An Email 2.0 Newsletter for All

Published February 16-22, 2024

1

The Need

Marketers and consumers need a new interaction channel. Marketers need to communicate their promotional material and consumers need to know what’s new with their favourite channels. The current push marketing channels have limitations which need to be overcome. Email 1.0, while still the best performing in terms of responses, has a low action rate in terms of opens and clicks. For consumers, their inboxes are filled with emails (and spam) making it hard for them to separate the treasure from the trash. SMS is costlier to send than an email and is limited to 160 characters. RCS offers a possible alternative. Push notifications (for those brands with apps) are being increasingly blocked by consumers. WhatsApp is emerging as an important alternative for the lower funnel but is extremely expensive relative to email (and even SMS). In this “attention recession” world, the lack of a reliable hotline is forcing marketers to turn to adtech to reach their existing customers. It also means marketers end up offering discounts to woo their own (once) customers back. All this has a negative impact on growth and profitability.

The answer, as I have written in previous essays, is Email 2.0. Here is what I wrote in Email 2.0: The Fulcrum for Fixing Five Funnel Frictions:

Far from being just another incremental update, Email 2.0 is a fundamental shift, a reimagining of one of the oldest and most reliable forms of digital communication. This redefined approach to email leverages advancements in interactivity, personalisation, and data analytics, crafting an engaging and highly efficient communication channel.

Email 2.0 is a powerful technological advancement with the potential to transform the landscape of eCommerce and serve as the pivotal point for all the proposed solutions. Its novelty is riveting, yet its absence has been a significant factor inhibiting marketers from effectively addressing the frictions plaguing customer journeys. Consequently, this has led to a growing dependency on acquiring new customers to fuel business growth, an approach that is increasingly proving to be inefficient and costly.

Email 2.0 not only enhances the interaction between brands and their customers but also shapes a richer understanding of each customer, fostering stronger, more meaningful relationships. By seamlessly integrating elements like AMP, Atomic Rewards, and Microns, Email 2.0 emerges as an omnichannel solution that tackles the barriers and navigates the journey from initial contact to purchase completion. Together, these elements make Email 2.0 the bedrock of a revolutionary approach to mitigate funnel frictions, improve customer experience, and pave the way for sustainable growth.

…Email 2.0 heralds a shift as impactful as the transformation from keypad-centric mobile devices to touch and app-oriented smartphones. With its novel ability to embed apps within emails, Email 2.0 can be the beacon for marketers wrestling with soaring customer acquisition costs. The evolution of Email 2.0 can be likened to the transformation of the automobile industry with the advent of electric cars, or the revolution in the music industry with the shift from physical records to digital streaming.

…Email 2.0 masterfully combines several innovations into a comprehensive package: AMP (for enabling interactivity), Atomic Rewards (micro-incentives for influencing user behavior), Microns (utilitarian content to foster habitual email use), integrated search boxes, AI-ML powered product recommendations, Email Shops (bringing conversion funnels closer to customers with fully manageable carts), secure in-mail payments, Actionable Ads targeted to known individuals rather than cookies or cohorts, and Engaging Footers offering more than just an unsubscribe option with dynamic earn-burn of rewards.

I added in Email 2.0: The Rise of the New Super App: “Brands today are beset with profit-killers in the engagement with their existing customers. Email 2.0’s super app status can beautify every broken profit-killing customer experience and accelerate the brand’s march to exponential, forever, profitable growth and eventually becoming a profipoly (profits monopoly). This journey cannot be undertaken with the burden of AdWaste on new customer acquisition; it necessarily needs success with existing customers. Email 1.0 may have fallen behind other exciting new channels like two-way SMS, push notifications, RCS, and WhatsApp, but Email 2.0 leapfrogs them all with its “All-in-Email” approach. What marketers need to grasp is the superpower they now have in their grasp…The Email Era is coming for everyone – from Gen Z to the seniors. Like a superhero who had slipped into the background but never really disappeared, Email 2.0 is coming back as our new super app.”

Even with its promise of combating marketing AdWaste and funnel frictions, Email 2.0 faces significant adoption problems as a new engagement channel.

