N.dulge in a Conversation

N.dulge is the name of the Space NK rewards scheme.

For the unitiated Space NK is a retailer ( both off and online) who offer a carefully edited selection of high quality and original  beauty products from innovators and specialists around the world. They are a favourite of mine even though there isn't one near me.


This morning I bought a Tom Ford fragrance ( now you know what I smell like) from their Harrogate store and was tempted to sign up for N.dulge ( love the name by the way). 1 point for every £ spent and the promise of special privileges like exclusive invitations, new product previews and birthday treats.


I signed up at the till, no forms to fill out, the sales advisor entering my details directly into the POS system. I got my temporary card number with the promise of a card in the post. This was at 11-45am


Now of course with most of the schemes I sign up for that would be it until my card arrived . But no. Look what arrived in my inbox at exactly 11-45am

In this world of 'real time' CRM, Space NK had continued the conversation with me straight away by sending me a welcome email immediately encouraging me to go to the N.dulge website to complete my registration. They got the essentials from me in the store without wasting too much of my time using the email to try and get more information from me. Hats off to the CRM / Membership team.


Of course it's not perfect. They had not used my name which would have been a nice touch, and the whole email is an image so actually I didn't see any of this until I unblocked content. My details page online didn't know that I was male, but I think it's a good start. 


I'm looking forward to seeing what else I get my way an in particular if my offers and in particular my Birthday present is tailored to me being male.


By the way, the Tom Ford Grey Vetiver makes even me smell lovely

Amazon Lockers are Here

Amazon's Lockers are here in London at One New Change in the City. So if you don't want it delivered to your home, office or pick it up from the local Royal Mail sorting office, there is another option. ( If you don't want to pop to the shops that is)

Twitter and the Art of Storytelling

I recently had the pleasure of meeting John Sadowsky again at an event run by the DMA and Emailvision.

For those of you who don't know John, he is a great exponent of the importance of Stories and Storytelling for both Leaders and Brands.

At the recent event, he highlighted how the Hero of the Story is often the key difference between a Brand Story that is successful and one that is not. He cited the Facebook pages of Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks. The former having fewer fans than Starbucks but more highly engaged ones.

And the main difference was Hero of the stories being told. In Starbucks' case it was the brand, while with Dunkin Donuts it was the Customer. This makes sense doesn't it? I am more likely to share a story that has me at the centre of it than a Brand.

So this brings me to Twitter. Now you might say that a story can't be told in 140 characters or less. True But what Twitter have done very cleverly by launching Twitter Stories, is to talk about the Stories behind the Tweets.

Here's how Aaron Durand saved his mom's bookstore with a Tweet.

Aaron Durand’s mother was in trouble. She had run an independent bookstore for nearly two decades when an economic downturn hit that threatened to close the shop. Aaron wanted to help his mom, but wasn’t sure what he could do. He wrote about his mom’s plight on his blog then tweeted it out, adding at the last second an offer to buy a burrito for anyone who bought $50 worth of books during the holidays at his mom’s shop.

The story took hold. The Tweet was passed along from person to person across Portland’s art and design community. It was retweeted and retweeted until hundreds of people had read the story.

Overnight, new customers started to arrive and business began to pick up. The story continued to snowball on Twitter. The bookstore went on to have its best holiday season ever, and has continued to thrive each season since.

 Twitter is not the story. Brands are not the story. People are the story

What's your Twitter Story?

AT&T View of QR Codes

Apparently SPAM isn't Green

Infographic courtesy of www.webpagefx.com