MailChimp is an email marketing platform used by some pretty high profile brands. It offers powerful campaign management tools and also Proof of Marketing, um… how shall I put it? A very unusual user experience…
For example, you may be working on building your new blog newsletter and on the top right corner the Chimp would say:
and then the link, if you’re tempted to click it, would play this weird video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l85-jnShN0U&NR=1[/youtube]
or you could be looking at your campaign analytics and find a note that says: “Your campaign got a 100% click rate. Your best ever! Ka-ching! Yeah baby yeah”.
You may say it’s silly, and I’ll add that the monkey’s sense of humor is sometimes on the lame/dorky side, but, it made me smile and you know what, I think a 100% click rate does call for a “Yeah baby, Yeah!”. It gave me a much needed commic releif between html tags AND it let me know there are people on the other side of this service. People that bring themselves to work. People with personality. People that appreciate a comic relief from time to time too. People that understand that professional work doesn’t mean being dead serious all the time. And it doesn’t mean you have to communicating with your customers in a dry, official and law-suit-like way (as Microsoft often does).
Dare to be conversational. It’s more fun for everyone involved. As for professional, if you’re not, no amount of “we appreciate your business” kind of talk will change that.
And, if you’re a more ‘tight-chimp’ type at work, you can always set your account to :