2

The Gap

A question I get asked often by marketers when I talk about the power, potential, and promise of Email 2.0 is: “If it is as magical as you describe it to be, why aren’t more businesses adopting it? Why don’t I see messages with Email 2.0 in my inbox?” It is a fair question. We at Netcore have been pushing Email 2.0 for the past year, and yet have seen very limited usage by marketers. The demos are fresh and exciting, but that is where the story stops for many. A few who have pushed the envelope have seen excellent rewards (and awards), but the vision of replacing Email 1.0 with Email 2.0 for every message is still a distant dream. So, why is there a gap? Why have marketers not made Email 2.0 as their default? Here is my assessment of the reasons.

Email’s importance is diminishing. “Who opens emails anymore”? This is one of the first questions I get in India when I discussion Email 2.0. Yet, as I remind the audience, “100 million Indians open email daily, and that number goes up to 150 million in a month. Consumers may not be opening your email but they surely are opening some emails – even perhaps those from your competition. In countries like the US, 20-40% eCommerce revenues are driven from email.” The problem is that marketers have not used email right – creating unexciting poster-like messages on which the only action is a clickthrough to a product, category, or landing page on the website. In addition, messages are not personalised, come at random times, and have little informative content. Basically, marketers are sending ads even as they think they are sending content. I discussed solutions to this in Solving the Email Open Problem.

Email 2.0 is hard to create. This is a genuine problem. Creating Email 2.0 needs an additional layer of software, which most marketing teams or their agencies are not equipped to do. This will get solved over time: AMP editors, pre-created AMPlets, AMPifiers, and Gen AI tools to automatically write the needed code to address this issue. [In Netcore, we have created a team of software developers which helps marketers convert their creative into AMP emails. Also see: Dynamic Engaging Footers: Email 2.0’s Silver Bullet.]

Apple and Outlook don’t support it. This is a problem which is unlikely to go away. Apple Mail does not support AMP, and neither does Outlook. A workaround is the use of CSS which can incorporate some limited functionality for interaction within emails. Also, I see Gmail app usage growing in the times to come with the Gen AI functionality being baked in to simplify the process of responding to emails.

Decision-makers haven’t seen it. This is a big issue. We don’t see too many Email 2.0 examples. Most marketers have no idea what it looks like. Some may have seen demos or videos, but it is not the same thing as experiencing the power of Email 2.0 daily in one’s inbox. This is a hurdle that needs to be overcome. WhatsApp’s rise for business has been facilitated by many years of capturing our attention in the app thanks to its P2P messaging capabilities. This is the problem that needs a solution: there needs to be a mass-market consumer service for Email 2.0.

3

The Solution

The key to making Email 2.0 as the next new channel for marketers for their customer engagement messaging is by bringing attention to the email inbox with a service which becomes part of our lives. What is needed is an Email 2.0 newsletter which we all want to subscribe to – and read as a daily habit. This is the mountain which needs to be climbed to make Email 2.0 a commercial success. WhatsApp grew thanks to its easy personal and group messaging capabilities on the mobile, which started replacing the clunky SMS which never grew up. Email 2.0 needs a “killer app” – something which gives us a reason to open our inboxes, and then share with our network. What can such a service look like?

It must be an email sent daily at the same time. I think of this as a “micron” – a micro-newsletter, which becomes a habit. Open once, twice, thrice – and then we start expecting it at the same time daily. We look forward to opening it – like we do with some of the emails we get from media companies.

It must have an incentive to open and engage. This is where the idea of Atomic Rewards (and Mu) comes in. The MuCount in the email’s Subject signals to the recipient that there are points to be earned for actions. This gamification adds that extra element of excitement to email.

The email body has to be unlike what people have ever seen before. This is the heart of email’s transformation from 1.0 to 2.0. This is an email with no clickthrough – every action is completed within the message itself. The email body is a collection of AMPlets: small Lego-like blocks stacked together to create a compelling reason for repeated interaction. These AMPlets cater to our core instincts to learn, play, and have some fun. They become fillers in our busy lives – moments that make us better or simply entertain us. Email has never seen anything like this before – and neither has any other push channel. Yes, there are millions of apps which do the same thing but consider the preparation needed to open an app: we need to remember to open the app, then we need to find it among the dozens of apps on our phone, and then open it and wait a few seconds as it fetches the content. In the email inbox, all this friction goes away. The message lies there waiting for our attention and all it needs is a click or tap. All that’s needed is inside the email – without requiring a clickthrough out from the inbox. This is an experience very different from all we are used to.

