From: Starbucks.com
Subject Line: Starbucks Card rewards are waiting for you
Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008
From: Amazon.com
Date: Depends on Prime Sign-up Date
Notably difficult to depict are the ephemeral benefits that come with products like gift cards and membership subscriptions. Starbucks does a lovely job with this mail promoting their souped-up Rewards Card. The simple three-column structure, illustrative photography and concise text communicate the new rewards clean and clear. Starbucks' big challenge with email, of course, is tracking effectiveness, as emails drive customers to retail locations rather than trackable URLs.
Speaking of ephemeral benefits, Amazon.com also does a lovely job outlaying the perks of Prime membership here. Have you tried the program? I checked it out and got addicted to ordering stuff like shampoo.
I'd originally planned to use this post to scold Burberry for designing their emails again and again in a way such that the preview pane view is woefully unhelpful. (I've animated through five examples at left to give you the gist of it; please click the thumbnail to experience it at full size.) It's impossible to tell what the messages are about - and just as tough to find a point of click-through - without scrolling down.
Now, a question arises in my mind: is Burberry repeating this not-best practice because it's actually working for them!? Perhaps their data shows that, despite popular belief, the mystery actually encourages scolls and clicks. Burberry - reveal your secret to the email creative community!!!
All - please share your thoughts. Have you done any testing to support either my initial instinct or my new re-think?
From: Burberry
Subject Line: Arrive in Style with Accessories from Burberry.com
Date: Thursday, February 7, 2008
View the email >
BTW: This shoe is frickin' awesome.
From: Burberry
Subject Line: Shop our New Handbags & Accessories Online
Date: Friday, March 14, 2008
View the email >
BTW: Crazy/Beautiful?
From: Burberry
Subject Line: The Latest Selection of Outerwear plus Complimentary Shipping!
Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2008
View the email >
BTW: Am I interrupting something?
From: Burberry
Subject Line: Shop Women's & Men's Spring Styles at Burberry
Date: Friday, April 4, 2008
View the email >
BTW: How nice of those British boys to keep her standing.
From: Burberry
Subject Line: Shop Online - The NEW Burberry Spring/Summer 2008 Brochure
Date: Tuesday, April 10 2008
View the email >
BTW: How many iterations of two guys and a girl can we actually tolerate?
P.S. This blog is dedicated to Nicole Cobble :)!!!
From: Forth & Towne
Subject Line: Now order by phone
Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2007
I visited a Forth & Towne store for the first time just before Christmas and - depsite the fact that it makes me feel old - I really liked the product assortment. The merchandise appeared to be of good quality, and there were some pretty interesting, unique-looking pieces in the mix.
In general I've also liked Forth & Towne's email creative, but I want to bring up a detail that's repeatedly caught my attention, and that's the use of the bracket character - } - to indicate a call-to-action. While it's a novel idea, I'm not sure there's a good enough reason to use it in place of an underline or a more standard carrot. While I'm sure most people "get it", the bracket lacks the universal "click here-y-ness" of the carrot or the underline. I'd recommend doing a creative test to see how it affects CTR.
From: Gymboree
Subject Line: Gymbucks Ends This Sunday - Shop Valentine's Day Styles Today!
Date: Thursday, January 18, 2007
You have one nav, but many campaigns. Make sure your nav is flexible enough to handle every situation - regardless of any single campaign's content, strucutre or color. In this example, Gymboree's green nav doesn't play nicely with the pink Valentine's day creative, and the orange logo doesn't help much either. In order to avoid this issue, I recommend either using a more neutral nav that works with any palette, or implementing a flexible nav, which retains a consistent structure, but changes color from campaign to campaign to suit the creative. (Williams-Sonoma does this well.)
From: Ann Taylor
Subject Line: Style for Every Event, and a Special Online Offer
Date: Thursday, November 16, 2006
I like the use of the calendar element here. Ann's customer is an organized woman, and visually correlating event dates with outfits gets her into planning (and purchasing) mode for sure.
From: Crate and Barrel
Subject Line: Custom Color Outdoor Collections
Date: Tuesday, April 25, 2006
From: Lands' End
Subject Line: Family Summer Fun Starts Here
Date: Tuesday, May 9, 2006
While the rotating GIF image image can be a fun, dynamic addition to any EDM, it is rare that the animation ultimately edifies the actual message. Here we have two examples in which the rotating GIF is used efficaciously.
