AM Inbox: Obliterating the grid

The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:

Alibris, 9/1 — Pre-Labor Day Sale - Sneak Peak at Extra 20% Off‏
I praised JCPenney recently for breaking the grid in their emails (see Aug. 19 AM Inbox), but in this email, Alibris dispenses with the grid entirely. In the place of a boxy body, Alibris uses a kind of doily shape to contain their copy. Surrounded by a white background, the unusual shape really stands out. This tactic works primarily because their message is simple. Trying this with a more complex message would be hard and likely have a cluttered, overly busy feel.



Williams-Sonoma, 9/1 — Homemade Pasta, Pronto!‏
I like how Williams-Sonoma tells a simple story that brings together multiple products in this promotion: How to cook a great pasta dinner. While I might argue that steps 2 and 3 should be reversed, there’s no doubt that this is an easy-to-follow narrative with a design that’s easy to scan, while still having rich details for those who are interested enough to read further.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Hallmark, 9/1 — Celebrate grandparents with Recordable Storybooks.
eBags, 9/1 — Pre-Labor Day Sale - Sneak Peak at Extra 20% Off‏
Macy’s, 9/1 — Ship for Free + 2-day specials at the Labor Day Sale!
J. Crew, 9/1 — Labor Day sale: new styles added (plus, FREE SHIPPING)‏
Bluefly, 9/1 — Fall Cashmere Preview Ends Today! Drape It. Wrap It. LOVE it!‏
Orvis, 9/1 — Prepare for fall adventure with new clothing from Orvis.‏
Frederick’s of Hollywood, 9/1 — Want our formula for sexy dreams? Find out with $15 off your order.
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The Most Popular Posts during August 2010

The posts that were visited the most during the month:

10. AM Inbox: Out of sync email and landing page content
9. AM Inbox: One way to encourage scrolling
8. AM Inbox: Backcountry redesign + when to drop whitelisting requests
7. AM Inbox: 3 retailers redesign their email templates
6. AM Inbox: Half-hearted sidescroller + Disney redesign
5. Design Hall of Fame: 2008 Inductees
4. AM Inbox: Crate & Barrel redesign + new J. Crew newsletter
3. AM Inbox: Another great animated gif from Bed Bath & Beyond
2. Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season 2010
1. Email Design Look Book 2010

>>View the most popular posts from previous months.

Looking to get a jump on ideas for this month? Then check out the September 2009 archive for inspiration and trends from last year.
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AM Inbox: Finish Line redesign + dynamic content misfire

>>The 2010 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season: Download the 41-page guide for free. Register for the accompanying holiday planning webinar.

The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:

Finish Line, 8/31 — Take $10 or $20 Off Our Top Rated Shoes!
Finish Line has redesigned their email template. Beyond sharpening the branding in the header, the big change is they increased the number of navigation bar links to nine from four. Those links are also HTML text, so they appear when images are blocked. The other significant change is that they increased the width of their template to 640 pixels from 615. While that’s in the 600-650 pixel range that we recommend, the trend should be toward narrower designs because of the growing influence of mobile devices. Here’s the new design:



And here’s the previous design from an Aug. 19 email:



Sears, 8/31 — Kiss the Summer Goodbye and Fall Into Savings‏
Looks like Sears had a geo-powered dynamic content issue with this banner. Sears, which knows my zip code and therefore that I’m on the other side of the country from Nevada, has promoted state-based discounts in the past and gotten it right. Dynamic content modules and segmented emails can be great tools for promoting state tax-free weekends and similar events.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Lane Bryant, 8/31 — Labor Day Deals $9.99 And Up + $29.99 Pant Event‏
Newegg, 8/31 — LABOR DAY SALE: $59.99 Samsung 1TB HDD, $34.99 Logitech LED-backlit Gaming Keyboard...
REI, 8/31 — REI Labor Day Sale and Clearance Ends Soon‏
Toys “R” Us, 8/31 — Early Bird Labor Day Outdoor Sale! 2-Day Bonus Deals! Save BIG Wed. & Thurs.!
Office Depot, 8/31 — Add Up the Savings with Pre-Labor Day Deals. Look Inside.‏
Sierra Trading Post, 8/31 — EXTRA 20% OFF & FREE SHIPPING + EXTRA 20-30% OFF Labor Day Blowout!‏
Dick’s Sporting Goods, 8/31 — 2 Great Offers to Get You Ready for Football!
L.L. Bean, 8/31 — Last Chance: 20% Off All Backpacks + Free Shipping‏
Brookstone, 8/31 — Like Us on Facebook… Plus Enter to Win the AR.Drone Flying Video Game‏
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Season Finale: 4th of July 2010

A look back on seasonal trends, email activity and standout B2C marketing:

Start to finish: The first reference to the 4th of July was on May 12. The final reference was on July 21. The biggest day for Independence Day emails was the 4th of July itself. Retailers sent the majority of their 4th of July-themed emails after June 30.