Gen AI can power these AMPlets. One of the big challenges when it comes to creating content or simple games and puzzles is the need to have people do the creation. Gen AI is the technology which can simplify this. As the cost of creation goes to near zero, the scale can go up to the level of 1:1 personalisation. Imagine a newsletter which learns and then guides us to our objectives. Imagine a newsletter in the language we are comfortable with. Imagine a newsletter which comes our digital twin.

The Email 2.0 newsletter is built on the foundation of three key ideas: the interactivity AMP brings in, the incentives and gamification that Atomic Rewards enables, and the ease of content creation and personalisation that Gen AI can power. These together are the pillars of creating a new type of daily email service delivered to the inbox, garnering attention, and demonstrating to marketers (as consumers of such a service) the infinite possibilities of what Email 2.0 can do for their brands.

4

Magic (L)AMP

As an Indian kid growing up in the 1970s locked into a single TV channel (Doordarshan), a program I liked to watch every Sunday morning was “Magic Lamp”. Even in black-and-white, it made Sunday mornings fun.

Scroll had an interview a few years with Shukla Das, who helmed the show for five years. “Sesame Street did inspire the look of the Magic Lamp puppets. Allu, Magic Lamp’s protagonist, was modelled on Sesame Street’s Ernie. But the rest was completely original. We didn’t teach children letters, numbers and other basic stuff. And we catered mainly to English-speaking urban children. Our show had two puppet characters in the beginning – Allu and Phullu. Allu represented the child, a dreamer, very bumptious, and eager to learn while ready to make mistakes. Phullu was his female counterpart. We gave both different star signs and corresponding personalities: Phullu was wiser but got very distressed when things went awry. Both characters lived in an apple house. This segment was all about conceptual learning. But it was inadequate to limit their interactions to the home, and so we brought in a new segment called Sing Along. We had a 15 year-old girl called Barbara tune the songs, and children would sing them. Then there was Halla Gulla Path Shala, to improve motor and cognitive skills. Here, either Allu or his sidekick Champakali taught science and do-it-yourself tricks to children or adults.” And there was the unforgettable Sloppy!

When I read this from Sahepedia: “A major strength of Magic Lamp was to have ‘two-way interactivity’ with its audiences…‘Magic Lamp had many worlds in it… as many worlds as a child needs’ – Shukla Das (Das 2017)”, I could not but help make the connection to the world of AMP and the newsletter ideas with its AMPlets. AMP brings in two-way interactivity in email, and AMPlets can open as many worlds as we need.

Here is a starting list of ‘snackable’ ideas for what the AMPlets can do:

  • News – a carousel of the latest stories, which refreshes each time the email is opened
  • Quizzes – on a wide variety of topics. See Quizzing in Email: An Innovation in the Inbox.
  • Puzzles and Games – like word jumbles, Wordle, crossword clues, math challenges, roulette, blackjack, card games. See Gamelets: Rethinking Rewards Redemption.
  • Factoids – fun-to-know info. Could be made interactive with a True or False question.
  • Insta-polls – with results being shown as soon as the selection is made
  • Recos – for books, movies, OTT shows, apps
  • Storylines – Short stories that continue in each email, enticing readers to open the next one
  • Quotes from books and people
  • Better Me – tips on how to eat and live better
  • Words and their meanings
  • Amazing images – to spark one’s imagination
  • Predictions – and how they compare with what others said, and the actual outcomes

A few rules can help govern the content:

  • Every AMPlet should take no more than 10-15 seconds to consume
  • No clickthroughs – all engagement must be in-place within the email
  • AI should generate the content – thus keeping human or syndication costs under control
  • Each AMPlet should require Mu to unlock – with the possibility of earning Mu also. This adds an additional layer of gamification.

The idea is to have surprises that make for an engaging minute or two. The feeling that a subscriber must get is that of playing with a “magic lamp” and summoning a genie to provide bite-sized snackable content which provides a bit of learning, distraction, and fun – all within the confines of the inbox and the email.

Done right, such a newsletter could be the carrier to showcase the possibilities of what Email 2.0 can do and drive its adoption for brand-to-consumer emails. Think of Email 2.0 not just as an upgrade but a new channel, built for tomorrow’s world. By combining AMP, Atomic Rewards and AI, it reimagines what engagement can be and opens doors to the world of Inbox Commerce.

