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Date Archive: November 2008
November 26, 2008
From: Pottery Barn Kids
Subject Line: From Me To You.
Date: Saturday, November 8, 2008
From: Eddie Bauer
Subject Line: An important message regarding Eddie Bauer gift cards.
Date: Monday, November 24, 2008
From: Pottery Barn Kids
Subject Line: You're Invited
Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Dear Reader:
While not quite as "personal" as an email sent directly by an actual sales associate, I'm interested in Pottery Barn Kids' and Eddie Bauer's efforts to "personalize" communications using a letter format, particularly with regards to difficult, fear-assuaging messages such as – in essence – "times are tough, but shopping is an expression of love" and "don't listen to what NPR says, our gift cards are A-OK". I'm curious about your thoughts with regards to this "me to you" style-communication. Have you tried it? What were the circumstances under which you sent this type of message? What type of response did it elicit?
From me to you: Happy Thanksgiving! Have a fantastic holiday. Go buy some gift cards ;).
Lisa Harmon
Principal
Smith-Harmon, Inc.
November 23, 2008
From: J.Crew Factory
Subject Line: Midnight Madness...30-50% off.
Date: November 22, 2008
The holiday fun has begun, so put on your PJs and get ready to do some serious shopping. In a brilliant maneuver, J.Crew Factory got a jump on the competition by sending out this Midnight Madness announcement a whole week prior to Black Friday. The details? On Friday, November 28, from midnight to 10 a.m. at J.Crew Factory stores, you'll get an EXTRA 50% OFF ALL CLEARANCE and 30-50% off all holiday styles. You don't have to print anything out or remember a coupon code, just show up and shop. So whether you're a night owl or an early bird, if you're up, they're open, just like the email says. The only thing I'm wondering is how many more emails I might be getting about this event, given that it's seven days away. I'm hoping for just a reminder email, but that may be wishful thinking. I'll keep you posted.
November 21, 2008
From: Sephora
Subject Line: 1 box, 10 gifts.
Date: November 16, 2008
I L-O-V-E Sephora's version of last year's Elf Yourself. Talk about creative. From start to finish, it's a seamless experience that even the most tech-challenged girl can navigate with ease. Here's the skinny: After you've uploaded a pic of yourself, you go through a series of steps where you outline your eyes, mouth and face shape. Sounds complicated, but trust me, they've made it blonde-proof. (It's okay, I can say that because I'm a blonde.) Once you've finished with the outlining, the real magic begins. Within seconds, you have four fun and fabulous looks to choose from: Smokey Sugar Plum, Merry Berry, Santa's Little Temptress and O, Tannen-Babe. It's your face all glammed up in four festive ways, complete with eye shadow, mascara, gloss and more. All that's left is for you to add a personal message and send it on to your fellow glamour gals. You'll get a sweet little email that lets you know your Mistletoe Message has been sent, and best of all, the savvy team at Sephora includes a promotion code in the confirmation email for a free set of lashes or a sample size of Sephora Lip Attitude with any purchase. Simply brilliant.
Want to see my Mistletoe Makeover e-Card?
Check it out here.
From: Anthropologie
Subject Line: A holly jolly good time.
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008
I love how well Anthropologie has integrated their holiday messaging into their regular creative style. This email is so clearly holiday, but nothing about it is cliched or off-brand for Anthropologie. The subject line, the snowy cream color, the whimsical copy and the quirky candle animation are all so Anthropologie, and also all so refreshingly holiday.
From: kate spade
Subject Line: decorate! with accessories for enchanted evenings
Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Every year I look forward to seeing what Kate Spade's creative team comes up with for their holiday mails. They definitely didn't disappoint this year :) They always come up with creative ways to use typography and it looks like this year they used actual 3-D type blocks! The soft, pastel holiday colors really contrast against that BEAUTIFUL purse (and I am not a purse girl) to make the product POP! Definite kudos to the creative team at Kate Spade, I look forward to seeing the rest of your holiday mails!
I know, I know: sales go down and the emails go out. But how many is too many? Thanks to two of my favorite marketers – the online marketing dynamic duo Amy Norton and Alexis Howe at Costco.com – for bringing this series of Restoration Hardware emails to my attention. The folks at RH went so far as to send seven semi-identical emails over the course of just five days promoting their friends and family event. I believe in reinforcement through repetition, but this particular execution has me ... seeing lots of red ;)! I'm curious about your thoughts:
(1) How many is too many? What's your cutoff for the number of mails you'd send to promote a limited-time promotion or event?
(2) What are you feelings on re-using creative for message reinforcement? Is there a certain percentage that should change and/or stay the same in order to achieve the perfect balance of "consistent but different"?
See the series below to see what I mean...
From: Restoration Hardware
Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 1:25 PM
Subject Line: Can You Keep A Secret?
See the email >
From: Restoration Hardware
Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008 8:15 AM
Subject Line: Friends Don't Keep Secrets.
See the email >
From: Restoration Hardware
Date: Friday, November 14, 2008 3:25 AM
Subject Line: It’s Good To Have Friends.
See the email >
From: Restoration Hardware
Date: Saturday, November 15, 2008 4:51 AM
Subject Line: 2 Days Left to Save 20% at Our Friends & Family Event
See the email >
From: Restoration Hardware
Date: Sunday, November 16, 2008 5:27 AM
Subject Line: Just Hours Left to Save 20% on EVERYTHING At Our Friends & Family Event
See the email >
From: Restoration Hardware
Date: Monday, November 17, 2008 12:49 AM
Subject Line: Friends With Benefits. 20% Off Extended One Day Only.
See the email >
From: Restoration Hardware
Date: Monday, November 17, 2008 3:50 PM
Subject Line: Hurry! Final Hours of Our Friends & Family Event.
See the email >
November 20, 2008
From: Bebe
Subject Line: Shop party dresses: holiday favorites and styles under $100
Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2008
From: Bebe
Subject Line: Get dressed for 30% LESS! Enjoy a limited-time offer on ALL your favorite dress styles.
Date: Tuesday, 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.
November 19, 2008
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 >
November 14, 2008
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!
November 12, 2008
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 >
November 7, 2008
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!
November 6, 2008
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.
From: shopbop.com
Subject Line: On Trend + On Point: 8 Pieces That Define the Season
Date: November 6, 2008
Studies show: lists work. People love numbers. They're so definitive. So digestible. What I find interesting about this list is that the numbers are out of order. On open, I had a game-playing experience: I found myself looking around the mail in order to view the items sequentially. I wound up looking a lot closer than I would have, had the numbers appeared in order, as expected. This would be a great A/B test; I'd love to see if order has a performance impact. I would also love to see an eye-tracking heatmap on this badboy!
As to whether or not these are the "8 Pieces That Define the Season," I have to disagree. I'll give them the floral dress and the eco-friendly bag, but we absolutely need an LBD, a classic cardigan, an ankle boot, and a piece of "statement" costume jewelry. As to whether or not a full skirt or a pencil skirt makes the list, that depends on what looks better on you. And that could be the topic of another email entirely! Headline: "Skirting the Issue." Ha!
November 5, 2008
From: Williams-Sonoma
Subject Line: Holiday Pie Baking: Favorite Tools
Date: November 5, 2008
BTW: See the animation here >
I love apple pie, and I love this Williams-Sonoma top nav Shipping/Countdown animation. Way to add visual interest while simultaneously messaging two timely promotions, all within the first few pixels of prime preview pane real estate. Well done!
See the animation here >
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