Living Email
For too long, emails have been static and lifeless. Brands create the email, send it and it stays that way forever in the inbox. At best, there is some dynamic image that can be pulled in when the email is opened. As such, the email becomes a single-use message – never to be opened again. What if this could change? Let’s consider the possibilities of an idea I call “All in Email” – search, browse, chat, cart, rate, review – many of the verbs we associate with actions on websites or apps can now be done in emails. Instead of a customer going to the brand property (website or app), what if the property came to the customer?! That is the promise of AMP – combined with the power of our imagination.
A Living Email could have a search box embedded in it. I could then search in the email itself and see the results right there. Popular categories could be listed for me to browse inside the email itself. In both cases, even the addition to the cart could be done within the AMP email. Since an AMP email does not retain its “AMP nature” when forwarded, the checkout process too can be done right inside the email. No click throughs, no landing pages! A Living Email could lead to the initiation of a chat session from inside the email. I see a product I like in the email, and I could initiate a conversation with a chatbot or a human for resolving my queries. The context-specificity of the chat could lead to faster closures. Features like search, browse and chat could be standard components in every AMP email – so all I have to do is to go to my inbox and open any email from a brand and get started.
A Living Email can show news and stock quotes in real-time – every time I open the email, I would get the latest info. In fact, take this idea to its logical extreme, and all a media brand would need to do is to just have a single email ever in the inbox. Think WhatsApp – we have a single conversation thread with an individual or a brand. A Living Email would be the only email a media entity would need to send. When a breaking news or a daily update needs to be communicated, the email would just rise to the top of the inbox. (More on this when we discuss the Micronbox idea.)
A Living Email could have changing questions for collecting zero-party data. Depending on what the brand knows about me, it could throw up a different question each time I opened the same email. A Living Email therefore is just a placeholder in the inbox – with each side (brand or customer) having the ability to initiate a conversation.
AMP is what makes the Living Email possible. Atomic Rewards is what provides the micro-incentives needed to nudge the customer to the desired actions.
