< December 2007
| February 2008 >
From: Piperlime
Subject Line: Say hello to color!
Date: Thursday, January 31, 2008
This is a fantastic example of imagery, copy and content aligning to create a delightful user experience. Heck, it's just plain happy. I love rainbows! And patent leather! I really want a purple patent leather Mulberry Bayswater bag right now.
Piperlime generally does a good job with photography, propping their product in playful ways that make imagery relevant to messaging. Sign up for their emails if you're looking for product photography inspiration.
Since so many of us are creating Valentine's Day messages this week, I thought I'd share my 2007 Valentine's Day archive with y'all. Hope you find it useful :)! Heck, you may even discover a love letter you sent last year! Enjoy.
From: American Apparel
Subject Line: American Apparel: Valentine's Day Pantytime
Date: Friday, February 2, 2007
View creative >
From: Aveda
Subject Line: free shipping for valentine's day
Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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From: Bag Borrow or Steal
Subject Line: Fashion makes the heart grow fonder...
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2007
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From: Barneys New York
Subject Line: Feb 14th LOVE IT! Jennifer Meyer Wishbone Necklaces
Date: Friday, February 2, 2007
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From: Blue Nile
Subject Line: Reminder: Save 10% + $10 Off with Google Checkout
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2007
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From: CB2
Subject Line: Modern love
Date: Monday, February 5, 2007
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From: CHEFS
Subject Line: CHEFS Red Hot Buys + Free Shipping
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2007
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From: FreePeople.com
Subject Line: The Best Things in Life are Free: Love and Shipping
Date: Tuesday, January 30, 2007
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From: gap.com
Subject Line: New PRODUCT (RED)(TM) Styles are Here
Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2007
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From: Harry & David
Subject Line: Last day to order for Valentine’s Day by standard shipping!
Date: Monday, February 5, 2007
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From: Janie and Jack
Subject Line: Indulge in the Sweetest Gifts for Valentine's Day
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2007
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From: The Museum of Modern Art
Subject Line: Modern Gifts For Your Valentine at MoMAstore
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2007
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From: Pottery Barn
Subject Line: 2 days left to order the perfect Valentine's gift
Date: Monday, February 5, 2007
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From: Polo.com
Subject Line: Our Valentine's Day Gift Collections
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2007
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From: RedEnvelope
Subject Line: Score one for Valentine's Day - Save up to 50%.
Date: Sunday, February 4, 2007
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From: Sony Electronics
Subject Line: This Valentine's Day, fall in love with Sony.
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2007
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From: UrbanOutfitters.com
Subject Line: Be Mine, Valentine.
Date: Thursday, February 1, 2007
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From: Williams-Sonoma
Subject Line: Blissful Brownies: A Perfect Valentine's Gift
Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2007
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From: shopbop.com
Subject Line: Final Winter SALE! Up to 70% Off Your Favorite Brands
Date: Monday, January 28, 2008
From: katespade.com
Subject Line: love to love me
Date: Wednesday, January 30, 2008
I like both of these Warhol-ian visual delights! Although if we chopped the logos off the tops, I would have guessed that they came from the same place.
From: UrbanOutfitters.com
Subject Line: Urban Outfitters is coming to Seattle!
Date: Monday, January 28, 2008
Aw, thanks Urban Outfitters for the custom grunge greeting :)! That is rad. Is there a whole city skin library? I'd love to see what y'all came up with for your various store locations...
From: Williams-Sonoma
Subject Line: Welcome to Our New Williams-Sonoma Site
Date: Monday, January 28, 2008
For those of you who haven't seen the newly-relaunched williams-sonoma.com, it is gorgeous! Very fresh. Check it out >
From: Horchow
Subject Line: Want fewer Horchow e-mails?
