From: Amazon.com & Netflix Subject Lines: Various Date: Friday, November 6, 2009 - Friday, March 12, 2010 If you're looking to increase user engagement & loyalty, personalization is sure to help. My advice: 1) Get creative. Think about what your subscriber would like to receive rather than what you want to send them. The more you know about your subscriber and use that information to target relevant messages, the more likely you are to hook that customer for the long haul. 2) Start a dialogue. Surveys are a great and easy way to find out what your subscribers are experiencing. If they report problems, work to correct them. 3) Seize the opportunity to add ratings and reviews to your website. They're sure to drive more traffic to your website. A good way to collect reviews: after a subscriber purchases a product, wait a few weeks (to give them time to test the product) and send them a friendly reminder to rate the product. Many people will be happy to share their good or bad experience. Two companies that I've noticed do an awesome job at personalization are Amazon.com and Netflix. Here are just a few examples of great personalization emails that they send: Amazon.com: Lets you to create a gift list for friends/family and sends you reminders when their birthdays are approaching. Allows you to be notified via email when a movie is available for order or pre-order, by request. Suggests product suggestions based on your browsing and order history. Netflix: Sends emails asking you to rate your movies. By rating your movie, Netflix can recommend other movies you might enjoy, based on what other users enjoyed who also liked that movie. And what's really awesome, is that they allow you to rate the movie with one-click in the email itself, simple & time-saving. Notifies you which movie has shipped and when you can expect it. Asks you when you mailed your movie to determine if they are sending/receiving movies in a timely manner according to their policy.

		From: Apple Subject Line: Fitness made fun with iPod and iPod gear. Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 From: Apple Subject Line: Sounds like love. Give iPod this Valentine's Day. Date: Sunday, January 31, 2010
There's no doubt that Apple has AWESOME design sense. Every email I get from them is breathtaking: They use vibrant, crisp and creative imagery Their newsletters have a great sense of flow and balance They're often using new creative treatments like having their images break out of the grid They include interactive/eye-catching treatments like ratings and videos They're not always about the "Hard Sell" -- Apple "Adds Value," as we would say at Smith-Harmon, by providing informative content with "Did you Know" sections They optimize for viewing without images by using HTML text in the majority of their emails But have you noticed that they're missing a few key best practices? Such as: A preheader A View this Email with Images link Social/Sharing Options I think a few of those small tweaks could show even more activity for them. But awesome job Apple, you are an inspiration!

From: Amazon.com
Subject Line: Amazon.com: The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2009
Date: Friday, December 25, 2009

The goal of an email marketer is to have as many relevant touch points with your customers (and prospects) as possible. In this month of 'best of' countdowns, use your 2009 purchase data to provide targeted emails. Amazon is doing a nice job with their "The Best [book genre] of 2009" emails that I began receiving on Christmas. I've received these for Science Fiction & Fantasy, Literature & Fiction, Short Stories, and Romance, and yes, you guessed it - I've bought books from each of these categories in the past year. So, if you have multiple product categories, consider expanding your "Best of" email to a whole series, and targeting these emails based on purchase behavior.

Additional tip: include non-purchasers who have browsed products in these categories on your site in the last 30 days. Track this group separately and see how they perform, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!

From: Audible.com Hear and Now
Subject Line: Your Five-Star Listens: Highest Rated Audiobooks of 2009
Date: Thursday, December 17, 2009

These days I rarely consider any online purchase without first seeing what other people have said about the products I'm interested in. When I received this email from Audible promoting 5 star reviews, I couldn't resist taking a few minutes to check them out. Sadly, the expectations set by this email were a big letdown for me and violated one of my core email mantras -- "make it easy for the recipient".

Notice there's not a single review, testimonial, or product category present in the email, just a very generic CTA link to read the reviews. Clicking through goes directly to a log in screen requiring my password. Now, since I'm a frequent customer this wasn't a huge barrier, but an occasional customer might get stumped here and have to request their password by email. I shouldn't need to enter my password until I'm ready to purchase something, and at this point I wasn't even close to ready.

Everything about this email led me to believe the reviews would be from "listeners like me", setting the expectation that the "top picks" would be in categories I've previously purchased, like Horror, Fiction, Crime Thrillers. Nope, instead I was presented with a product page of 10 top picks (out of 60 total) on topics not even close to anything I've ever purchased or would consider. To make things even worse, not a single featured product had a 5 star rating, nor a link to read reviews next to the stars shown. Rounding out the experience, nothing was on sale.

I'm sorry Audible, but I gave this campaign 1 star out of 5

From: Nike
Subject Line: Top-Rated Customer Favorites Right Now.
Date: September 24, 2009

In this email, Nike hits two of the best ways to grab subscriber attention:

1. Customer reviews. It's great to see more and more brands tapping into the truth that customers trust each other more than they trust marketing teams. Pulling quotes from actual customers gives this gear some cred, and it's awesome that Nike has built their email around the items getting rave reviews.

