Why is email marketing no longer going to be used by Ben & Jerry’s? Because they can’t see the lost opportunity.
Earlier this morning I read a blog post by Christopher S. Penn on Ben & Jerry decision to stop using email marketing and was going to leave a comment on his blog but one thing led to another and my comments became to passionate and the comment became bigger then expected that I figured I post my own blog post on this issue.
Ben & Jerry’s do not realize it yet but they will still have email working in the back ground because when they target their Facebook fans it is an email that will be delivered to the user’s in box to inform them of a new message from Ben & Jerry.
Ben & Jerry have not stopped using email; they are just using it in a different way to engage with their fans.
They will however miss out on many opportunities to segment their fan based list by state, zipcode and even ice cream flavors in order to engage with them. Let’s look at some of the lost opportunity that will be experienced by Ben & Jerry
- Ben & Jerry can no longer send coupons for a specific client’s favorite ice cream
- Ben & Jerry can no longer invite clients to an event in a particular part of the country that is being sponsored by Ben & Jerry to drive goodwill within the community
- Ben & Jerry can no longer communicate the wonderful world of ice cream to clients residing in certain parts of the country that is having a heat wave.
- Ben & Jerry will also miss out engaging with their client’s to wish them a happy birthday if they have that information in their database.
What Ben & Jerry fail to see is that they will still communicate with their fans on Facebook via email but not to the same extent or powerful ways that they could have with direct emails messages.
Ben & Jerry is missing out on a huge marketing opportunity to deliver the right message to the right person in order to drive sales results.
Their loss and our (professional email marketing industry) gain as pointed out by Christopher S. Penn.
As the French would say it, Merci mon ami (Thank you my friend).
