Different Emails for Different Users, Usage. Facebook Demonstrates

When done effectively and appropriately - email is a marketer's most powerful retention tool. Here is an example from Facebook that demonstrates both effective and appropriate email marketing. The key: deliver different emails to different users / user patterns. Conceptually, its very basic. In practice, it's actually quite hard to deliver relevant emails, at the right frequencies, and featuring the right products (why? creation and delivery can be difficult - but featuring content that is appropriate for that user is the real challenge).

Here are two emails that I have never received because I am an overly active Facebook user. The recipients here are less involved so Facebook delivers too different types of emails:

1. You Have Notifications Pending!

The goal is clearly to drive logins by demonstrating that the user's network / profile has activity. If a user logins daily, notifications are prominently featured across the header... this is an attempt to enforce that habit.

2. You Have a Birthday this Week!

Again, for users who login daily, this is prominently featured. Birthdays are important drivers of engagement - ie posts, messages, events, JibJab cards =) For early users, this is a compelling email that gives me an immediate action. For more active users, this could be overwhelming and Facebook is probably better served promoting deeper interactions like messages and/or new features.

What's this mean for you? Segmenting your communication is a powerful way to drive engagement / retention and guide users through your product. To do it effectively, you also need to determine what products and communications make most sense for each segment / class of user.

Word With Friends User Onboarding

I've written about the importance of using user-segmentation to deliver unique user / site experiences and email marketing. Here's a brilliant example of Zynga's Word With Friends (the mega-popular Facebook & mobile Scrabble game).

Obviously the game is predicated on multiple users playing... and that obviously starts with an invitation process. Words With Friends users your Facebook / Twitter networks to create an address book of friends playing the game. The first people in your address book are new users (with big, prominent NEW badges next to their name). It's a super simple, basic concept - but it's brilliant because Zynga knows that:

- new users need to be prompted to play - once they play a couple games, they are hooked - current users feel a sense of goodwill / obligation to play with newly joined friends - current users likely play within the same confined network... this broadens that

Small UI placement that makes an important difference.

Twitter In Line Friend Suggestions - Chance to Expand for Brands? Charge?

Most of my Twitter usage is through mobile (as I suspect is the case for many). So excuse me if this is old news When you follow someone on Twitter, it immediately expands to reveal others "you might also want to follow". It is directly in-line, relevant and surely drives deeper usage / engagement. It makes sense both for the person following and the person tweeting (another avenue to drive attention & grow the following). It could also be another avenue to help onboard / better engage big brands. Earlier I wrote a post about ESPN's Twitter usage (My Response to Mark Cuban’s: Does ESPN.com Have a Twitter Problem?) - this seems like a big lever for ESPN, ESPN fans and consequently Twitter.

Upon following an ESPN personality / handle (either as defined by Twitter's search algorithm or a verified account), it could prompt some sort of walk-through that better connects other ESPN personalities. Right now it is very difficult to follow the right people - and that's partially ESPN's fault and partially Twitter's.

Users wouldn't find it intrusive - and in fact, they would probably appreciate it. Brands would absolutely appreciate the chance to promote related handles (right now they create background graphics to do so). And Twitter would get more deeply engaged users, with bigger follow lists and more engaged brands (with greater followings).

In fact, the brands would likely pay on a per-action / promotion basis. For instance, as Polaris Ventures, we have several people with Twitter accounts, a master account and a Dogpatch Labs account. I'd gladly work to better connect those - and if that came at a reasonable fee, I'd gladly sign up.

For a bigger brand like ESPN, it's clearly for more powerful and therefor more valuable....

Facebook Clustering Feed Posts by Content. Topical Hubs, Search Logical Next Steps?

Facebook has long clustered feed posts by type: friending people, changing profile pics, playing games, etc. Here are two examples of Facebook clustering feed posts by content... which is a bigger & more important concept as it suggests a deeper focus on search and relevance (both on and off Facebook.com). Both examples happen to be around iPhone related posts - one is on Facebook.com's web browser and the other is on the iPad's browser. Notice how it merges content from friends and pages. And obviously some of the content is highly targeted (ie the MyPad and Lifehacker posts are entirely about iPhone apps). Some is not: Pixie Lott mentions the iPhone - but it is not the focus.

In some ways it looks like a topical newsfeed sorted by recency. Imagine this extending to a topical hubs and a deeper search platform / concept.

Facebook Deals Brings Friends Into Emails

I write a lot about Facebook Deals and I start each post with something along the lines of: I am not sure what Facebook Deals will become, but I give Facebook a lot of credit for the rate of innovation and their UI / UE treatments. Facebook Deals continues to test new visual treatments (examples here and here)... and here is yet another clever, compelling one.

Facebook's stance with Deals has been to overlay your social graph with your geography and your Facebook Places activity. They have done a good job merging those in the web experience... and here they do it via email. The first thing you see in the email is *not* the deal or the deal provider. It is the list of your friends (and their Facebook profile pictures) who have either liked the deal or the deal provider. Eventually it could of course be the friends who have visited the location, purchased the deal, etc (as we have seen in their online units

As your inbox gets more crowded -and marketers / brands fight for your time - this is a powerful way to capture your attention, improve conversion and tell a unique, differentiated story:

Google Unveils New Ad Units: Email-able Ads

Over the past couple days, I have been seeing the following ad units in my GMail accounts:- the top sidebar ad is prominently separated from others - it is in an entirely different treatment that includes a branded image - and it has an email icon atop

When you click the ad, it opens into a full screen unit that is essentially an email. It appears in the GMail mail format with four buttons atop the screen: Return, Save to Inbox, Forward and Dismiss.

Google describes it: "It's a new type of ad you can save to your inbox and forward on. If you dismiss the ad, you won't see it again."

It is an interesting effort because it enables the small ad unit (no different than a traditional AdWords unit) to bloom into something shareable, potentially social and much bigger (from two lines of text into an entire, rich-content experience). While that is conceptually very cool, it puts a burden on advertisers to make content that is worthwhile of sharing / keeping. I have cycled through a handful of of these email ads and have found nothing relevant to me or worthy of being shared.

Three Must Have Google Plus Extensions

I have written a fair amount about Google Plus and about how Google Chrome / Chrome extensions are changing my web behaviors. Lets put those two themes together... here are three great Google Plus Chrome extensions: 1. +Photo Zoom

I have glowingly written about the Facebook Photo Zoom extension and how every website should leverage this sort of interaction. I love it. And here it is for Google Plus.

2. +Everything

Add the Google Plus header to your web experience. I wrote it about it here:

3. +Comment Toggle

One major design flaw of Google Plus is the commenting system... which can get overwhelming very quickly. This extension fixes it.

Facebook Continues to Improve Comments: Links, Images Now Included

It wasn't long ago that Facebook rolled out their commenting system to off-Facebook publishers. They then enabled @ tagging within Facebook comments. And now it appears that they are enabling more robust content creation / sharing (ala the normal "status" update box). Here is an example where I commented with a URL and it expanded it into a full "link" treatment: image, summary, hyperlink, etc. You can also see that I referenced a Facebook page using the @ sign and it auto-linked it:

Of course, if you're interested in seeing the page I was linking to - it's SpoonFashion.com!

Amex + Facebook Likes + Social Graph

This is powerful. And it happens to showcase my favorite brand, Dunkin Donuts... so of course I had to share it:

From American Express:

"You and your friends like and share many things on Facebook. Now, American Express has deals and experiences for you based on those likes and interests. And once you sign up and choose your deals, all you have to do is use your American Express® Card and statement credits will be sent directly to your Card account.

No coupons. No hassles. Just a credit on your statement, and savings in your pocket."