Most interesting emails: In this June 29 email, Newegg seamlessly works in an “update your preferences” request into the Independence Day theme. Using a banner, they reiterated this request in several emails during the 4th of July selling season.



Standout subject lines:
Fingerhut, 6/29 — Fingerhut: Answer this 4th of July Trivia + Get a FREE Gift!‏
Banana Republic, 7/1 — Happy July! Take a fourth off sale items + free shipping.‏
Old Navy, 7/4 — Patriotic Styles As Low as $5! Go Fourth & Save!

Subject lines that stand out for the wrong reasons:
Office Depot, 6/29 — SAVINGS so BIG you'll see fireworks!
I think they were trying to pun on “you’ll see stars” but the phrasing just doesn’t quite work.

Read previous 4th of July Season Finales: 2009, 2008, 2007

Explore 4th of July tag.
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AM Inbox: Video gif usage remains anemic

>>The 2010 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season: Download the 41-page guide for free. Register for the accompanying holiday planning webinar.

The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:

Fingerhut, 8/30 — Fingerhut: Find Great Web-Exclusive Products Today!
Over the past 12 months, only 4% of the retailers I track have used a video gif in one or more emails. That includes Fingerhut, which sent this email with a video gif yesterday. Video gifs are compressed, streaming animated gifs that generate frame rates similar to video. Despite the increasing need to stand out in the inbox and the fact that many retailers promote video content in their emails, video gifs haven’t grown beyond a very niche tactic. View the video gif in this email in action.



Neiman Marcus, 8/30 — Dress to express: Which "Ooh!" are YOU?
When I saw Neiman Marcus asking subscribers to target their specific sense of style, I got excited, expecting that they were doing some progressive profiling a la Spiegel (see Mar. 17, 2008 AM Inbox). Collecting which style subscribers clicked on could have been the basis for dynamic content in future emails or a triggered email dedicated to apparel in that style.



However, Neiman Marcus didn’t use a click map for the image so regardless of which style you click on, it all goes to the same landing page (shown below). Even worse, that landing page has completely different “shop by” criteria. So while a subscriber may have been interested in the “Sophisticate” style, the landing page cuts off that avenue of exploration and forces them to choose a new path. Disconnects like this between email content and landing pages can significantly dampen conversion rates.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Sam’s Club, 8/30 — Celebrate Labor Day with more than $300 in savings! Sept 1-6 only‏
Cooking.com, 8/30 — Labor Day BBQ Recipes: Saucy BBQ, Egg Salads + More‏
Ross-Simons, 8/30 — EXTRA 20% Off Clearance – Labor Day Clearance Sale‏
Toys “R” Us, 8/30 — Save Like it’s Cyber Monday! One Day Only, Thousands of Items on Sale‏
Harry & David, 8/30 — National Trail Mix Day - Create-Your-Own and SAVE 15% + FREE Delivery‏
Northern Tool, 8/30 — Share Your Opinion And Win A $600 Hitachi Combo Kit‏
Lands’ End, 8/30 — Your opinions matter - thanks! 20% off top-rated styles ends today + free shipping.‏
Spiegel, 8/30 — OUR TOP 5 FOR FALL! What You Absolutely Can't Be Without This Season!
J. Jill, 8/30 — Our new off-to-work styles are here! Plus, $10 off pants.
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AM Inbox: First reference to Breast Cancer Awareness Month

>>The 2010 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season: Download the 41-page guide for free. Register for the accompanying holiday planning webinar.

The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:

Oriental Trading, 8/27 — Support Breast Cancer Awareness & Get Free Shipping‏
Oriental Trading gives us our first reference to Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is October. For ideas and insights for your own Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaigns, check out the Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2009 Season Finale.



