Email Marketing Win: Bed, Bath & Beyond’s Use of Testimonials

The use of testimonials in a new marketing email campaign from Bed, Bath & Beyond is an email marketing win.

What I love about this email:

• As always, a 20% off coupon is included
• Fantastic layout
• Great use of colors and images
• Excellent use of testimonials from both celebrity and ordinary customers
• Clear calls to action (“SHOP TOP RATED PRODUCTS”, "SHOP NOW")

Oprah quoted in a Bed, Bath & Beyond email?

The email headline reveals that these super star products are “rated by real customers.” Oprah shops at Bed, Bath & Beyond? Who knew! I hope for their sake, that the marketing team at Bed, Bath & Beyond did their due diligence and got permission from Oprah’s team or at least from the team over at T-Fal® to use the quote from Oprah promoting their ActiFry Low Fat Multi Cooker - Black. As everyone knows, particularly those fortunate authors of "O" book club bestsellers and proprietors of products awarded the lofty ranking on "O’s favorite things", if you get the "O" stamp of approval, you’re golden. Nice to see that the savvy opportunists over at Bed, Bath & Beyond made good use of O’s love of this very high-tech looking, better-than-a-slow-cooker “multi cooker”.

Reviews from real people really move products

When I saw that the first testimonial in the email was from Oprah, I read through the others looking for more celebrity endorsements. Alas, there were none to be found, another smart move by the marketing team. As so many marketers have learned in recent years, it is reviews from real people that really move products. (See the success of Amazon.com in part due to this idea.) I appreciated that the rest of the testimonials in the email were from regular folks like you and me. Thanks to ReneeAllDay, now we know that if we use the NuWave® Pro Infrared Oven to cook up a salmon dinner, our homes won’t smell like fish. Also good to know that the Shark® Lift-Around™ Vacuum is effective at cleaning up cat litter that has made its way out of the box by a messy kitty, thanks to the review by PamInMU. In my opinion, these are the kinds of reviews that matter to a potential purchaser. This information from actual product users often makes the difference  from a look-see at a product to a sales conversion.

More that I love about this email:

• Obvious Links to Connect via Social Media
• Search Bar
• Additional Unrelated Marketing (Lighting, Gift Cards, Thousands of Items with Free Shipping)
• Push for Verification of Customer Contact Information and Save to Address Book (Don't miss out!)
• Personalization of Email (Your Store Location)

Bottom Line: Bed, Bath & Beyond are digital marketing winners with email marketing. 

Social Snapshot: AARP

In this social media snapshot, I take a look at the social media marketing programs of AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons. AARP boasts almost 350,000 Facebook fans, nearly 45,000 followers on Twitter, over 7.6 million views on their dedicated YouTube channel, and a growing audience on Pinterest, (with nearly 1,000 followers on their “AARP History” board alone).

Who is AARP?

Established in 1958, AARP is one of America’s largest non-profit membership organizations with a national membership of over 38 million people over the age of 50.  The annual sixteen dollar membership fee entitles members to exclusive discounts on insurance, travel, dining and entertainment, utilities and more. Members also receive AARP’s monthly print magazine, featuring articles and commentary on topics such as entertainment, finance, health and other key issues relating to their age group. Additionally, the AARP bulletin keeps members informed about politics and legislation. Finally, a key component of AARP membership is that members feel a sense of community through their association. This point is perhaps also why AARP has experienced the success that they have in their social media marketing efforts.

AARP Knows Their Audience

To start with, AARP gets points for recognizing that their audience, (people over the age of 50, mainly older retirees), are actively online and social. While skeptics may consider America’s aging baby boomer population to be less than computer savvy, and doubt their online activity, the engagement level on AARP’s social media platforms easily dispute these ideas. A recent poll on internet usage by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that 77% of respondents between the ages of 50-64 use the internet and/or email, and 76% go online on a typical day. Over 53% of respondents aged 65 years or older are also active online. AARP built their social media platforms on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and recently Pinterest, because they recognized that their members were actively online and using social media, long before such surveys proved such trends.

On Facebook and Pinterest, the majority of AARP fans and followers are female. AARP’s marketing team capitalizes on that by posting gender-specific content in these social spaces. For example, they leveraged their feature article from the July issue of their print magazine, “AARP’s Sexiest Men Over 50”, by bringing it to their social community and promoting engagement. They asked their fans and followers to rate their list of celebrities, let them know who they left out and who their favorites were.

AARP Knows What Their Audience Wants

AARP understands their audience and what is most important to them, because they ask them. Members are routinely surveyed on what is the most important benefit of the association to them. Their response? Discounts. To grow their social following, and demonstrate the value of AARP membership, marketing executives at AARP decided to plug a different discount available to members across Facebook and Twitter, every night of the week at 8 PM. Since members are seeking this information, and are already on social anyway, it’s a win-win for all.

AARP Makes It Fun

To date, AARP’s most highly-engaged social campaign on Facebook is their “Mutt-Madness” contest that they ran in March to coincide with NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. For the contest, their Facebook fans were encouraged to upload an image of their dog, share the AARP album with friends and get “likes” on their pet to win the title of “Mutt-Madness Top Dog” for the year. Each week, dogs with the least “likes” would be eliminated, much like teams in the basketball tournament were dropped, from the Sweet 16, the Final Four, down to the Final Two, and then the winner. This contest was fun for AARP fans who entered their dogs, as well as the thousands that voted for their favorites each week and followed the contest on Facebook and Twitter. This campaign was such a success that it will be repeated next March, and the marketing team at AARP has plans in the works for a cat contest as well.

The success of this campaign, helped to build up their following across social media platforms, and was not just due to the fact that it was fun, but also because it once again related back to AARP knowing their audience, mainly women who love their pets. 

Finally AARP’s social success also has to do with their use of an endless library of fun, vivid images. Great images are crucial to growing interest and engagement on social media, and AARP hasn’t missed that point. One look at their homepage on Pinterest and a glance at their 26 boards demonstrate this. From movies and music “for grown-ups,” to recipes, to 50+ style icons and celebrities, their Pinterest page also again connects to their knowing their audience and what they are interested in, but on this platform, in a fun and visual way.

Snapshot

Clearly AARP knows what they are doing in terms of social media marketing. What can we learn from their social success? The key to AARP’s social achievements stems from their knowing their audience, understanding what they care about and making it fun.