How Shutterfly Does Email Newsletters

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Playing Scrabble online?

There’s an app for that.

Finding great local concerts?

There’s an app for that.

Writing great e-mail newsletters?

Sorry, there’s no app for that.

Actually, if you or your company thinks that there is an automatic way to do e-mail newsletters, there’s none.

That is why we need to learn from the pros and if there is one organization that is doing e-mail marketing right, it is the Shutterfly’s Wink team.

What is Shutterfly’s Wink?

Wink is a great iPhone and web app developed by the guys and gals of Shutterfly.  Here’s a full review of the web version and iPhone version of Wink.

How Shutterfly Does Email Newsletters

Before jumping into e-mail (and social media, for that matter) campaigns, you’ve got to have a clear idea of what objectives you want out of it. A clear one sentence objective that has a clear call to action,  and can be tracked with one measure.

From the February 4th, 2010 e-mail sent out by the Wink team, it is clear that they have a very clear of what they are their objectives and how they are going to measure them:

The e-mail newsletter clearly states 2 objectives.

First:

Objective: Inform users of Wink that the service has been updated.

Call to action: The first 400 people who act after they read this e-mail get a free photostrip credit.

Measure: How many users try the new version because of this e-mail.

Second:

Objective: Ask users for feedback.

Call to action: Send the team your feedback and they’ll send you a free photostrip credit.

Measure: How many user feedback messages the team receives.

Conclusion: Shutterfly’s Wink Avoids the Brochure Mentality

The brochure mentality is the mindset that tells us that as long people get our brochure, open it and browse it for a while; somehow they will get “aware of our brand” or that they will “eventually act on it”. Notice that how exactly the readers of a brochure become aware of the brand or act on it is not really defined, it is just left to, yes you got that right, pure chance.

This e-mail avoids the brochure mentality and clearly states what are the objectives of the e-mail, how to act on them, and provides an incentive to act on them.