5

Summary

To improve the ideas mentioned in the essay, I asked ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard a series of questions. I began by asking each of them to summarise the essay.

ChatGPT

  1. The Need for Email 2.0: The essay argues that both marketers and consumers need a new channel for interaction due to limitations in existing channels like Email 1.0, SMS, RCS, push notifications, and WhatsApp. Email 1.0, despite its effectiveness, struggles with low open and click rates, and other channels have various limitations.
  2. Introduction of Email 2.0: Email 2.0 is presented as a transformative approach to email communication, integrating advancements in interactivity, personalization, and data analytics. It’s described as a powerful technology capable of reshaping e-commerce and customer engagement.
  3. Features of Email 2.0: The new system includes features like AMP (for interactivity), Atomic Rewards (micro-incentives), Microns (frequent, utilitarian content), integrated search boxes, AI-ML powered recommendations, Email Shops, secure in-mail payments, and more engaging footers.
  4. The Gap in Adoption: Despite its potential, Email 2.0 faces adoption challenges. These include diminishing importance of emails, technical difficulties in creating Email 2.0 content, lack of support from major platforms like Apple Mail and Outlook, and lack of awareness among decision-makers.
  5. The Solution and Email 2.0 Newsletter: The essay proposes the creation of an engaging Email 2.0 newsletter, sent daily with incentives for opening and interacting. This newsletter should include a variety of interactive elements (AMPlets) like news, quizzes, puzzles, and polls.
  6. Magic (L)AMP Concept: The concept draws a parallel with a childhood TV show, emphasizing the importance of interactivity and the creation of diverse, engaging content within emails.

Claude

  1. The Need
  • Marketers and consumers need a better way to communicate promotions and new offerings. Current methods like email, SMS, push notifications have limitations.
  • There is an “attention recession” making it hard for brands to reach their own customers, forcing increased spending on ads and discounts. This hurts growth and profits.
  • The proposed solution is Email 2.0 which enhances interactivity, personalization and analytics to foster stronger customer relationships. It incorporates innovations like AMP, Atomic Rewards, Microns, and more to tackle engagement issues.
  1. The Gap
  • Despite the promise of Email 2.0, adoption has been limited so far.
  • Reasons include: Email’s perceived lack of importance, difficulty in creating Email 2.0, lack of support on some platforms, decision-makers not having seen examples to understand value.
  1. The Solution
  • Create a daily Email 2.0 newsletter/service with incentives that becomes a habit and brings attention to inboxes.
  • Showcases interactivity of AMP, incentives of Atomic Rewards, ease of content creation through AI.
  • Brings in ideas like news, games, polls, recommendations and more – snackable content taking 10-15 seconds to consume.
  • Drives adoption of Email 2.0 by brands.

In terms of critical analysis, the essay makes a strong case for the need and potential of Email 2.0 to transform digital marketing. The discussion around the gap in adoption and proposed daily newsletter solution is compelling.

Bard

  1. Email 1.0 is no longer effective for marketers due to low open and click rates, while Email 2.0 offers a solution with its interactivity, personalization, and data analytics capabilities.
  2. Despite its promise, Email 2.0 faces adoption problems due to factors like marketers’ diminishing focus on email, the difficulty of creating Email 2.0 messages, and the lack of support from Apple and Outlook.
  3. The solution to drive Email 2.0 adoption is to create a daily Email 2.0 newsletter that becomes a habit for consumers. This newsletter would leverage AMP for interactivity, Atomic Rewards for gamification, and Gen AI for content creation and personalization.
  4. The author compares the proposed Email 2.0 newsletter to the Indian children’s TV show “Magic Lamp,” highlighting the concept of “snackable” content that provides learning, distraction, and fun within the email itself.

6

Criticisms

Next, I asked ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard for a critical review of the ideas discussed and possible resolutions.

