When it’s difficult to have a point of difference, try being funny

I’ve used a lot of email marketing services over the last couple of years, but recently I’ve been tinkering with MailChimp. I decided to use give a go MailChimp (aff) with a new email list I’d acquired (via the purchase of a website business) as it fit the following criteria:

• Import a list: ability to import my list without subscribers having to re-confirm. This was the main downside to Aweber – otherwise I probably would have stuck with them.
• Reasonably priced: their monthly subscription packages are very reasonable if you’re going to be sending regular emails to moderately large lists.
• Autoresponders: you can setup  automatic email sequences to go to your subscribers.
• API: MailChimp can play nicely with others.

There are plenty of others email marketing services however, that will loosely tick these boxes. They really don’t do *that* much different to other email marketing services such as iContact, Campaign Monitor and Aweber. But what’s impressed me most and instantly endeared me to MailChimp, is their sense of humor. Using their service makes the process of email marketing… more fun.

The fist “humor point” I noticed was the MailChimp mascot in the header. He has a repertoire of one liners that often link of to funny pages the MailChimp team has found. They are totally unrelated to email marketing or the MailChimp business, but they’re fun. Here’s an examples of what I mean:

The link in this image goes to a website that sells a foam banana cover for your phone. Perhaps I’m juvenile, but I found that very funny – laugh out loud funny.

Here’s another one:

Now it’s most likely a coincidence that MailChimp’s has a Star Wars reference in their comment bag, and that my name is Luke, but once again, I found this very endearing.

One more; the following is part of their email A/B report page:

It’s subtle, I know, but it’s the little things. They could have gone with a dry “A/B split subject line results”, but instead it’s turned into a gun slinging fight, a duel to the death between email subject lines – that’s the image MailChimp (aff) painted in my head with ONE WORD.

Have a think about how and where you can tactfully add a sense of humor to your communication with clients and customers. When you’re in an industry where it’s difficult to have a point of difference, having a funny side could be it.