Like Pottery Barn's April 17 Chesapeake Collection ourdoor furniture message, Crate and Barrel's "Custom Outdoor Collections" campaign engages shoppers in the furniture customization process using color swatches. Here, going one step further, Crate and Barrel applies the color options to the product using the rotating GIF. Unfortunately, we run into some image dithering here, a common scenario when saving photography in the GIF file format, however, the sacrifice is well worth it in this instance. On an unrelated note, I applaud the inclusion of four lower pricepoint "Coordinating Items" in addition to the furniture product, as full-price furniture is often a difficult sell via the EDM vehicle.
View the animation here >
Let's move on to the Land's End message. For the purpose of this discussion, let's ignore the jumbled lower half of the message and focus on the animated GIF. I truly admire the way they've synchronized their category names with correlating imagery. This could be a great way to do a New Season Intro message (for instance, What's New for Summer for "Boys", "Girls", etc.) or a Gift Finder campaign (Great Gifts for "Men", "Women", "Coworkers", "Kids", etc.)
View the animation here >
As internet bandwidth increases and email inbox capacity skyrockets, consider the animated GIF as a way to add another dimension to your next campaign.
From: Modernseed
Subject Line: Capture Your Mini!
Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Modernseed is the self-proclaimed "starting point in a lifestyle rich in design knowledge and well-conceived, functional products." While Modernseed does offer a wide selection of smart, stylish product, their "fresh scoop!" newsletter offers too much: too many words and too many images. While the messages (Product Test Contest, Gitta Bags, Doodles Coloring Book and Gift Registry) may be compelling, they get lost in tiny type and thumbnail imagery. This type of format might work for a print newsletter, but for an EDM, which needs to capture a busy customer's attention in 8 seconds or less, we have to feature one or two messages very clearly using large images, a few well-chosen words, and a strong call-to-action: "Click here to shop now!" While at first a simpler presentation may seem inferior or watered-down, we have to create messages appropriate to the medium, and in the rapid-fire email environment, a brief, clear campaign better serves both the customer and the merchant.
Now for the technical piece. This EDM is implemented as a single, flat graphic. Links are constructed using image maps. In the complex world of Email Browser Compatability, this is a no-no for two reasons:
1) Image maps are stripped by several email programs, meaning that here, since they were constructed using image maps, the blue text that looks like links will not be clickable for some users. In order for links to work properly in every email program, it is necessary to cut up a message into separate graphics and tag each linkable piece with it's own "href" (or, obviously, and in this case more appropriately, to use HTML text.)
2) More and more email browsers are hiding graphics by default. A customer has to click a "show images" option on a campaign-by-campaign basis in order to view a message with graphics. This includes Microsoft Outlook. One way we can entice customers to elect to "show images" is to use as many interesting "alt" tags as possible. "Alt" tag text appears in place of graphics when they are stripped. We can attach a different "alt" tag to every graphic within a single message. The more separate graphic pieces we have, the more "alt" tag text we can show in a customer's browser window, and the more chances we have to interest them enough to opt to "show images."
In short, I'm a Modernseed fan, and they would gain more fans (and more dollars) via Email Direct Marketing using simpler creative and more sophisticated technical executions.
From: UrbanOutfitters.com
Subject Line: Shorts for Spring Break and all season long!
Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Spring break is a trip to Cancun, not the local Funeral Home! This is a classic case of message/execution mismatch. The message is all about springtime and shorts, but it's executed in washed-out greys, and the logo and font treatments have a dusty, almost Transylvanian feel to them. Maybe the models look so limp because they just had their blood sucked.
From: Safeway.com
Subject Line: Great deals on Great wines Under $10
Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2006
This email message was brought to my attention by a colleague. Thank you!
The story here isn't so much the wine or the meat. ("The Great Meat Sale!" just sounds weird to me.) What's smart about this message the structure; they did a really nice job handling their main and submessage placement. The light grey bar dividing the two breaks the separate messages while keeping the unity of the design as a whole. Yay, Safeway!
From: CB2
Subject Line: The Very First CB2 Catalog is in the Mail
Date: Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Here, CB2 did a great job showing a whole lot of product while avoiding the dreaded "garage sale" look. (You can't see it in my screenshot, but the polka-dots actually rotate between product images and product info.) If only I could CLICK on each image to find the product for purchase on the website! The images all link to an "order a catalog page", which I would imagine will result in a lot of lost revenue for this message.
A note about copy: CB2 is no longer a "new" destination from Crate and Barrel - I've been getting their EDMs for over a year now. Time for a new tagline!
