Facebook (and Instagram, which falls under the Facebook umbrella) made news last Wednesday when it was reportedly inaccessible to users for an estimated 14 hours – the longest and most wide-spread outage experienced by the social media giant, to date.
When reached for comment during the outage, social media fanatics around the world allegedly responded that they literally, can’t even. Many of them took to Twitter to express their displeasure using the hashtag, #FacebookDown.
On that fateful day, you could hear the frantic, wanton swipes of people refreshing their feeds followed by a chorus of exasperated sighs, and finally the faint murmurs of neighbors desperately pleading with one another, is Facebook down for you, too?
Landmarks around the world that are typically teeming with millennials snapping photos for their “Insta” were eerily quiet. For instance, pictures of people ironically pretending to hold-up the Leaning Tower of Pisa saw a 45% drop as a result of the outage.
What does this have to do with email marketing?
In short – everything. And while it’s fun to lambast social media users and their melodrama, this had some very real consequences for marketers with skin in the game
Social media advertisers were understandably distraught upon hearing the news that their ads weren’t being seen and anyone planning to stream live events, announce new products or simply create posts to encourage engagement, were forced to come-up with an alternative.
But if we can draw one positive from what most normal folks regard as a painfully insipid non-event that distracted some people from the actual horrors of reality for a little while, it’s this: you should embrace email marketing in these situations. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, right?
However, we were surprised at the overwhelming lack of lemonade-making we saw last Wednesday from major brands – at least in the way of email marketing.
Look at these situations as an opportunity to allow email to shine
In the rare event that something like this happens, marketers, especially those that rely heavily on social media promotion, tend to – you guessed it – socialize about the fact that they are unable to access whatever social media channel is down.
What savvy marketers should be doing, however, is making email-ade out of the lemon that Facebook handed them…or something like that.
When billions of people don’t know what to do with their hands because their favorite social media sites are down, it’s time to let your email marketing skills shine.
Give the people what they want, which is, something to do with their hands!
The people who felt out of the loop by Wednesday’s outage were sitting ducks or fish in the proverbial barrel for email marketers.
A marketing email should be timely, right?
It’s safe to assume that the hordes of people who were going through Facebook withdraw on Wednesday were simply itching for something to scroll through (reference the link above for more information). Engaging with your audience via email during this time would give many would-be non-opens some content to look at. And if you created something compelling and eye-catching, you’d probably be in the money.
A marketing email also needs to be relevant.
Why not reference the fact that this major outage is occurring in your subject line to pique your audience’s interest? Create a personalized, captivating subject line that mentions what is probably on a lot of people’s minds.
For example:
- Facebook-Shmacebook – 15% off!!
- FIRST_NAME, Is Instagram down for you?
I’m willing to bet that emails sent in the middle of Wednesday’s debacle that utilized subject lines like these would have enjoyed soaring open rates and probably a conversion rate that is at least a little bit higher than their average.
What’s your point, Einstein?
Our point (rude) is that you should look at these major events as opportunities – not catastrophes. As digital marketers, it’s our job to roll with the punches when the internet winds-up with a haymaker and notice that the internet’s ribcage is wide-open for the taking.
Many good marketers talked about how Facebook was down on Wednesday and how it affected the brands they endorse. But it takes a great marketer to look at Wednesday’s outage as a chance to throw a counterpunch and win big.
Ready to start sending high ROI emails like these? Contact our team of Marketing Consultants to get your campaign off the ground today!