Eddie Bauer, 8/27 — Be the First to Write a Review On Eddiebauer.com‏
As mentioned in the 2010 Retail Guide to the Holiday Season, the pre-holiday period is a great time to spur product reviews and to launch product reviews, if you don’t already offer them. Product reviews have proven to be highly influential to sales, so now is a great time to make sure that you have plenty of reviews ahead of the holidays.



Lands’ End, 8/27 — Your opinions matter - thanks! Save 20% on top-rated customer favorites + free shipping.‏
Of course, once you have a nice supply of product reviews, you can leverage that back into your email marketing messages like Lands’ End does here. Lands’ End injects some extra branding into their messaging by using sailboats instead of the usual stars for their product ratings. Sam’s Club does something similar, using green diamonds that are similar to their logo.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Harry & David, 8/27 — 15% OFF and FREE DELIVERY just because ... it's Just Because Day!
REI, 8/27 — REI Labor Day Sale and Clearance on Now‏
Home Depot, 8/29 — Labor Day Savings: Grills $249 or More Ship Free Plus 25% Off Wicker Patio Furniture‏
ShopNBC, 8/28 — Get your game on in The Man Room‏
Orvis, 8/27 — Exclusively made in America: our newest collection.
Williams-Sonoma, 8/27 — Discover Jamie Oliver’s New Artisanal Food Collection‏
Ann Taylor, 8/27 — Naomi Watts For Ann Taylor + More New Arrivals!‏
Avon, 8/27 — the Hottest Trend for Fall 2010‏
Chadwick’s, 8/27 — First come, first serve! Lunch Break Event!‏
J. Jill, 8/28 — Too busy to save 15%? Didn't think so. Ends tomorrow!‏
Disney Store, 8/29 — Buy & Save! Create a Super Hero Headquarters‏
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Week-End Trends: Mysterious volume spike dissipates

Email activity and seasonal trends during the past week:

The Retail Email Index: Top online retailers sent each of their subscribers 2.6 promotional emails on average during the week ending Aug. 27, 2010. That’s down 8% week-over-week, down 3% from where it was four weeks ago, and up 8% year-over-year. The mysterious spike in volume the week before last has subsided.



The Retail Email Participation Rate: Friday was the most popular day to send retail emails last week.



The Retail Email Seasonality Meter: This week Labor Day messaging will spike. Last week we had our first reference to Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For ideas and insights for your own Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaigns, check out the Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2009 Season Finale.



Selling Seasons on the Horizon:
Columbus Day (10/11): Columbus Day 2009 Season Finale
Breast Cancer Awareness Month (Oct.): Breast Cancer Awareness Month 2009 Season Finale
Halloween (10/31): Halloween 2009 Season Finale
Christmas (12/25): Christmas 2009 Season Finale and the 2010 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season
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AM Inbox: Sports Authority template redesign

>>The 2010 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season: Download the 41-page guide for free. Register for the accompanying holiday planning webinar.

The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:

Sports Authority, 8/26 — Free Shipping On All Games - Limited Time Only‏
Sports Authority has redesigned their email template, making dramatic changes to their header and introducing a new call-to-action button that’s unique and compelling. They rolled back some of the optimization for image blocking that they did in their last redesign (see Apr. 21, 2009 AM Inbox). For instance, this new design abandons using HTML text for the navigation bar links. However, they did streamline the navigation in the header, which allowed them to use larger font sizes. They also added nice “Follow the Authority” headline by their social links, clarifying that they are community links and not SWYN links.

One change that they didn’t make was to reduce the width of their template, deciding to keep it at a very wide and mobile-unfriendly 775 pixels. At this point, tt’s unclear if they’ve abandoned or redesigned their dreadful recovery section (see June 9 AM Inbox).

Here’s the new design:



And here’s the previous design from an Aug. 17 email:



Linens ’n Things, 8/26 — Skool iz Kool! Save an Extra 20% Off!‏
Not sure if this is an awful, out-of-date, mis-targeted subject line or if it’s awfully great because it’s LOLCats-inspired spelling gets your attention. I lean toward the former…

SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Kmart, 8/26 — Earn Points, Tone While You Walk & Get Ready For Class With Kmart‏
Backcountry.com, 8/26 — Join The Community‏ [promoting their Facebook page]
Bluefly, 8/26 — Make It A LONG Night! Fall 2010 Evening Dresses - Up To 40% Off‏
Disney Store, 8/26 — Check out the Phineas and Ferb Arcade App Now‏
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AM Inbox: Inverted pyramid form and email design

>>The 2010 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season: Download the 41-page guide for free. Register for the accompanying holiday planning webinar.

