Digital content marketing and strategy

On Sundays, I usually plan my meals for the work week ahead.  So, I was thinking of food and cooking when I received this Williams and Sonoma email re new Sous Chef Series (http://www.souschefseries.com/) on a Sunday.

I think it’s a great campaign to invite users to a cooking events club.  I love the blend of online/offline loyalty marketing. Use online to capture, communicate and build a community that drives a geo-centric community into the actual stores. It’s the kind of project I would have killed to work on because it’s thinking holistically about how people connect to your brand and your community online without ignoring that people like to do things with other people outside a PC and cell phone.  I would love to know if they are able to tie back an ROI to both their online and brick and mortar stores.

Email wins:

• They clearly sum up why you should read email in text at the top and it’s carried through as an entire campaign.
• Graphics for just the brand and the upcoming sous chef (relevant, personal)
• Prominent subscribe button
• Social share buttons
• View email with images takes you to their Web site email version because many email readers have images turned off by default
• Site category and social connections at the bottom (good navigation reminders)
• Subject line that invites reader into a club of sorts (includes free recipe but they didn’t lead with free which may trigger spam filters)

Email misses:

• I haven’t received an email confirmation note yet.  When I get it – would like to see reminder of the event to download and a coupon to visit the online store.

Landing page wins:

• Continues visual from email on the page.  Goes direct to the sign up page… not some random Williams Sonoma page
• Prominent sign up for this club email list.  Not sure why it’s JOIN on the top and REGISTER on the bottom, though.
• Love Time to Next Recipe real time countdown clock.  Great motivation to sign up NOW before you miss the next recipe
• Clearly tells me what happens once I join… meet the chef, get the recipe, get invited to a free demo.  Payoff for joining is always motivating.
• I love that the demo has map and it’s showing a location near me — nice geolocation touch.
• I also like that the demo has a calendar invite embedded
• Lastly, I like that the share icons for the page is after the two main actions:  #1 capture my email, #2 Download calendar invite for demo event and only then do they want you to share it with others.   Too often the share to others is as prominent as the action they want you to take.  One thing at a time.
• They capture two items to further personalize my experience… my first name and my zip code.  Nice balance of capturing more personal info, without asking for too much up front with the risk of me leaving the page.

Landing page misses:

• I errored by putting in my first and last name and zip code.  The error message said I was missing my email but didn’t blank out the fields.
• While it was good it confirmed my email with a overlay window message that tried to upgrade me to another mailing list.  I think it should have used the space to share the page with four friends emails and of course the social icons.  I think there’s time to build that other list once you’ve built this list.
• I also think they should have perhaps refreshed me back to the main Williams and Sonoma site
• I haven’t received any other personalized communications from them regarding this… the momentum is dying.

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