IMN has launched IMN Party Pulse, a multi-tiered newsletter program for direct sales organizations. And it already has a client with 1 million subscribers: PartyLite, the direct selling company specializing in candles and accessories.
But PartyLite isn’t exactly a new customer. In fact, it has been serving as a sort of beta site for the program for three years.
Like other direct selling firms, PartyLite sells through consultants, who host sales parties in their homes, earning a percentage of each sale. But they needed a way to communicate with their customers.
“We have between 40,000 and 45,000 consultants at any given time,” says Peggi Peaslee, manager of extranet services for the Plymouth, MA-based company. “If a consultant invites eight to ten people to a show, and you multiply that by three or four shows a week, that’s a lot of people that you need to try to stay in touch with.”
With that in mind, PartyLite started Candle Connection, a monthly e-zine, in 2002, using IMN as its vendor. Thanks to IMN’s technology, each newsletter appears to come from an individual sales consultant. And those consultants get quick reports showing who opened the newsletter, what they linked to, and how to contact them.
This information is critical, says David Fish, CEO of IMN. “If a consultant knows that an e-mail recipient has an interest in hosting a party, it’s likely that she’ll welcome a call to discuss a party event,” he says.
Though it started testing with only a handful, PartyLite now has around 14,000 consultants participating, roughly a third of its active roster. They pay a small monthly fee that helps the firm defray the costs and add new features to the program.
Where do the subscriber names come from? Names and e-mail addresses are entered on the PartyLite’s online ordering system, and passed over to IMN once a month.
Weren’t the reps worried about surrendering that information? Some were, but the company quickly reassured them that it wasn’t planning to sell direct. “That’s not the business we’re in,” Peaslee says. “We’re into home parties.”
And the consultants quickly warmed up to the idea because “they trust us,” Peaslee adds.
As for the newsletter, a typical issue of Candle Connection features Hostess Specials (which have the highest clickthrough rates), decorating and entertainment tips and various other features and specials.
All newsletters are customized with the consultant’s photo and contact information. Those who don’t want their picture included can replace it with a default image of a candle. The content is identical for all.
Why not have the consultants add articles of their own? Because PartyLite is protective of its brand, and wants to maintain quality control. But it is considering other forms of personalization.
Each newsletter article links a micro-site hosted by IMN, enabling that firm to supply fast analytics. One report is e-mailed to consultants 24 hours after the newsletter is sent, another three days later and the final one seven days after the initial blast. The reports serve as virtual contact sheets for the consultants.
“It’s all about timing,” Peaslee says. “The sooner you have the information in your hands, the quicker you can support it.”
Case in point: The people who open the Hostess Specials are hot prospects for attending—or hosting—a home event. Without letting on that she has seen the report, the consultant might call and say: “Hey, did you see this month’s Candle Connection and the fabulous Hostess offers we have?”
The metrics show that the program is working. The open rates are “close to 40% or 45%,” Peaslee says. And the top click-through rates—“the actual read rate for articles,” as Fish puts it—go as high as 26%, depending on positioning in the newsletter. They tend to fall off further down the page.
Better yet, “Our opt-out rate has been less than 1% since day one,” Peaslee notes.
What happens if multiple consultants have the same customer on their lists?
“We let the customer choose which ones to opt out of,” Peaslee says.
Finally, the program is still growing. It has been introduced in Canada and Germany, and PartyLite is considering a couple of other European markets.
Meanwhile, IMN’s Party Pulse program consists of all of the features already being used by PartyLite. These include:
*Monthly customer e-mails
*Regular reports for consultants
*Reports for national administrators
*Monthly e-newsletter for consultants (yes, PartyLite sends one).
How did it feel to be the poster child for this kind of program? “We’re thrilled to be part of it,” Peaslee says. “It doesn’t take a lot of people to accomplish large things.”
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