In my preview post, I pointed out how eHarmony.com was doing a nice job of utilizing the preview window. Many email marketers drop the ball here, but the online matchmaker has done well fusing a simple and aesthetically pleasing design with best practices for engagement.
With that said, they are missing a segmentation opportunity. These inputs are based solely on personal experience, so perhaps there was a simple list mistake, but nonetheless – a mistake and lost opportunity.
Background: I’m an eHarmony.com promoter. My girlfriend and I met through the service about 18 months ago, loved the infrastructure and experience and have been happily living together for a while. We suggest eHarmony to most of our single friends and have also been in contact with the ‘follow up’ folks there to keep them up to date.
Segmentation Problem: All of the newsletters I receive appear to be structured with a nice dynamic content engine. They also have a basic preference center in place, so I’m able to decide which top-level communications I want. The problem is that the content I’m receiving is not quite relevant.
Most of the articles in my newsletters are for ‘dating tips’ ‘pickup lines’ ‘moving too fast?’ etc. These may be great for someone currently using the service or thinking about using the service. – Someone that is in the dating or pre-dating stage.
eHarmony knows that I’ve closed my account, they know the reason, and they know a general time frame of events. So wouldn’t it be a good idea to provide content more relevant for a serious relationship, and also content to encourage me to promote? (I don’t need it, but it should be there). There are many great life-cycle opportunities here that I feel they are missing. It would be a robust email infrastructure, but nothing too overwhelming for the marketing engine eHarmony has demonstrated throughout the years.
I will give them some credit though; the content appears to be getting slightly more targeted, but still some elements in need of adjustment.
A more extreme case from personal experience were the email blunders from 24h Fitness (who later made progress to redeem themselves in a follow up post).
