1800Flowers.com: a quick way to raise some cash

Flowers flowers flowers: it's spring time, just after Valentine day (well, couple of months...) and my soul still screams for more flowers...

And our friend Jim McCann obliges: as existing customer of 1800-Flowers, I got the attached in my email inbox



Very well architected: let's dissect the specimen to fully enjoy each nugget of marketing expertise hidden into this fine message.

• "I love surprises": this guy is great. He flashes right away in our mind a suggestion for a flower gift: a surprise !
  
• "This weekend only": time restriction ! It elicits the power of scarcity (see Dr. Cialdini's article in another posting few days before): as "we want more of what we cannot have", having a time limit statistically increases the percentage of people that will take action
• "Exclusively for our e-mail customers": Exclusivity ! This is not for everybody: just for YOU, my dear e-mail customer. Again, scarcity: we appreciate more the offer because it's not of public availability
• "Promotional Code": great for tracking the effects of the campaign: they will know perfectly how many people actually took advantage of the offer
• Now a negative: "save 15%*" - I hate the little * after the 15%... What does it mean? It's not specified in the email anywhere. I did not like it.
• "Send that belated birthday gift to your best friend, an anniversary arrangement to your folks or simply give that certain someone a reason to smile": again, he suggests us reasons for taking advantage of the offer. And those are damn good reasons: who does not have a forgotten a birthday lately? Anniversary with spouse, anyone? Very clever to suggest mental images rather than leaving the reader to his/her own devices in figuring out if he/she wants to send the flowers to someone
• "Surprise someone special and save money too!" One more reason to do it.
• "Offer valid through 4/10/05": scarcity at work again
• "Send this email to a friend": Referrals again

Now, after this long description, let's look at the economics of it.

• Cost: zero, nada, niente, nul - just an email to the customer database
• Upside: all the people that will buy
• Upside 2: the referrals, hence new people becoming potential customers
• Downside: Permission erosion. I mean, if they start sending me these emails every week, I will revoke the permission I granted them to send me emails. So, they surely have to walk a fine line (as Seth Godin, in the fine book "Permission marketing" very eloquently describes). So far, so good

Whoa, this was a long post, for sure.

Now I gotta go: I have to send flowers to my friend - her birthday was last week and I forgot it...

K in Taiwan