E-Mail Applied: Creating Customer Communities

Despair, a cataloger of demotivational posters and products, has a blog that’s more focused on merchandising. It’s an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek look at the inner workings of the company. One recent post offered 25 percent off everything in the store for a two-day period. The writer explained the reason for the sale was that the company had neglected to send out regular e-mails for the previous three weeks, and now it wanted to placate the customers.