No Way in Mail
In our first three posts, we explained how community communication needs to be hyper-relevant and build institutional knowledge. For those reasons, tools like WhatsApp and Slack aren’t really ideal. But there is a tool that is native to CRMs, allows for pretty good targeting and captures institutional knowledge decently well.
So why not email?
No, it’s not just you. We also initially thought “duh, of course not email. Everyone hates email.” But that’s not entirely fair. In fact, email has unique strengths. Its ubiquity is unparalleled, there’s an entire ecosystem of tools to enhance its functionality, and more than a few entrepreneurs are trying to rethink it. With these in mind, it’s all the more important to understand why email doesn’t suffice, because if we misdiagnose its shortcomings, we will build the wrong product. So, once again, in a serious and somber voice, why not email?
To start, even if the email is targeted, our inbox is not. The daily barrage of emails we receive means that we must scroll through the five CVS promotions about toothpaste before getting to that one vital piece of communication. And if we don’t act on that email right now, by tomorrow we will have to scroll through 14 CVS promotions. We’re building Superfeed to be the opposite — only the most relevant communication from only one community.
Email is also a blunt tool that doesn’t account for the nuance of human relationships. Every community includes some number of people who guard their email address like its Area 51. This makes sending group emails very inconvenient. If you address everybody directly, you’re spilling “state secrets.” But if you put everybody on bcc, you’re doing the opposite of community building; you’re explicitly hiding who else is in the community and siloing responses. Superfeed offers an unobtrusive way to send mass communication.
Lastly, emails are not institutional communication. If you wish to organize a petition against lengthy CVS promotions (we have an ax to grind) and send an email on a Monday, the community member who joins on Tuesday will have no idea about the petition. The email didn’t go out to the community, it only went to the individuals who comprised the community at that time.
So if Slack doesn’t quite work, WhatsApp doesn’t cut it, and email can’t deliver, then what can? Superfeed. We’re building out our prototype and would love to hear from you; give us your info here so we can be in touch!
