Myspace’s “The Black Carpet” - Is This Email Marketing 2.0?
Myspace.com has just launched it’s new “The Black Carpet” which gives members who add “The Black Carpet” to their profile friends list the ability to see advanced screenings of movies. Starting September 20th users from 20 United States cities, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia will be able to to get bulletins (sounds a lot like opt-in email newsletters) about how to get into theaters in their area showing the advanced screenings.
My first thought on “The Black Carpet” was hey that’s a pretty nice way to generate a lot of hype for a movie, see “Snakes on Plane”, but this new play by myspace goes way beyond your typical viral marketing. This is Email Marketing 2.0.
Email 2.0 - How will Myspace’s “The Black Carpet” accomplish this?
By now most people might know that myspace came from a company called eUniverse/Intermix media as written in this article. These companies were/are online email marketing juggernauts. That’s why the connection between the two ideas of email marketing and “The Black Carpet” is so transparent. So while myspace and other social networking giants are struggling trying to find model’s to monetize their huge user base other than google adsense and $1 CPM, myspace is now tapping into a radically already successful Email Marketing industry.
Lets start with comparing Email Marketing and “The Black Carpet”:
Opting-in
The Black Carpet - To receive bulletins to advanced screenings of movie’s users connect to “The Black Carpet” profile and add it to their friend’s list.
Email Marketing - Just like a checkbox or an email newsletter to receive special offers via email you are opting-in.
Newsletter CPM Advertising - The Biggie!
The Black Carpet - Picture telling your advertiser that you know exactly what your audience demographics are, down to what books they read, if they are single, how old they are, education level, everything. If you add “The Black Carpet” to your friends list the advertiser has the utmost window into your buying habits and interests. This is the ultimate in A/B testing for an Advertiser, far surpassing Email Marketing! Do you know what kind of CPM advertising rates you can charge for sending out those bulletins for those demographics, upwards of $30+ easy. That would increase the myspace earning power by 30x from their current $1CPM banner advertising.
Email Marketing - Targeted newsletters. If you opt-in to receive email newsletters on a tech website you know that the audience is mainly technology readers. You may have other information based upon a profile that they entered on the website but you in no way have real time data, as you would in the myspace user profile model. A similiar Opt-in Email newsletter with all this audience demographic information would be impossible to achieve.
Open Rates/Click Thrus - Same Metrics
The Black Carpet - Myspace can track if you open your bulletins, if you click on an mail message in your myspace account. The exact same metrics as email marketing. This way advertisers used to placing their budget with email newsletters will be comfortable with the concept of advertising in myspace bulletins.
Email Marketing - Email marketers currently track opens/clicks to provide this info to advertisers. Opens and Click Thrus are standard metrics used in the industry.
No Spam Rules
Myspace is a private website. There are no committees like Spam-haus or ROKSO to limit the number or content of messages/bulletins sent to users. Imagine if Email Marketers didn’t have to worry about deliverability??? 100% deliverability, that’s the Golden Goose in email marketing.
In Summary - The possiblities are endless!
Why stop at “The Black Carpet’ for movies. Why not extend it, how about “The Reader’s Edge” for new book releases, advertisers such as Barner’s and Noble would jump on this. Or how about “The Gadget Movement” where people get special myspace offers at the nearest Best Buys. So you can see where this is going, it’s going big and if myspace does it right it’s going to rock the industry and change the landscape of internet marketing from this point forward.
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