Date: Monday, January 14, 2008
This email was brought to my attention by the fabulous Megan Regard. Thanks Megan! I say: snaps to Horchow for giving their recipients more control over the number of messages they receive. I like the idea of sending a dedicated mail totally focused on updating communications preferences, although I'm not sure I'd recommend framing it like this. I feel like the subject line "Want to receive fewer Horchow e-mails?" could potentially plant the idea into subscribers' minds that they receive too many emails, while something like "Customize your email experience!" seems more positive and open-ended, and doesn't potentially make the opt-down (or out!) decision for the recipient.
But that's just my opinion; the proof is in the pudding! It will take months to measure how this mail ultimately effects subscriber behavior, but if anyone from Nieman Marcus would be willing to share the initial results, I'm sure many of us would be grateful to benefit from your learnings.
Thanks and Happy Friday :)!
From: RedEnvelope
Subject Line: Love Knows No Season
Date: Monday, January 21, 2008
The total simplicity of this RedEnvelope email (harkening back to "AOL version" days, eh!?) was visually arresting for me. In a deep email sea of blocked images, a clean love letter format pops! And, despite the fact that I consider myself an acronym master, I actually didn't know what S.W.A.K. stood for and was compelled enough to look it up.
Unfortunately, I wasn't compelled enough to actually read all of the copy or click the links, but I'm not a RedEnvelope shopper (which makes the "Valued Customer," salutation erroneous, actually.)
In any event, with the image disabling/preview pane-ing/mobile-viewing/ preheader-ing sea change, a few grey and red words on white feels nice.
From: Me
Subject Line: Smith-Harmon and REI are 2008 EEC Performance Award Finalists!
Date: Thursday, January 24, 2008
I am proud to announce that Smith-Harmon and REI are 2008 EEC Performance Award finalists! See the details on the EEC website >
The Email Experience Council created the Email Performance Award to recognize an individual or company that has created a campaign that demonstrates the full power of email marketing. Chosen by
the members of the eec, the winning campaign will provide further evidence of email marketing’s unsurpassed return on investment and provide inspiration to others seeking to elevate the performance of their own programs. Entries will be evaluated for their marketing strategy, creative components and—most importantly—results. Learn more >
Members of the eec can vote for the winner from among the Email Performance Award finalists. Just log into your eec account and follow the instructions. Voting concludes at the end of day on Monday, Jan. 28. Vote now >
About our entry:
Working with our team, REI - the outdoors apparel and gear retailer - redesigned its July 7 “Summer Shoes Gearmail” email, implementing a range of best practices to optimize for viewing in preview panes, to improve readability, and to make calls-to-action more prominent. For the redesigned email, the unique click-through rate rose 22%, unique traffic to target specialty shop rose 90%, and revenue per email rose 11%. Because of the strength of the results of this creative test, REI moved forward with an entire suite of redesigned, maximized email creative templates in time for the critical fourth-quarter period.
For details, view our nomination form >
And check out the creative:
Summary of Redesigned Creative Innovations >
Legacy Creative >
Legacy Creative in Preview Pane >
Redesigned Creative >
Redesigned Creative in Preview Pane >
From: J.Crew
Subject Line: New spring arrivals...
Date: Monday, January 7, 2008
From: crewcuts
Subject Line: our favorite new crewcuts looks
Date: Saturday, January 12, 2008
From: J.Crew
Subject Line: Sale & free shipping: it's true
Date: Wednesday, January 23, 2008
I must have ESPN: black is the new black. Emails are and I am am constantly in black this season! I strive to wear it intelligently, not slavishly, but I think I've worn it to death!!! Spring yellows and blues are a SERIOUS RELIEF!
The jury's out on J.Crew's application of black for spring. Does it pop? Are we refreshed or depressed? Does it work for adults but not so much for kids? (A point well-made by my colleague Heidi Hildenbrand.) At the very least, this treatment gets a conversation going. I'd love to hear what you have to say.
From: Pottery Barn
Subject Line: Save up to $675 on delivery of our media suites!
Date: Monday, January 14, 2008
From: Restoration Hardware
Subject Line: Tired of Shopping? This Sale is Worth the Effort. Enjoy Savings of Up to 60% at Our After the Giving Sale.
