Online Shopping Experience and Email Marketing
If you’ve ever wanted to improve your email marketing to incumbent customers and enhance their online shopping/search experience, sometimes the examples you should take heed to may not be in your direct line of business. I am specifically talking to publishers who are interested in transforming or improving their online “game”. Sometimes, it’s not your direct competitors site that gives you that “a ha” moment, but a site you’ve used for something other than reading news articles or looking for classifieds. If you are unsure, still, of what I mean, I suggest you take a look at two sites I am recommending, Bluefly and Hotwire. I am sure there are others that have a great first time and incumbent customer shopping/search experience, but I have always been impressed by what these two sites have offered me, as a registered user.
Hotwire is an online travel and accommodations site that prides itself on finding users the lowest price for everything they need that falls into the category of travel. What they’re really known for is the tremendous guessing game you play when trying to find a hotel. Hotwire will tell you details about the hotel such as , star rating, amenities, general area the hotel is located and the price (which is usually less than half of what you would normally pay!). The name of the hotel is revealed once you commit and submit payment. But enough about their general business plan, let’s talk about some of the things Hotwire does when you’ve become a customer.
Hotwire still uses email marketing, although many new age techies’ claim that email is almost extinct, email for the purpose of communicating to the masses still works! There are more than just new age techies’ traveling in today’s marketplace. Hotwire sends me pointed information about travel deals, based on the locations where I have searched for either a plane ticket or hotel. This is unlike Expedia, who sends me every type of communiqué possible. A real waste. And because Hotwire’s emails are generally related to areas I have searched before, I am more likely to click on the live links within the email to read more. Note that Hotwire will serve up display ads on the peripheral of the screen (outside of the content I am most interested in) that speaks to their other specials, but they use pertinent information to lure me in and start my personalized shopping excursion.
Here is a snippet from a recent Hotwire email I received. Note, I have never used them for a Chicago search, but they have included that info off to the side – just in case.
The second site that is not really related to publishing, but does an amazing job at reaching their audience is Bluefly.
Bluefly is an online shopping site where you can get designer items cheaper than you would ‘in store’. They have one of the better online shopping systems I have seen in a while, but like with everything, there are a few items they could improve upon. Nonetheless, Bluefly does an amazing job of getting to know their audience, shopping patterns, trends, general online shopping times, and they email market to you with that in mind. Bluefly, unlike many of our newspaper publishing friends has obviously gone ahead, hired a specific talent to wordsmith, and design their direct mail pieces. Keep in mind that a direct mail piece is not something that anyone can write, even if they say they have a marketing degree. There are people who specialize in this and although it may be costly, it is worthwhile having your marketing and online teams either go to a specialty course, or get the experts to create templates for you, as this too can be a great email marketing start.
To surmise, there is one thing that both of these merchants have done and done well – that is to really get to know their audience and communicate in a style that suits them. That specialized and tailored communication will undoubtedly create return customers, citizen marketers, and improve email-marketing click through rates. It doesn’t mean that you cannot share messages and notices of the other exciting things you are doing in your organization, but it means you put their needs and interests first and then yours.
