From: Me
Subject Line: Happy Halloween from Smith-Harmon
Date: Friday, October 31, 2008

For your entertainment: the Smith-Harmon team in costume! Oh how we've grown since the 2007 holiday... From left to right: Rachel and Deckard from Bladerunner, a Hippie, a Panda Bear, a Mad Mechanic, Juno, Sarah Palin, a Friend in France, Velma, the Grim Reaper and 'Tippi' Hedren. Share your Halloween photos with us!

From: Michael Stars
Subject Line: New Breast Cancer Charity Tee
Date: October 7, 2008

In the last few weeks, I've received quite a few emails from retailers with a Breast Cancer Awareness message as the main story. This really got me thinking about the whole idea of cause-related marketing and whether or not it can actually drive sales.

Lo and behold, I received a blog posting on October 15th from MediaPost.com that talked about this very topic. Here's a slice of the story:

According to the 2008 Cone/Duke University Behavioral Cause Study, released recently by Cone and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, cause-related marketing can exponentially increase sales, in one case as much as 74%, resulting in millions of dollars in potential revenue for brands.

Gets you thinking, doesn't it? What if every company found a way to include a cause-related message once a month, rather than once a year? In addition to driving sales through the roof, just imagine all the good we could do. Food for thought.

Read the full blog posting on cause-related marketing at MediaPost.com.

From:DWR
Subject Line: Something new every day for five weeks
Date: October 16, 2008

With the Holidays fast approaching it's time for retailers to get creative with their email campaigns. Design Within Reach is first out of the gate with a fun limited time offer for their subscribers. They are enticing their subscribers to sign up to receive an additional emails for a five week period starting on November 10th. These emails will feature limited production items for purchase or auction available only to the subscribers of these emails which, in my opinion, adds to the anticipation of receiving those emails! I definitely signed up :) I would be interested to know how well this campaign performs for them over the next few weeks, any DWR email marketers out there? :)

From: Crate & Barrel
Subject Line: Hurry...Free Shipping on bedding ends 9/30.
Date: September 25, 2008

From: Pottery Barn Kids
Subject Line: Dress Me Up - Our Exclusive Dolls Are Here!
Date: October 14, 2008

Let's take a minute to talk about store locators. Here's the deal: Email not only drives traffic to your website, it also drives traffic to your stores. In fact, companies with the ability to track their email subscribers' in-store purchases have the numbers to prove it. This is why including store information in your email is a slam dunk. Not only will it help drive sales, it also adds dynamic content, personalizes your message, and reinforces your subscribers' customer service experience.

My favorite execution is by Crate and Barrel. They include a banner at the bottom of each email they send me, with copy that reads: We're in the neighborhood. 155 Stockton Street, San Francisco, California. First, I love the friendly approach. Second, I love the click-through experience even more. When I clicked on the copy, I was taken to their store locator page on their website, complete with a map and a photo of the Union Square store. Nice touch.

Pottery Barn Kids also included a banner in their latest email, but the payoff wasn't quite as streamlined as the Crate and Barrel experience. At first I was impressed because they included a zip code field, which is a cool idea in theory. However, after entering my zip code, I expected to be taken to a page with a listing of all the stores in my 'hood. Not the case. I was taken to their general store locator landing page and asked to input my info again. The idea is there, they just need to work out the details.

If nothing else, adding store location information might be an interesting test to throw out there for the holidays, especially if you have exclusive in-store only merchandise you want to promote. If you know where your subscriber lives, you can recommend a specific store location, a la Crate and Barrel. If you don't, you can use a default message that takes your subscriber to your store locator page.

From:American Eagle Outfitters
Subject Line: AEO Affiliate Marketing Communications Notice
Date: October 14, 2008

A few hours after I posted my blog entry on Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister's privacy policy I got this email from American Eagle Outfitters, good timing! I definitely commend them for sending out this email and giving their subscribers the choice on whether or not they want to subscribe to their affiliates' emails. I can't decide whether or not this was the best approach for American Eagle though. On one hand I love that they gave their subscribers a choice but on the other hand I feel like they could have given their subscribers a more compelling reason or reasons as to why they should stay subscribed to their affiliates' emails. Thoughts?

From:Ruehl
Subject Line: Get Into a Little Trouble.
Date: October 14, 2008

I opened up my inbox this morning to find that I had received this email from Ruehl. I racked my brain trying to remember if I had somehow signed up for their emails way back when and had forgotten. The conclusion I came to: I've never even heard of them so there is no way I could have signed up! So I decided to do some investigative work on their website. Turns out that they are affiliated with Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister and I receive emails from both retailers. My suggestion to all three retailers: If you want to introduce an affiliate company to your email subscribers then send it from the company that they originally signed up with to avoid angry subscribers. People take their privacy very seriously these days so, breaking their trust by sharing your email address with another company without making it very clear to them that you are going to do so is a big no no. This could be done with a simple email with a message like this: "You already love Abercrombie & Fitch so, why not take a look at our sister brand Ruehl". Harry & David did a good job with this when they wanted to introduce their subscribers to their new brand Wolferman's. This lets your subscribers know that while you still value their privacy you don't want them to miss out on this amazing new opportunity!

While I do tend to find pop-ups annoying, I am a fan of J.Crew's email address collection pop-ups. I've included two here: the green graphical one made it's first appearance about a year-and-a-half ago; the white one with imagery is a newer iteration, as of this past summer.

While some might question whether a pop-up would annoy more potential subscribers than it would acquire, my guess is, since they've continuted with it for almost two years now, it's been successful for J.Crew. In fact, you'll notice they've shifted from requesting only an email address to an address, a first name, a last name, a gender and a zip code, which suggests that folks were so forthcoming with their email addresses that "the crew" decided to try their hand at collecting even more useful data at sign-up.

Crew members, do tell! We'd love to benefit from your learnings.

From:JetBlue
Subject Line: Low, lower and lowest...Our BIG fall sale is here!
Date: July 28, 2008

Feeling a little low on the creativity scale today, I decided to dig through my email archives to find a gem of inspiration. This JetBlue email is an oldie but goodie. It came out this summer amidst a flurry of emails where everyone was screaming SALE, SALE, SALE! What I love about this email is that they found a clever angle and made the sale messaging interesting. The body copy says: Our CFO is away. It's time for a sale. Book now before he gets back on August 6th! In reality, the CFO probably knew about the sale, but I just loved imagining the CFO coming back from vacation and everyone snickering behind his back because they pulled off the ultimate inside job. Finding unique ways to spin played-out content is a sure-fire strategy for grabbing your subscribers' attention. The only miss for me on this JetBlue email is the subject line. IMHO, the SL is a window into the content of the email. So, if you have a witty email, then use your SL to give subscribers a sneak peek into your creative genius. Not only did the JetBlue SL call this a Fall Sale when it was only July, but it also left out the whole fun-factor story about the CFO being on vacation. My SL suggestion? Our CFO is on vacation – flights starting at $39!