant image of the coffee and pastry kept me on the hunt. The button being at the bottom is OK, for a recovery, but they should have moved the action to the top of the email and then used the recovery footer as well. The wording on the button was interesting to “Print this Invitation” as I would have felt coupon would be more relevant, but who knows maybe they tested a few first (or was I part of an A/B test?).

So from there to the printable “Invitation”. Loved it. Even the ability to SHOW it on your mobile device and not even hand them a printable version was a great combo to test on here.

So I schelped my printed copy (which I made 10 others of and handed to other people on the eROI team to go try and report back) to one of the locations on the way to work, presented it and voila. Free Pastry with coffee. Done and done. What was interesting was watching them key in the code and then save the printed copy to the side of the register. Maybe they wanted back ups to compared show vs print. Not quite sure yet.

After I had mine, I grabbed a seat for 20 minutes to watch and see how it worked with others. The odd thing after all the chatter on Twitter, FB and WOM I heard I did not witness one other person turn one in or show one on a mobile device.

Maybe it was my timing, maybe the location, or maybe it did not work. I had asked a few location managers I have met over time about it and they told me that they had lower results with it than they were all prepared for. Then again it could be the coffee cult fashinistas in Portland that only drink Stumptown and local roast coffees.

But it was a well executed campaign and I wanted to share it.

Have you seen any good email campaigns using coupons?