SUBSCRIBERS RULE!

Fab 5 Inbox Fun

A Fab High Five Executed to Perfection.

There’s a bit of fun happening over at MediaPost’s Email Insider this month thanks to Razorfish’s David Baker.  In his November 10th column, he shared a list of five emails that he looks forward to receiving in his inbox and then posed a question for readers to answer — Who’s in Your Fab 5 Inbox?

Lisa Harmon from Smith-Harmon then picked up the cause today and shared her Fab Five Inbox as well.  So, to keep the ball rolling, I dug into my personal Yahoo inbox to uncover those emails that make the top of my own list as a subscriber.  Here they are, in no specific order:

1. ITunes Tuesday: It reminds me to sync my iPod and lets you test-drive a free tune, music video, and occasionally, a TV show.
2. The Wailing List from Despair.com: Dry, biting humor from the anti-Successories folks.  Always elicts laughter and every few months, a purchase.
3. TED: If you don’t know the TED conference and it’s weath of video brainfood, do yourself a favor and visit www.ted.com now.  Their stuff is a constant source of inspiration and entertainment on long, cross-country flights.
4. Continental Airlines: Living in one of their hub cities, I’m a loyal frequent flyer who’s always on the lookout for a good deal for family travel.
5. YouTube Comments: Long story short — Two years ago, I posted a video of my son singing an impromptu version of The Turtles “Happy Together” at a local event.  155K views and growing, people still comment on it to the tune of 10+ comments a week.  He has a global fan base.  Crazy.

I’ll leave it to the psychiatric establishment to discern what my Fab Five mean, but I can tell you that the exercise definitely helps take you out of “marketer” mode and think like a subscriber.  Many of the emails I enjoy don’t exist to elicit an immediate purchase — but they sure go a long way toward solidifying my relationship with each company, organization or website.

So if I may echo David’s question, what’s in your Fab Five Inbox?

What Subscribers Want

Mel Gibson knows women and the Malibu P.D., but does he know subscribers?

Back in 2000, well before he went on his well-publicized bender in Malibu, Mel Gibson helped mankind better understand What Women Want.  It was Kelly Mooney’s 2003 book, The Ten Demandments, however, that helped me get a better grasp on what email subscribers want.

Apparently, I was not alone.  In the September 16th edition of Email Insider from MediaPost, Lisa Harmon did a great job explaining how each of Mooney’s Ten Demandments apply to email subscribers.  A personal favorite:

The Fifth Demandment: Guide me. Anticipate the needs of your subscribers, packing emails with the tools users need to interact with your brand. Include customer service information and links to FAQs, supporting subscribers as they take next steps. Live Nation totally gets this with its pre-concert Fan Advisory.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Lisa’s entire article, Inspire Me: Email’s Ten Demandments (registration required), and click through to the examples that she provides.  It’s great to see so many companies working to put their subscribers in control of one-to-one marketing communications.  Now, if we could only get Mr. Gibson in another romcom, perhaps he could start working again.