Gmail join by invitation/requet only?

[mpicardd]

When Google first came out with Gmail, what did you think of their join by invitation/request? Do you think it was a good strategy and good for marketing? Is this how you joined? Let me know your thoughts. Thank you!

I thought it was a pretty decent strategy. Especially in the beginning stages, when there still might be bugs, and it's only in beta. Also, the thing with being able to join by invitation/request only is that it has a certain exclusivity to it. People like exclusivity, it makes them feel like they are apart of something important, whether they actually are or not is something else. Not only that, if someone likes it enough, the person they are sending the invitation to will know that it is worth trying. It's not the best marketing strategy if you are looking for big numbers right away, but it is steady, and users who sign up because of this tend to be more loyal, that's my opinion!

[Amanda_1987]

There is also an element of control Google got with this approach. They could control the load the site took on, so if they didn't want to grow anymore to experiment with things, they could stop more incoming customers. Very beneficial from a testing stand point.

[AndyMc]

Brilliant strategy in my opinion. Generated buzz and implemented a method to help control the flow of information.

[mpicardd]

Do you think it worked so well because google was already a well known company, or do you think it would work well regardless of whether it was well known or a startup company?

[KyleXY]

Being a well known company definitely played in their favor in this case. It's hard to argue the same results would have been accomplished had they been a different company or a startup trying to do the same thing. To be honest, the only reason I wanted to try gmail back then was because it was Google. Had it been some random no name company, an email invite from some random email company probably wouldn't have mattered to me.