Email Strategy Roundtable: Ben & Jerry's Kills Email

The UK operations of Ben & Jerry’s caused a huge stir recently when they decided to end their monthly newsletter and move their communications to Facebook and Twitter.  Not to worry, American ice cream lovers – the US email marketing train for Ben & Jerry’s is still going strong. But why did the Brits shut it down? Simms Jenkins of ClickZ spoke with the Ben & Jerry’s team and learned that they had polled their customers on where they wanted to interact with the brand, and social media won out over their inboxes. Read the full story here.  Was this is a dangerous decision, or a wickedly smart one? Our strategists weigh in:

Kristen: I wouldn't advise killing a marketing channel without thorough analysis. You could have a loud minority shouting their preferences that don't represent everyone. You may be able to find more cost-effective ways to continue to market via channels that aren't seeing the ROI you'd like. You should probably test channel changes, keeping a control group, before making any sweeping decisions. 

Kimberly: I think if I had the opportunity to speak to Sean directly I would have asked him “why not continue the UK newsletter to those individuals who still want to receive it. When asking for your subscribers’ preferences did you give them the option to continue receiving this newsletter? If not why? What was the underlying business reason?

I agree wholly with Simms that “the digital savvy should plan how to combine the two for the most powerful digital communication platter that a marketer could ask for”. By taking away either email or social channels you cut your brand short of the opportunity to bring your brand to life. Orchestrating both of these channels to provide unique content and value for your brand advocates requires strategy and a thoughtful approach – which ultimately is the secret sauce each marketer should strive to create.

Julie: While I am stunned at the bold move from Ben & Jerry’s UK, I’m impressed by their nerve.  I would love to know the numbers behind this decision, and what their plan is to fully optimize their Facebook and Twitter marketing efforts. My concern is that their goodbye message mentioned “we’ll still send you the odd email on special occasions.” What does that mean, what kind of content would they be sending, and what constitutes a special occasion… and how often do those occur? Not setting proper expectations could be dangerous, and not sending frequently enough could be damaging to their deliverability, spam complaints, and engagement. I wonder how the metrics on these future one-off emails will compare to their old newsletter. Hopefully, since they’ve been so transparent about their email marketing, they’ll be willing to share this in a future blog post!

What do you think of this daring business decision, and have you had any experience with shutting down a marketing channel? Please share in the comments below.

Julie Waite
Email Marketing Strategist at Bronto