ChatGPT

Critical Analysis/Review:

  1. Innovative Approach: The concept of Email 2.0 is innovative, addressing current limitations in digital marketing and consumer engagement. Its emphasis on interactivity, personalization, and integrated features is forward-thinking.
  2. Technological Feasibility: The essay somewhat glosses over the technical challenges of implementing Email 2.0. While it acknowledges these challenges, there’s an assumption that they will be overcome as technology progresses. Real-world implementation may be more complex.
  3. User Experience and Adoption: The success of Email 2.0 hinges on user experience. While the essay proposes exciting features, the actual user response to such a dense and interactive email format is uncertain. Overcoming the inertia of current email usage habits could be a significant challenge.
  4. Marketplace Readiness: The essay identifies a gap in the market and decision-maker awareness but doesn’t fully address how these gaps can be bridged. For widespread adoption, both marketers and consumers must see clear benefits over existing methods.
  5. Privacy and Data Concerns: The essay doesn’t address potential privacy and data concerns that might arise with the increased personalization and data analytics of Email 2.0. Given the current climate around data privacy, this could be a significant hurdle.
  6. Integration with Existing Systems: The transition from traditional email systems to Email 2.0 may require significant changes in existing digital infrastructure. The essay does not address how existing systems and workflows would adapt to this new format.

In summary, while Email 2.0 presents a compelling vision for the future of email communication and marketing, its practical implementation, user acceptance, and adaptation to existing digital ecosystems pose significant challenges that need thorough consideration.

Addressing the critical analysis points mentioned in the review of the Email 2.0 concept involves a multi-faceted approach, focusing on technological feasibility, user experience, market readiness, privacy concerns, and integration with existing systems. Here are potential solutions for each point:

  1. Overcoming Technological Challenges:
    • Invest in Research and Development: Allocate resources to developing user-friendly AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) editors and tools that simplify the creation of Email 2.0 content.
    • Collaboration with Email Clients: Work closely with major email clients (like Apple Mail and Outlook) to ensure compatibility and support for Email 2.0 features.
    • Educational Programs: Provide training and educational resources for marketers and developers to understand and utilize the new technology effectively.
  1. Enhancing User Experience and Adoption:
    • Pilot Programs: Implement pilot programs with a group of users to gather feedback and iteratively improve the Email 2.0 experience.
    • Customizable User Interface: Offer users the ability to customize how they interact with Email 2.0 features, allowing them to choose their level of engagement.
    • Gradual Introduction: Introduce Email 2.0 features gradually to existing email systems to allow users to adapt smoothly.
  1. Bridging the Market Readiness Gap:
    • Demonstration and Case Studies: Create demonstrative campaigns and case studies showing the effectiveness of Email 2.0, focusing on success stories and ROI.
    • Partnerships with Influential Brands: Partner with well-known brands to adopt and promote Email 2.0, leveraging their influence to encourage wider adoption.
    • Marketing Campaigns: Run targeted marketing campaigns to educate potential users about the benefits and new features of Email 2.0.
  1. Addressing Privacy and Data Concerns:
    • Robust Privacy Policies: Develop clear and robust privacy policies, ensuring user data is handled securely and transparently.
    • Compliance with Regulations: Ensure that Email 2.0 complies with international data protection regulations like GDPR.
    • User Consent and Control: Implement mechanisms for user consent and provide users with control over their data and the level of personalization they receive.
  1. Integration with Existing Digital Infrastructure:
    • APIs and Integration Tools: Develop APIs and integration tools that enable smooth integration of Email 2.0 with existing marketing and CRM systems.
    • Backward Compatibility: Ensure that Email 2.0 is backward compatible, allowing it to function effectively even when full features are not supported by some email clients.
    • Scalable Architecture: Design Email 2.0 with a scalable architecture to handle the varying needs of different businesses and user bases.

By addressing these points, the transition to and adoption of Email 2.0 can be facilitated more effectively, ensuring it meets the needs of both marketers and consumers in the evolving digital landscape.

Claude

A few aspects that could be elaborated further:

  • More data or examples supporting the limitations of current channels
  • Details on what specific innovations like AMP, Atomic Rewards entail beyond the brief descriptions
  • Analysis if the proposed newsletter will reach broad demographics beyond early adopters
  • Business model and incentives for the proposed newsletter itself

Overall, the essay structures the narrative well – identifying the need, gap, and potential solution. The proposal of a daily Email 2.0 newsletter to drive adoption by showcasing capabilities is a novel idea worth exploring further. More granular details and data would strengthen the arguments.

