From: Bebe
Subject Line: Shop party dresses: holiday favorites and styles under $100
Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2008

From: Bebe
Subject Line: Get dressed for 30% LESS! Enjoy a limited-time offer on ALL your favorite dress styles.
Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2008

I get a lot of emails featuring models in formal dresses. I usually don't pay much attention to them because they aren't very visually interesting and because I don't attend many events that call for fancy garb. While the layout of these bebe emails is simple and similar to others, their industrial environmental shots are eye-grabbing. The sharp contrast between the delicate models in their sleek dresses and the urban junkyard scenes lets the dresses dazzle, and the story-spinning part of my mind wonders what's taken these ladies out into the dark parts of town in such sparkling apparel. bebe's imaginative angle is a worthy challenge for others to step it up and spice up their messages without having to go too crazy with layouts.

From: Me
Subject Line: 2008 Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study Released!
Date: Wednesday, November 19, 2008

2007 was all about relevancy. 2008 is all about the subscriber. In fact, subscribers are the new black. Stay on top of the trend: check out the terrifically thorough and incredibly interesting Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study, authored by Chad White of the eec, to help you build a richer, more effective email subscription experience.

Learn more about the groundbreaking study now >

From: Anthropologie
Subject Line: The warmest zzz's
Date: Friday, November 14, 2008

In keeping with our "senses" theme from this week's Email Insider, I feel like I can almost reach out and touch the textures featured in this Anthropologie email... and I'd like to. Reach out, touch them, wrap myself up in them and disappear into the weekend. After a long and rainy week, it's all about some warm zzz's. Have a cozy, restful two days!

From: Me
Subject Line: Always Have Smooth Landings with the Landing Page Checklist
Date: Wednesday, October 12, 2008
Check out the checklist >
BTW: Interested in joining the eec Design Roundtable? See details here >

You’ve swept your customers off their feet with a dazzling email creative and message. To help you give them somewhere equally stunning to land, we at the eec Email Design Roundtable have added a Landing Page Checklist to our Email Checklist Series. With so many details to think about, our checklist offers a collection of ideas that you can easily apply to your program.

Check out the checklist >

From:CUSP
Subject Line: Oops! The site is back up! Enjoy SALE + FREE ONLINE SHIPPING!
Date:Friday, November 7, 2008

I think that is probably one of the best (if not the best) apology Email I can recall seeing. When you know how much production time goes into creating an email, you almost have to wonder if they had this in reserve; like they were waiting for an accident to happen!

From: Abercrombie
Subject Line: winter coats to keep you warm.
Date: October 30, 2008

From: Abercrombie
Subject Line: layer-up in classic style.
Date: November 6, 2008

I'm having a little trouble figuring out Abercrombie's latest email campaign. Maybe someone can help me sort it out.

The first email shown here has the subject line: winter coats to keep you warm. But, ummm, the email features a plaid flannel shirt. I guess it would be ironic if the guy happened to be naked or something, but he's not. So it just looks odd. Although, the links do make sense: Boys Outerwear and Girls Outerwear. At first, I thought it was just a production error, like maybe the wrong file was sent or something, until I received the second email and I realized they're trying to be ironic.

The second email's subject line is layer-up in classic style., which uses a hyphen incorrectly, but that's not really the issue, so I'll move on. The hero image features a guy with no shirt on, albeit he does have a short-sleeve tee draped over his shoulder. So, what exactly is he layering here? I guess it's ironic, but does it really sell the clothes? Maybe on a huge billboard it does, but in email when the whole objective is to get people to click through, does it work? The thing that's too bad is that the link to Boys Knits goes to some cool long-sleeve knit pullovers, tshirts, etc. IMHO, it would have been good to show at least a few products to tell the story and spark someone's interest enough to click the links. The way it is now, you really have to be a die-hard Abercrombie fan to be interested enough to click through.

It's election week: Let's put it out for a vote. Check out the two emails and share your thoughts. But remember this: It's like rain on your wedding day, a free ride when you've already paid, and having 10,000 spoons when all you need is knife. That's ironic, don't you think?

From: Last, First
Subject Line: FW: pre-sell
Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008

From: NORDSTROM
Subject Line: 40% Off or More! Half-Yearly Sale for Women & Kids!
Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2008

We love "The Nordstrom Way" over here at Smith-Harmon – so much so that we've all read the book. There is one anecdote in particular about the original Nordic Nordstrom back in the day, building a railroad through Alaska, that really pumps up my Swedish pride :).

Beyond Alaska, Nordstrom salesfolks are known for building relationships. That's why I wasn't surprised to receive this personal email from an associate at the downtown Seattle Nordstrom Via C department (where you can find me trying things on more or less once a week!) From an anecdotal, personal perspective, it delighted me. It made me feel special to get advanced notice of a sale – like I was important enough to be notified personally. And I did go! I didn't happen to see "First Last" (her name has been blocked out to protect her identity!), and I didn't buy anything – the pre-sale stuff was...not hot. But this email absolutely got me into the store in a way that the batch-and-blast message – which arrived in my inbox a week later – never could.

Now, beyond personal and into professional: this is tricky. There is no unsubscribe on this email, and while a person could reply directly to "First Last" to say "no more messages!", the absence of unsub info is slippery. What do you think?

I'm also interested in the marketing department's control over these types of personal communications. I might have thought that the associate wrote this herself, but for the telling "FW:" in the Subject Line, which makes me think it's probably a boilerplate provided by marketing. This leads me to imagine a new type of personal associate/marketing department email fusion format, where "First Last" types up a note, which then appears at the top of a rich, graphical message, potentially featuring images of several pre-sell items I might like based on browse history or past purchase. I'd love to hear if any of y'all out there have tried anything like this. Or if you'd like to try it out, give me a shout! It would be fun to experiment with a new fusion format.