JON MCAULIFFE bought his PalmPilot handheld computer a year and a half ago. In March, McAuliffe, a quantitative analyst for New York investment bank D.E. Shaw & Co., signed up for Palm Computing Inc.’s InSync Online e-mail service. He now receives special offers, use tips and product news a few times a month.
For Palm Computing, all this helps keep McAuliffe a good customer, which he admits he is. Palm, based in Mountain View, CA and owned by 3Com Corp., is using e-mail to build and maintain loyalty for a product that already enjoys fierce loyalty from its nearly 2 million owners.
The PalmPilot handheld computer can be connected to desktop machines with a “cradle” to transfer information. The first Pilot came out in 1996, the PalmPilot in 1997. The new third-generation Palm III goes for $399. All feature the Graffiti text input system for handwriting recognition.
For McAuliffe, his PalmPilot is a scheduler, address book and note pad. Other functions include fax, e-mail, loan calculator, miniature movie viewer, traveler’s almanac, game player and expense tracker. And 5,000 third-party software developers are busy whipping up still more products.
It’s a lot to stay on top of. Palm had kept customers informed through costly direct mail and newsletters. With InSync Online, developed for Palm by Post Communications Inc., San Francisco, and launched in February, customers (and anyone else who’s interested) can register at Palm’s Web site (www.palmpilot.com) and provide their profile by filling out the topics and software they’re interested in.
The idea is to keep a dialogue going. “We wouldn’t have had the resources to keep updating all the new products and services,” says director of customer marketing Andrea Butter. “So with this electronic service, we get the news out and the customer doesn’t get spammed by us.”
Some 60,000 people are participating. Right now Palm sends each customer no more than two e-mails a week. That’s tricky because, according to Butter, most people have registered for nearly every category. “We could easily do five to 10 messages per week,” she says, adding that the company may adjust the system to accommodate those who want to receive more e-mail.
Palm is not actively selling via the e-mail service, but because many of the messages involve products, it’s helping in that area anyway. For example, the company announced a Palm III upgrade in e-mail “drops” from March to May, splitting the audience into different groups. Customers who signed up for InSync Online upgraded three times more than those who were on Palm’s user e-mail list but not on InSync.
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