From: Dell Direct
Subject Line: 8-Hour Sale! Today Only - 7am-3pm CT!
Date: Friday, February 19, 2010 2:30:12 AM

When we create email campaigns to drive a response, most experts will agree that urgency is a key component of an offer. Without it, subscribers can save an offer to come back to at a later date, become distracted and eventually fail to respond at all.

With that said, short notice sales are very popular and often drive huge response rates by requiring the recipient to take immediate action. Personally, I love a good weekend sale or 3-day event where I know I need to act in order to get my savings. Keeping this in mind, advance notice has to be close to the short-term event and be delivered the morning the event starts. Sadly, Dell's email may have cut that window too tight and possibly turned subscribers off.

8 hours is a very short-term sale. While I received this email notification on the morning of the sale and before it started, I wasn't sitting at my computer waiting for it to come in. By the time I did see the message the sale had already ended. Email is a relatively immediate response medium, most opens and clicks happen in the first 72 hours and in the case of this message, that left out a majority of the response this email could've received.

It would've been better to send this message one or two days early, providing email subscribers advance notice (even exclusive notice) to the event, allowing them to plan for it and take advantage. This could even have been followed up with a reminder the day of the event. This way, instead of being disappointed that I missed a chance to pick up a new netbook at a great price, I might have instead been utilizing the express ship component and had it in my hands before my next business trip.