Cooking.com — Product Reviews: Can we have YOUR opinion?
Not surprisingly, my wife and I (and friends and family) purchase from many of the retailers that I track, so on occasion I share my non-promotional email experiences with these brands. On this occasion, I received an email from Cooking.com after making a Christmas purchase with them. In it they are asking me to review the product that I bought. Product reviews have become so important to generating sales. This a nice way of using email to generate reviews on a transactional basis rather than blasting your entire promotional email list.
A few thoughts: (1) Since I shipped this to an address other than my billing address, it’s probably a safe assumption that I don’t have the product and therefore very well may not have used it. Cooking.com may want to only use this trigger email when the billing and shipping addresses are the same. (2) This email came from a different address than they send either their transactional or promotional emails, so it would probably be a good idea to stress the Cooking.com brand in the subject line to increase recognition. Perhaps they could have said “Cooking.com Product Reviews: Can we have your opinion?” I’m not sure why they all-capped “your.” And (3) since they were sending from a new address and they weren’t promoting anything in the email, they were wise to send it as text-only and get the brand in the salutation.
Norm Thompson, 1/11 — Fan mail for socks? Yes! And that's not all...
A great subject line and solid email highlighting “customer faves” with testimonials.
Sephora, 1/11 — Skip the card. Say thanks with beauty.
Equating beauty products with “thank you” cards is interesting, although I wonder if this message is coming a bit late. Seems like closer to Christmas might have been better.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER:
Target, 1/13 — Sale on select fitness and organization gear, plus free shipping on your $50 activewear order.
Sears, 1/11 — Score Big Savings: 10% Cash Back on HDTVs & MORE!
Victoria’s Secret, 1/11 — Make a Splash! Swim 2008 is Here.
Alloy, 1/12 — 200 NEW styles for spring + free shipping
Neiman Marcus, 1/13 — First look at Spring collections from the most talked-about designers + FREE SHIPPING
Bluefly, 1/11 — Peep This - New Shoes at up to 40% Off [promoting peep toe shoes]
Tiffany, 1/11 — Discover The Greatest Jewels On Earth
J. Jill, 1/13 — Introducing our new Wearever styles. Mix, match & look great.
SmartBargains, 1/11 — 48 deals. 48 hours. Free shipping. Happy Friday.
Macy’s, 1/11/ — 99¢ shipping on fashion clearance this weekend only!
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4 comments:
I wouldn't assume that just because the billing and shipping addresses are different that you don't have the product. So many people ship to their offices now. Perhaps what they should have done is start the campaign at a different time so they weren't addressing holiday purchases.
That's a good point, although in my case I had my order delivered to Seattle while I live in New York. So I think it's fairly clear cut in my case. Certainly the holidays aren't the best time to try this kind of trigger email unless the parameters are narrowed a bit.
But isn't there some value in reading a gift-giver's perspective as well? "Makes a great wedding gift" or "Gave it to a friend, she loves it" Yes, you couldn't talk first-hand about the product's features & benefits but you could let others know how your gift-recipient enjoyed the product. (Hopefully the retailer would have given you enough time between when the item shipped and when you received the email. In that time it's realistic to think the recipient contacted you and thanked you for the gift.) "Makes a great gift" or not is sometimes more important info for a gift giver. The alternative is getting no review at all.
That's a very good point. I yield. I just thought that people who got the product for themselves would be much more likely to submit a review about the product, rather than basing the review on what the gift-recipient might have said to them. You could probably do a test and see which segment is most likely to submit reviews: people who bought the product for themselves or for others. Has anyone done such a test?
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