The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:

Coldwater Creek, 8/25 — Final chance! FREE Shipping + $25 OFF. Save NOW on FALL + SALE!
When news journalists write their stories, they arrange the details according to the “inverted pyramid” form that places the most important information first and then follows with less important supporting details. This form of communicating can also inform your email design. For instance, this Coldwater Creek email buries the important discount code call-to-action at the bottom of the primary message block.



Bringing that discount code up higher in the design would give it more attention. One way to do that would be to move the banner with the discount code up so it sits at the top of the primary message block, as in this mockup:



Of course, that change of positioning can be supplemented by an additional mention of the discount code even higher up the email hierarchy, either in the preheader message or in the subject line. @Digital_Melissa recently tested using a discount code in a subject line and it doubled their open rates.

Sears, 8/25 — Save big on Auto, Tools and Footwear‏
July through mid-October is the time to introduce pre-holiday messaging that gets your brand top of mind for holiday shopping. Sears’ Be the Santa campaign is a great example of this type of early holiday messaging. It’s wise to get your viral, user generated content and social campaigns in during this early period, because once we get to mid-November subscribers will be all about the deal.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Furniture.com, 8/25 — Work It: Labor Day savings for every room!‏
Barnes & Noble, 8/25 — It's a No Brainer - Save up to 90% on TEXTBOOKS!‏
JCPenney, 8/25 — What's New For You: Denim Styles For Back To School!
Kmart, 8/25 — New "What a Doll!" - Dress Her, Accessorize Her & Find Matching Outfits‏
Orvis, 8/25 — More than 90 new fall items now in our Men's Sporting Tradition catalog.‏
Frederick’s of Hollywood, 8/25 — What is the Chemeddy? Find out with $15 off your order.
J. Jill, 8/25 — Enjoy 15% off! Plus, our new Pure Jill collection is here.
Hanna Andersson, 8/25 — Our New Tee Is All About The Sea...
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AM Inbox: Are tables of contents obsolete?

>>The 2010 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season: Download the 41-page guide for free. Register for the accompanying holiday planning webinar.

The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:

GameStop, 8/24 — This edition is packin'‏
GameStop has added a table of contents (TOC) to their weekly “Games of the Week” emails, making their hero image smaller to accommodate the addition. TOCs are pretty rare in B2C emails—and when used they typically appear in monthly newsletter emails. For example, Backcountry.com uses a TOC in the top right-hand corner of their monthly newsletters. But besides Backcountry, I’m actually hard pressed to think of another retailer among those that I track that use TOCs. It would appear that new email design strategies have rendered TOCs a bit obsolete.

What do you think? Are TOCs outmoded?



Overstock, 8/24 — Overstock.com Invites You to Eziba.com‏
Overstock introduces their subscribers to experience their sister brand Eziba. Overstock does several things right in this email: (1) They use their usual sender name and address. (2) They use their usual header. (3) They explain what’s special about Eziba. And (4) they include some current promotions so folks can get a better idea of what Eziba sells. Plus, the email uses a lot of HTML text. I would normally have liked to see an email sign-up call-to-action for Eziba, but since you have to register to access the site, the email sign-up pitch is made there instead. This email also includes an unsubscribe link for Eziba emails, which indicates to me that Overstock at least wants to keep the door open to sending additional messages like this to Overstock subscribers. For more on promoting sister brands, check out Cross-Promoting Sister Brands Safely.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
JC Whitney, 8/24 — Get Ready for Labor Day Travel - All Orders Ship Free‏
Dell, 8/24 — Time is running out on back to school PCs‏
Linens ’n Things, 8/24 — School Bells Ring with Extra Savings!‏
OfficeMax, 8/24 — Kodak Savings Event – Save up to 50% + Great Back-to-School Deals‏
Office Depot, 8/24 — Go Back SMARTER: Supplies Starting at $2‏
Abercrombie & Fitch, 8/24 — The hottest new boyfriend sweatpants give you the perfect butt!
Neiman Marcus, 8/24 — Our best pieces straight from the world's runways‏
Kmart, 8/24 — Groceries delivered for FREE with a prescription order‏
Ralph Lauren, 8/24 — Ralph Lauren Home Presents Fall 2010‏
Cooking.com, 8/24 — Stir It Up! Introducing Marley Coffee‏
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