2Fish 4Business

I’m on quite a few newsletter lists. Like most people, I tend to sign up for them and then lose at least some interest in the company. If a newsletter comes in that happens to offer something I am looking for right now, I will probably click on it. Otherwise, I’ll skim the email and delete, which is most of the time.

So this one from American Science & Surplus really caught my eye this morning. (Highlighting added; click to enlarge photo.)

Did I click on that link? You bet I did! I mean, who doesn’t want 25,000 bonus frequent flyer miles if AS&S ever buys a surplus airline?

If I were running this campaign, I would add anyone who clicked to the preferred customer list and just let them all believe that they were in the first 250. I’d have a special landing page that the link goes to, with my very best product deals on sale. Customers have to click on the email link to get the deal — anyone else pays regular price.

Now I have no immediate need for a boxed set of Cosmos DVDs or a robot hamster wheel, two of the items on the sale landing page. But clicking the link got me to their site, where I might find something else I didn’t know I wanted until I saw it on sale, and reminded me again that browsing AS&S is just plain fun. And who doesn’t need a chuckle now and then?

What a great marketing tool!

American Science and Surplus

How can you use information like this in your next customer newsletter?

Tripwire Magazine posts a useful list of tools for web designers. Some, like the font makers, may not be everyday needs, but others, like templatr (template maker for blogs and web pages) and Browsercam (screenshot capture for numerous browsers and mobile devices — unfortunately, rather high-priced) could be very useful and deserve to be considered as part of your design toolbox.

Not mentioned in the article is the Web Developer Add-on for Firefox, a compact and extremely useful tool that replaces the last two sites mentioned: W3C Link Checker and Markup Validation Service.

All in all, this article is a good start. We’ll be adding to the research in the coming days.

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