As Kim Walsh-Phillips recently noted in an article for Entrepreneur magazine, the Walt Disney Company does a great job of setting the bar when it comes to the VIP treatment of customers and visitors. In fact, it’s not entirely unreasonable to claim that no other corporation or major entity even comes close to matching this brand’s efforts on the VIP front.So what does all of this talk about going above and beyond with customers have to do with the inbox? According to Walsh-Phillips, businesses that aim for Disney’s high standard of consumer amenities and features have a unique opportunity to truly dominate in the world of email marketing. With this in mind, let’s spend a minute talking about how your brand can take a page out of Disney’s book and bring the VIP experience to the members of your contact list.
Each Person Deserves a Unique Experience
Walsh-Phillips kicks off the discussion by pointing out that visitors to any of Disney’s major parks receive a “one-of-a-kind” experience that creates lasting memories. As a brand that’s trying to stand out in the inbox, your offerings should strive to provide the same kind of unique feel for the person on the other side of the screen.Personalizing messages with contact list information helps get the ball rolling on this approach. From here, don’t be afraid to implement segmentation and content that speaks to each of these portions of your audience. Building multiple variations of a message that touch on different points and motivations can reinvigorate the response from your contact list and ensure the maximum amount of reach and coverage for your content.
Consistency Is Key
It’s not very often that a ride at a Disney run park goes offline, nor is it all that common for a member of the Disney staff to break character. The reason for this commitment to consistency is the fact that consumers don’t like services or relationships that stop and start abruptly.As you develop email content, it’s a good idea to set forth a schedule and do your best to stick to this framework as you start rolling out inbox offerings. Consistent timing and sustained content quality helps ensure that your viewership remains engaged and limits the damaging effects of sporadic attempts at email marketing.
Embrace Pop Culture Trends
From building up fervor for an impending movie release on social media, to integrating references to other properties and trends within its commercial content, the production and marketing side of Disney definitely knows how to embrace the constantly shifting landscape of modern pop culture.In her look at the process of merging pop culture and email content, Nicole Fallon of Business News Daily notes that this method is perhaps one of the most effective – and underutilized – tools in the average brand’s email marketing arsenal. Yes, finding connections between your business and the latest big TV show or conversation on Facebook does require a dedication to sifting through this portion of the digital world. However, including selections that reference a trending topic or sound off on a popular discussion serves as a powerful way to differentiate your brand from other inbox competitors who simply can’t be bothered to go above and beyond the bare minimum.
Give Your Audience Options
For the last lesson of how Disney provides a VIP experience for its customers, you have to look no farther than the various types of parks one can explore when he or she visits a Disney property. From Epcot and Animal Kingdom, to Typhoon Lagoon and ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex, this organization serves up additional theme options that give the visitor something different than the standard Disney experience.Great players in the inbox scene can embody this kind of approach via leveraging multiple types of content and message offerings. Image-rich selections that pull from Instagram and other visual networks, newsletters, or even “behind the scenes” looks at your company’s daily operations all provide the viewer with the chance to break the status quo and experience something different. The only boundary on this front is your brand’s willingness to be creative as it strives to offer up a growing ensemble of email marketing options.The truth of the matter is that few organizations can keep up with Disney’s take on VIP treatment for customers and park visitors. Even so, by aiming for this golden standard with your email content, your brand can follow in some pretty impressive footsteps as it continues to grow and expand its bond with consumers in the inbox.
