Build Trust and Loyalty With Personalized E-Mail
A smart social network’s e-mail best practices.
A smart social network’s e-mail best practices.
We’ve been hearing a lot about online networking sites like LinkedIn.com, Ryze, ItsNotWhatYouKnow, Tribe, ZeroDegrees, Spoke, and Friendster.com for awhile. They represent one of the fastest-growing categories of sites and are capturing the imagination of the press, venture capitalists, and millions of people looking for the latest way to connect with others. (There have been other ClickZ columns on the topic.)
We all agree personal referrals are the best way in business to find a consulting gig, new employee, or trusted advisor. We weren’t so sure how well that would translate to the Web. When a respected colleague invited Joanna to join the LinkedIn network recently, we decided to join out of curiosity.
We haven’t made up our minds about the value yet, but we are impressed by how LinkedIn used email to communicate with us. These email best practices can be applied to most business-to-business (B2B) marketers.
A bit of background. The basic concept behind these sites is they provide a way to connect with strangers without actually going to any of those awful networking parties. So far, so good.
LinkedIn is positioned as a legitimate networking tool for experienced professionals to connect with each other effectively, whether they’re hunting for jobs, seeking a speaker at an upcoming conference, looking to partner with a consultant, or trying to fill a position. The site was designed to attract serious business users. As Konstantin Guericke, vice president of marketing and one of five cofounders, says:
There’s no ’fun factor’ or photos that can lead to dating under the guise of business. The site allows users to meet business contacts through referrals from coworkers and friends they already know and trust.
The approach is conservative because relationships are at stake. In fact, Guericke says that the firm’s long-term vision is to be “the holder of professional reputation.”
The marketing challenge is to keep LinkedIn top of mind without alienating users by bombarding them with messages too frequently. When users sign up, they agree to accept five introductory email messages. That’s not a lot of opportunity to cut through the clutter.
Via extensive testing, Guericke found the more personalized and useful the message, the better the response. Rather then send general e-newsletters, email is highly targeted by stage of relationship, mode, and user activity:
Additionally, LinkedIn is developing an email template:
These highly targeted email messages demonstrate usefulness and prompt usage by building trust and loyalty. Result? Pleased users invite their colleagues and the network grows rapidly via word of mouth. There’s a lesson there for us all.
Want more email marketing information? ClickZ E-Mail Reference is an archive of all our email columns, organized by topic.