2. List. People love lists, and we can barely help but scroll down and see the complete set of 5 favorites. Not only does this approach help lead the eye through the whole email, but it also makes for a template that's easy to populate with whichever gear is topping the popularity charts.

The email design itself is rather lackluster. You can barely read the white type against the light gray background, and the limited inclusion of color keeps it from making a strong visual impression. A better execution of this great idea could work wonders, but I'm still impressed by Nike's choice to build their email on the word of their reviewers.

From: Free People
Subject Line: Meet Our Top Reviewers
Date: September 13, 2009

Breaking out of the corporate speak and moving towards a casual conversation with your subscribers is definitely the wave of the future. We're seeing a lot of product reviews, blog posts, and testimonials featured in emails these days. Why the added exposure to what everyday people think? Word on the street is that consumers want to know what other folks think about your products before they pull out their credit cards.

The fact that Free People dedicated an entire email to their top reviewers is pretty cool, even if there are some quirks about the experience. As much as I love Free People's creative, I couldn't tell which photo was of the product and which one was of the reviewer in this particular email. I think using product silo shots with the reviewer photo would have been a better way to go. 

Clicking on the photos of each reviewer, I was taken to a landing page where I had to click on the person again to see their actual profile. Seemed like one too many clicks. Also, once you navigate away from the landing page within the site, there is apparently no way to get back to it, other than hitting your back button. Shouldn't there be a nav item? Kind of a bummer. Plus, I get the impression that there are all kinds of account profiles to review, but where can I find them? Also, can I create a profile for myself? How do I do that? The email messaging falls short here as it should have also encouraged subscribers to start writing their own reviews.  

When I clicked on the Shop Customer Favorites button in the email, I was taken to a landing page of cool stuff, but I have to say that I was hoping to see the actual ratings below the thumbnail copy.

Overall, the idea here is fantastic, and it's an important trend to watch. Just think it's also important to make the experience engaging and enticing so that your subscribers want to shell out two cents of their own.

From: Buckle
Subject Line: As Seen In...
Date: Thursday, August 27, 2009

From: Express
Subject Line: Weekend Ready!
Date: Friday, August 28, 2009

From: Sur La Table
Subject Line: We're on TV (Hi Mom!)
Date: Thursday, April 2, 2009

I've recently noticed brands taking the opportunity to promote their popularity by flaunting the "As Seen In" angle. I find the idea compelling - it's cool to see that the brand is established, can be trusted and is well-known/recognized by the general public. I mean, why do most girls' buy Coach purses if not because of the popular reputation? Other ways to achieve this same goal might be star ratings (with more than 10 reviews), TV video ads or even an image of a celebrity wearing/using the product.

It also creates a cross-channel experience for those who have seen the product elsewhere. I also have to say I love the Sur La Table subject line addition of "(Hi Mom!)." :)

From: giggle
Subject Line: help us help you
Date: May 28, 2009

If you ask giggle, my two cents could be worth $500! Thought this was a great incentive to get people to engage with the giggle site and start writing product reviews. Their creative is always fresh and clean, and they really do a great job of carrying their brand through every customer touchpoint, from the site to email to the store.

Total Sidebar: Not sure it was intentional, but I love the Jerry Maguire reference in the subject line. Remember that scene? "Help me help you, Rod. Help ME, help YOU."

From: Sephora
Subject Line: Rate. Review. Win!
Date: Thursday, September 11, 2008
See the email >

Some of you might have already seen my EEC blog post about Customer Reviews. I'm psyched to see Sephora doing such a great job kicking off their Customer Review effort.

Deep thoughts:
(1) I love that they've branded Customer Reviews "kiss and tell." This is a cute way to make the feature feel special to Sephora.
(2) I'm laughing that they chose Dior DiorShow Mascara as the featured product, as I've been seeing it promoted everywhere lately and was just thinking this morning, as I applied my Chanel Inimitable Multi-Dimentionnel, that I needed the Dior. I like the Chanel, but for some reason I seem to poke myself in the eye with the wand much more than any other mascara I've had before. Or maybe I'm just not getting enough sleep and my motor skills are suffering because of it.
(3) It's smart that they incentivized review creation with contest entry.
(4) It's even SMARTER that they actually fed a product I recently bought into the mail. Yay for dynamic content! I'm not sure that Gift Certificates merit review, but who really cares? I'm happy enough to see Sephora bringing relevant, personalized elements into their email.
(5) I appreciate that - because the primary message won't drive many dollars - they included two sure-thing secondary messages in this mail: Free Ship and Best Sellers.

OK, last thing: I heard that Sephora employees are only allowed to wear red, black or white on-site, and that if they want to park their cars in the company lot, they must have either a red, black or white car. Is this actually true :)!? Friends at Sephora, I am curious! Do tell!

Happy Weekend!