Last week I received an email invitation to Boomerang, a social gifting service that was formerly Gtrot, a social travel planning service. Most emails that are sent to me fall victim to my daily attempt of clearing out my inbox (I average on receiving over 100 emails a day from newsletters, subscriptions, etc.). What caught my eye was an email marketing 101 tactic – the subject line said I had a free gift. The email directly me to the Boomerang site that had great UX when opening and claiming my gift of $10 at JewelMint. To redeem an additional offer, I had to send a gift to 10 of my Facebook friends.
While I don’t enjoy spamming my friends, I figured every lady (maybe a guy or two) likes getting free jewelry. Every one of my friends received their gift card as a Facebook post from me that directed them to the same UX, which consists of literally opening up a gift card envelope. I was so surprised at the reactions from my friends on receiving it, it made me consider whether sending gift cards through Facebook will become much more widely adopted in the future. If Facebook’s relaunch of Facebook Gifts is any indication, I think people will start to look for more efficiencies that social can provide that are physically more difficult nowadays, such as sending out gift and holiday cards to your group of friends. A social gifting iPhone app I’m interested in also checking out is JustBecause, which allows users to send gifts to friends from leading startups like Birchbox, TaskRabbit, and Uber.
Of course, I had to share my wares from JewelMint. Below is their Winter Beauty Necklace and Love Story Set with bracelets and ring. While the quality of the jewelry compared to the price was great, the required $30 monthly subscription for the site itself might prevent me from keeping a regular membership. There is an option to opt out of paying the monthly fee, which is a great way for customers to have more flexibility.
My Name Is Reb 