Date: Wednesday, January 16, 2008
In a tough economic environment, particularly for the home furnishings vertical, I acknowledge and salute the use of outrageous (and effective!) subject lines. These two, from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware, got my opens:
Save up to $675 on delivery of our media suites!
$675 off is huge and compelling!
Tired of Shopping? This Sale is Worth the Effort. Enjoy Savings of Up to 60% at Our After the Giving Sale.
I commend Restoration Hardware's direct question and answer. They use a ridiculous number of words, but the words make an impact.
Let's continue to consider how we can be more creative and impactful with our Subject Lines, particularly as subscribers' inboxes are more full and pockets are - well - less full.
From: Restoration Hardware
Subject Line: Don’t Skip This Email. It’s Worth $100 (Really, Truly). Gift Expires Monday.
Date: Saturday, January 12, 2008
I applaud Restoration Hardware for thinking hard about how to use the subject line, body copy and design layout to make an ordinary offer feel extraordinary. Sure, it calls to mind the envelopes from Publisher's Clearing House I hopefully tore open as a child, but it's different and it works. In particular, I like how the subject line attributes a cash value to the email itself: "It’s Worth $100 (Really, Truly)." I'm also responding to the Gift Certificate device; it makes a standard offer - 25% off a $400 purchase - feel like a special, exclusive present.
From: Brocade Home
Subject Line: Save Up to 40% on Rugs & More
Date: Thursday, January 10, 2008
From: Garnet Hill
Subject Line: Soak it Up - Save 30% on Our Signature Towels
Date: Friday, January 11, 2008
Here, Brocade Home and Garnet Hill come up against a common challenge: depicting a textile in multiple colorways.
Brocade Home's rugs are not only poorly cropped; they also appear to need vacuuming. (Thanks to Smith-Harmonite Sarah Milsow for that particular callout!) I personally love a little frill - I'm a fan of the brand - but I'd like to see BH do something more exciting with their email creative. They have an opportunity to bring the Baroque ornamentation their brand is famous for into their creative in a much more dynamic way.
Moving on to Garnet Hill: love the towels in the tub. I feel like I get emails from Restoration Hardware pretty much every day featuring vertical towel stacks; it's fun to see them featured differently here.
From: fredflare.com
Subject Line: you have a nose for NEW...
Date: Thursday, January 10, 2008
This is rather bizarre!
From: UrbanOutfitters.com
Subject Line: Neither Naughty Nor Nice...
Date: Friday, December 14, 2007
From: UrbanOutfitters.com
Subject Line: Slackers: You can STILL get it there on time!
Date: Friday, December 21, 2007
Digging out from under the pile of holiday mails I received last quarter ;)...I like Urban Outfitters' take on the classic "Shop By Category" and "Shipping Deadline Extended" communications. By adding humor (and a talking camel), the messages come across as being more authentic than formulaic.
From: FreePeople.com
Subject Line: Happy Birthday from Free People!
Date: Tuesday, January 1, 2008
From: FreePeople.com
Subject Line: Oops! Our Bad!
Date: Thursday, January 3, 2008
Beware - I've seen this happen more than once! Due to a system glitch, date-sensitive messages have been known to batch send on the first day of a new year. Free People's experience here is a classic illustration of this phenomenon. They recovered as gracefully as one can from such a flub - you gotta love how "our apologies" appears to be tear-strewn - but all, do check in with your ESP now to safeguard yourself in '09, while it's still on your mind :)! The holidays have a way of making us forget ;)...
From: Email Marketing Reports
Subject Line: Video message with a message + am I an idiot?
Date: Monday, December 31, 2007
Here's another fun holiday-themed video from Mark Brownlow at Email Marketing Reports: check it out!
From: Chad White of the eec
Subject Line: A special holiday greeting from Chad White
Date: Monday, December 24, 2007
In looking back at the marketing emails we received over the course of Q4, I think Chad White & family did a great job putting the content to song! Check out "The Twelve Days of Email" here.
Happy New Year!
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