From: babygap.com
Subject Line: End-of-Season Sale on Outerwear
Date: Monday, December 26, 2005
This EDM exhibits what I'd call "classically good form." We've got our logo and menu items at the the top, followed by a hero image and a color copy block with a clear call to action. Four image silos with product names and prices appear below, followed by two smart submessages.
This is an email design layout format you can use again and again. Now if only gap.com could get it's website to work in the Safari browser! They must be losing a ton of money when customers click-through to a website that doesn't work. Ouch!
From: Neiman Marcus
Subject Line: FREE SHIPPING plus our most luxurious gifts
Date: Saturday, December 3, 2005
Now there's something you don't see every day: a vertical submessage! Way to innovate.
On a totally unrelated note, why do you think it is that luxury product models always look so sad? Is it because, having finally attained all of their material desires, including a mink-trimmed cape, they realize they are still not satisfied in any kind of meaningful way?
From: Old Navy
Subject Line: Holiday Hint 5: You Could Instantly Win Up to $1,000 - Play Now
Date: Thursday, December 1, 2005
Kudos to Old Navy for trying something new - an interactive EDM! Here we PLAY for our special offer rather than just CLICK for it Smart! Although I'm not sure how the "Holiday Hint 5" peice of the subject line relates to the message. A "hint" should be a piece of useful informtaion. It would have been better to use the SL to fully capitalize on the novel game element.
From: west elm
Subject Line: this season's glimmer and glow: gifts from west elm
Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Unfortunately my screeshot doesn't capture the rotating imagery in this email, but imagine the photos and copy boxes swapping out to create a glittering grid. It's a great use of effect to support a "glitter and glow" message. One wish: that the images and copy block colors matched more closely. There's a lot going on here, and a common color would have helped the grid feel more uniform.
From: Old Navy
Subject Line: Snap Up Our Picture-Perfect Looks: Sweaters Start at $19.50
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2005
Here, Old Navy does a nice job employing the "polariod" look which is suddenly showing up everywhere in online retail. Everyone's putting product shots into polariod frames for a more "authentic" look, and it's cute, but here it makes SENSE thanks to the "Picture-Perfect and "It's a Snap" copy.
From: holdeverything
Subject Line: Specialty of the house: furniture that works
Date: Wednesday, October 12, 2005
I like this email because it really typefies the holdeverything brand. The product is relevant and the copy is helpful. What you can't see in the screenshot: the couch animates from folded to pulled-out.
From: Pottery Barn
Subject Line: Everything you need for fall entertaining
Date: Monday, Septebmer 19, 2005
This EDM is so grand. Pottery Barn sounds the trumpets and I almost expect to see racing horses burst into gallop. But seriously, the use of script and pattern is lovely here, and the large hero image surrounded by smaller product shots works beautifully in this context. Love it!
From: Pottery Barn Kids
Subject Line: The best of summer bedding for girls, plus even bigger savings on sale items
Date: Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Pottery Barn Kids innovates EDM functionality with the Tabbed EDM - virtually three EDMs in one mailing. The Tabbed EDM is perfect for messages with more than one facet or category, such as, in this case, "Boy", "Girl" and "Baby". Love it, bucko!
From: Pottery Barn
Subject Line: New Markdowns on Select Items at Pottery Barn, plus our all-time, bestselling favorites
Date: Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Looks like PB's having a garage sale! The mish-mash of imagery and dull color pallete bore rather than inspire us.
I'm also going to guess that this EDM inspired a few calls to the call center; putting the "Additional Savings" promo ABOVE the Bestsellers body area leads us to think that the bestsellers themselves are on sale, when this is not the case.
From: J. Crew
Subject Line: Planning a quick getaway?
Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Brilliant! Pack his suitcase (and thereby his shopping cart) for him! This is a great way to sell mix and match items as a set.
A general note about J. Crew EDMs: They're about 200 pixels wider than best practices recommend, requiring us to scroll to the right in order to see the entire design. Recommendation: cut the width down to 600 pixels. 640 max.
From: Williams-Sonoma
Subject Line: Mother's Day Gift Ideas from Williams-Sonoma
Date: Thursday, April 20, 2005
This is a really smart, sensible layout for a gifting occasion message like Mother's Day. We've got an environmental hero shot to set the mood, a paragraph romancing a few ideas, and an easy, functional list of "by price" links. Nothing too crazy hitting us over the head, but very effective.
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