The debate wages on between email marketing and social media with respect to which medium consumers engage with the most. This morning, AT&T sent me an email. Why? I opted in for the announcement about the iPhone 4. What makes this even better is their use of segmentation and respect demonstrated toward their subscribers in only sending it to a smaller audience. Let’s discuss!
I received an email at 5:46AM this morning from AT&T. Here’s what it looked like:
Like most current iPhone users, I’m an AT&T customer. I received an email from AT&T sent to my work address (as you might guess) that I previously signed up for to be notified about the iPhone 4 release. This speaks volumes about their segmentation and commitment to respecting their subscribers’ inboxes.
As promised, AT&T sent an email that consisted of an image and fine print. When clicked, the image directed you into their customer center so you can pre-order an iPhone.
Despite the pre-ordering system slowing to a crawl, this confirms the suspicion that we’ve always known. Email engages people. It has crazy response especially when you consider it’s for a $200 or $300 device with a two-year commitment.
And this wasn’t from a tweet, blog post or a Facebook update. It was from email. I guess you could say that word of mouth and urgency to pre-order probably accelerated the response. You can’t dispute the fact that an email in the morning for a hot product helped ignite the response. According to sources, Apple sold out of pre-ordered iPhones for June 24th in about six hours.
While AT&T could have justified sending an email inviting all wireless customers to order, they respected their needs by sending it to only those who asked for it. It’s important to always send email marketing messages to those who truly want them – not merely those who you can send email to.
A case can be made that despite this massive launch, further segmentation could be done with the data the mobile provider already has. Perhaps a confirmation email to people asking them to confirm their status as an AT&T customer or prospect and to sync that information to their account.
Either way, the point here is email continues to thrive. Email Marketing 2.0 makes email marketing relevant, useful and targeted. It’s nice to see bigger brands evolve to make their emails attractive to subscribers.
[Image credit: brykmantra]
Posted In: Email Marketing