Here are some potential solutions to address the critical analysis points raised:

  1. More data or examples supporting the limitations of current channels:
  • Statistics on low open and click through rates for email, declining reach of social channels, frequency of disabling push notifications could be cited.
  • Anecdotes or surveys indicating customer fatigue with current promotional content types can demonstrate need for better engagement.
  1. Details on what specific innovations like AMP, Atomic Rewards entail:
  • Explain how AMP facilitates interactivity, personalization inside emails through components like forms, dynamic content, ability to update content in real-time without page refreshes.
  • Elaborate on how Atomic Rewards drives specific user actions through micro-incentives and creates value exchange through points/rewards.
  1. Analysis if the proposed newsletter will reach broad demographics:
  • Discuss how ease of email access via mobile devices allows reaching wider age groups and geographies vs apps.
  • Share adoption trajectory of other digital formats – gaming, social media, messaging across demographics.
  1. Business model and incentives for the newsletter:
  • Freemium model – basic version free, premium value-added services for subscription fee
  • Cross-subsidization – advertiser sponsorships for consumer rewards/loyalty
  • Licensing model for technology platform and tools to enable creation

Offering more supporting data and implementation details for the core concepts as well as elaborating on the adoption and business model will likely address the critical analysis points raised. Let me know if you need any clarification or have additional questions!

Bard

The essay provides a compelling argument for the potential of Email 2.0 and outlines a creative solution to address its adoption challenges. However, there are some points for consideration:

  • The essay focuses heavily on the benefits for marketers, but it would be strengthened by also addressing potential consumer concerns about privacy and data usage in Email 2.0.
  • The feasibility of creating and maintaining a daily, personalized Email 2.0 newsletter for a large audience needs further elaboration. The technical and resource requirements could be significant.
  • The comparison to “Magic Lamp” is interesting, but it might not resonate with all readers, particularly those unfamiliar with the show. A broader range of cultural references could be explored.

Overall, the essay offers a valuable perspective on the future of email marketing and presents a thought-provoking idea for driving Email 2.0 adoption. With further refinement and addressing potential concerns, the proposed solution could have significant implications for the way brands and consumers interact in the digital age.

Here are some solutions to the critical analysis points you mentioned:

Addressing consumer concerns:

  • Transparency and control: Clearly explain how user data is collected, used, and protected in Email 2.0. Give users granular control over their data and preferences, including opting out of specific features or personalization.
  • Focus on user benefits: Highlight how Email 2.0 can benefit consumers beyond just marketing messages. For example, emphasize interactive content, personalized recommendations, and gamification elements that offer entertainment and value.
  • Privacy-preserving technology: Explore techniques like federated learning and differential privacy to enable personalization without compromising individual data privacy.

Feasibility of the daily newsletter:

  • Phased rollout: Start with a smaller, targeted audience and gradually scale up based on user feedback and engagement.
  • AI-powered content creation: Utilize AI models to generate personalized content snippets and AMPlets, reducing the manual workload for content creators.
  • Modular design: Create reusable content blocks and AMPlets that can be easily combined and customized for different audiences and days.
  • Partnerships and collaboration: Partner with media companies, content creators, and other brands to share the burden of content creation and distribution.

Expanding the cultural reference:

  • Global and diverse examples: Instead of relying solely on “Magic Lamp,” provide examples of interactive and engaging content from various cultures and regions to resonate with a wider audience.
  • Focus on the core concept: Emphasize the “snackable” content and engaging experience offered by the newsletter, rather than relying solely on the “Magic Lamp” analogy.
  • User-generated content: Encourage users to contribute their own ideas and suggestions for AMPlets and content, fostering a sense of community and ownership.

By addressing these points, the proposed solution for Email 2.0 adoption can become more comprehensive, address potential concerns, and increase its chances of success. Remember, it’s essential to strike a balance between the benefits for marketers and consumers to create a truly sustainable and engaging email experience for everyone.

7

More Ideas

Finally, I asked ChatGPT, Claude, and Bard to provide additional ideas for the newsletter.

