The Email Wars

With many of you and other brands embracing using social icons in their emails I thought it would be a good time to talk about the ideas and implementation a little. First, there is not ONE way to approach and execute this concept. It is the wild west right now in how and what works best so I would advise you to think about some of the below scenarios and see what might work best for you.

One: Follow/Friend/Fan Me. So really do we need to be friends or fans? An interesting article was written in Fast Company the other day on the topic of “I don’t want to be friends with my butter”. Read it here. I could not agree more with this stance as social media is not for everyone or every brand when it comes to a facebook fan page. What you really need to think about is similar to everything you know about email marketing; is it relevant, what is the frequency and why would I want to opt in. The caveat is that it needs to drive some type of brand value, loyalty or (yes it is an ugly word but it works) rewarding. Some people know that I have a personal issue with the words friend, follow or fan. They are incredibly egotistical and cult like words that really are not what this is all about. It is about connection, impact and value. I know we did not create the words but I think you should think about how you use them in your copy. Look to find other words that are more relevant and meaningful. The good news I have seen is only 30% of major brands have gone the route of a fan page thus far. This tells me that some people are thinking about it.

Two: Commitment and Relevance. Social media is not just about putting your email newsletter into a stream of news. It is about giving direct access of things that are of interest to those that might think that those that they interact with might find value in. I see so many people working on the top level of social media integration in email and not drilling down to enable sharing on a content/deal basis. Think about instead of taking the top level midset of growing followers to deeper levels of enabling sharing of individual content. Test it. See how it works.

The BIG factor here at play is commitment. Email is driven by you as you have a plan for it over time. Social media is driven by you but it is an always on pipe of information that can fall “below the fold” faster than an email on Black Friday. With the average subscriber actually signing up for a dozen or so emails you stand a better chance at engagement than someone with 100, 200, 300, 1000 connections in social media. But then why commitment? Well it is something that needs to occur each and every day and often 7-15 times in order to stay on the awareness and in the stream of those that you are connected with. Are you ready? Do you have the resources to manage this? Who does this fall on as a role? And will you commit to the long run?

Three: WHERE does it go? Now no one knows to a degree of perfection yet where placement works best in an email. Looking at these two examples you can see that blocks are now being created to leverage the placement in emails. The first from a retailer Metro Park places it at the top and does something I like is to add the Blog link as well. Why? Well there is already commitment at the blog content level and from what I have seen they are also feeding content from the blog to social locations. Perfect approach. Now if you have not been to a Metro Park store I can tell you that they are charging far ahead in the use of Twitter as a social vehicle. Each dressing room is equipped with small flat panel screens connected to a custom Twitter follower feed (simple using RSS in Twitter) and then mashed up using a Google map. These displays are bringing in real time tweets as you are in a confined space to present things that people are saying about them. Really cool idea and drives it home that they have commitment to this media and a plan to use it.

The Body Shop is taking a similar approach with the top level use but they are keeping the interaction in the footer. Personally I like to see this at the top of an email and if needed  you can repeat it at the bottom past your content. Each places a different amount of overall real estate value on it but they are both actively using it.

So what does this mean to you? Well it means that there is not a wrong way. Even if you want to say “friend, follow or fan” just make sure that you are in it each day, interacting with those that have decided to join you, responding (yes different from email there is a much higher person to person (brand) engagement rate. So someone at your company needs to own it, or better yet a group of people that are aligned in voice and thoughts as to how to best use them.

We are just at the infancy of these ideas and I know that 2010 will bring some new revelations as to what works for you to make it something that drives ROI (Return on Interaction).