"Nobody knows the web better than The Webbys team. If Netted says an app is killer or a site is a must-visit, it is."
- Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post
Do you remember who first told you about Pandora? Or how about AirBnB? Netted is a daily email out of New York City that tips you off to the best of what's online - kinda like that tech friend who's always in the know. As a daily subscriber, you have Netted's editors constantly combing the web to find great stuff on your behalf.
Launched in November 2009, Netted's subscription rates slowed toward the end of 2010. A previous project with the Webby Awards helped reignite Netted's growth. The team was now ready to focus on redesigning their core product - the daily email template.
Netted needed a variety of design templates to make it easy to drop in promo codes and swap out multiple tips and sites. Also, with a deep library of content they wanted to begin pushing traffic back to the website for archived tips. The final piece of the puzzle was to leverage their daily email to increase engagement through their Facebook page and Twitter account.
The minimal aesthetic of Netted's identity was rolled forward into the template design. A strong call to action was integrated into the upper-right hand corner of the template for promotional codes. Front and center are Facebook 'Like' and 'Tweet This' buttons, as well as a forward to a friend email feature. Using MailChimp to power the newsletter, the templates are built to be flexible and easy to update by Netted's staff.
The email was tested across more than 20 email platforms and mobile devices to ensure it looks right across the board as well.
What happened next took us all a bit by surprise.
At the time of this writing, the subscriber base has exploded by 360% (and climbing), driven by some savvy marketing partnerships with the Webby Awards.
The addition of Facebook and Twitter links increased engagement with Netted's social media fans. Also, the 'Extra Netted' section highlights past tips and has pushed traffic back to the site. Netted is on track to become one of the premier daily emails and continues to grow its online reach to impressive stats.
"Almost every day, Netted surprises us with a new Web wonder that we didn't know existed but suddenly can't live without".
- David Pescovitz & Mark Frauenfelder, Boing Boing
Couldn't have said it better ourselves...