ChatGPT

  1. Interactive Mini-Surveys: Short, visually appealing surveys that provide immediate feedback or results upon completion. These can be about user preferences, current trends, or general opinions.
  2. Daily Challenges or Tasks: Simple, daily challenges that encourage personal growth, productivity, or wellness. For example, a mini workout challenge, a mindfulness task, or a creative writing prompt.
  3. Virtual Scratch Cards: Incorporate gamified elements like virtual scratch cards offering small rewards or discounts, creating an engaging and interactive experience.
  4. Mini-Tutorials or How-Tos: Quick, step-by-step guides or tips on various topics, such as cooking recipes, tech tips, or DIY crafts, designed to be consumed within 10-15 seconds.
  5. Astronomy or Nature Fact of the Day: Share fascinating facts about space, nature, or wildlife, possibly with beautiful imagery or animations.
  6. Interactive Calendars: Include a mini interactive calendar with key dates, events, or reminders relevant to the audience, allowing them to explore more by hovering or clicking on dates.
  7. Language Learning Snippets: Daily words or phrases in different languages, along with their pronunciation and a fun fact about the language or culture.
  8. Health and Wellness Tips: Quick tips or facts about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, such as nutrition advice, mental wellness practices, or short exercise routines.
  9. Mini Polls on Current Events: Engage users with instant polls on current events or trending topics, providing real-time results to see how their opinions compare with others.
  10. User-Generated Content Spotlight: Feature content like photos, tips, or stories submitted by users, encouraging interaction and community building.
  11. Virtual Pet or Plant: An interactive feature where users can ‘care’ for a virtual pet or plant, with daily actions contributing to its growth or well-being.
  12. Historical Fact of the Day: Share intriguing historical facts or events that happened on that particular day in history.
  13. Art and Culture Snippets: Brief insights into different art forms, music, literature, or cultural practices from around the world.
  14. Eco-Friendly Tips and Challenges: Offer simple daily actions or challenges that contribute to a more sustainable lifestyle.
  15. Interactive Brain Teasers or Riddles: Engage the audience with brain teasers, riddles, or optical illusions that they can solve directly in the email.

Claude

  • Micro Learning Modules: 10-15 seconds lessons on diverse topics from history to science to soft skills
  • Personality Tests: Short multiple choice tests to reveal personality traits and types
  • This Day in History: Show notable events from same calendar day over the years
  • Future News: AI generated plausible headlines for 1/5/10 years out
  • Interactive Maps: Clickable infographics on countries, cultures, cuisines etc
  • Song Intros / Lyrics: Identify songs and artists from short audio/text excerpts
  • Short Poems: Curated selection of short poems of different styles and poets
  • Micro Meditations: Brief 10 second breathing/mindfulness routines
  • Offset Carbon Count: Tracker to visualize environmental impact of daily choices

Bard

Curated Content:

  • Micro-podcasts: Offer snippets of interesting podcasts on various topics, with the option to open the full episode in the podcast app.
  • Book previews: Share short excerpts from trending books, accompanied by links to purchase or borrow them.
  • Article summaries: Condense longer articles into bite-sized summaries, enticing readers to click for the full version.
  • Personalized recommendations: Suggest articles, podcasts, or books based on the user’s past engagement and interests.

Interactive Activities:

  • Daily poll: Pose a lighthearted question with instant results displayed upon voting, fostering community engagement.
  • Prediction challenges: Let users predict upcoming events (sports results, stock prices) with virtual rewards for accuracy.
  • Collaborative art projects: Implement an AMPlet where users contribute to a growing artwork over time, creating a sense of belonging.
  • Hidden secrets: Embed easter eggs within the newsletter, rewarding observant readers with bonus Mu or exclusive content.

Personalized Services:

  • Local deals and discounts: Offer relevant coupons and promotions based on the user’s location and preferences.
  • Travel inspiration: Show curated travel itineraries or destination highlights personalized to the user’s travel interests.
  • Event recommendations: Suggest upcoming events (concerts, workshops) tailored to the user’s location and interests.
  • Educational quizzes: Challenge users with short quizzes on various topics, providing personalized feedback and learning paths.

**

My final take: The world needs a new engagement channel. Email 2.0 can be the answer. Done right, it could reduce CAC and increase CLV for brands, thus powering exponential forever profitable growth and kickstarting the Profipoly journey. Over time, the consumer service ideas we have discussed here could be incorporated in footers of brand emails. With “Action Ads”, brand-to-consumer emails – like search, mail, and many other services – could become free. [See Reimagining Email Ads and Can B2C Email Become Free?]. A new, exciting future awaits!