Email Done Right

You know, there are so many examples of people doing things wrong - the “opt-in” email you never asked for, the ads that annoy you, and so on - that it’s hard not to wind up writing about a lot of it on a marketing blog. So it’s nice to see an example of someone doing something smart.

Like, for example, the email from Twitter that showed up in my inbox yesterday:

Hello Twitter-ers,

We haven’t sent out a monthly email update since November of last year and a lot has happened since then. We’ve added new features, upgraded performance, and lots of people are discovering Twitter every day…

Yes, Twitter waited three months before bothering users by email again. That’s supposedly too long, but guess what? I so rarely get an email from them that I notice it. And the email contained interesting and useful information - about the company, some stats on Twitter use, a new feature, and so on.

It was personal. It had no HTML or graphics, but just text. The “From” field doesn’t read “Twitter” but rather “Biz Stone,” who is a real person.

I read every word, which is unusual.

I guess my expectation is that if Twitter emails me, it’s so unusual that there’s probably something I want to know in there. A lot of marketers would advice sending out something every month no matter what, just to “stay in touch,” and making sure there was a big twitter logo, and all that.

They did none of this, and it works.

As I was writing this post, I got a message from a company whose name meant nothing to me telling me that as a valued customer, I was able to participate in a special sale. I was surprised it didn’t get caught in the spam filter, so I searched for the company name in my Gmail (let’s hear it for being able to save everything).

It was a company that I ordered something from - a gift for someone - two and a half years ago.
The From field was the name of the company (which screams “spam! run!”). It has graphics in it, which Gmail dutifully didn’t display, so it looks like hell. The email tells me that they are liquidating their inventory, but I’m not even sure what that inventory is.

Apparently they are going out of business. Go figure.

Oh, and every day this week, I’ve gotten a message from a local business group - a highly professional group I respect - inviting me to the same event. Every day. Over and over.

And I thought email marketing was old news… well, it is. Using email appropriately, however, continues to be a noteworthy thing, because it’s not the norm.

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