RetailEmail.Blogspot monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 of the top online retailers. Here are highlights from our inbox this morning:
TigerDirect, 10/19 — Save $700: 52" Sharp 1080p Complete Home Theater Package
This is the ultimate in long form. This email is super long as you can see. Instead of teasing the reader into clicking through to the product page for this offer, TigerDirect has brought the product page directly to the reader’s inbox. TigerDirect sent a similar email a month or two ago, but I didn’t comment about it at the time because I wanted to see if they found the tactic worth repeating. Clearly they did.
In their typical salesy, personal, casual voice, TigerDirect pitches this “From the desk of Carl Fiorentino, president of TigerDirect.com” and uses the recipient’s name in the greeting for an additional personal touch. The email (1) talks about how this bundle of an Sharp AQUOS 52" 1080p LCD HDTV, Onkyo Home Theater System and Logitech Harmony 550 Remote Bundle provides big savings; (2) lists several reasons why now is a great time to buy a home theater system, including the upcoming World Series, the ongoing football season and holiday TV shows; (3) says that this TV will be “hazardous to a life of solitary confinement” because all your friends will want to come over; (4) describes the product features of each of the products in the bundle; (5) provides a price breakdown showing the savings; (6) includes a list of specs; and (7) has plenty of pictures of the products. This email attacks on all fronts, stressing savings, product features and lifestyle elements.
What I would expect from a campaign like this is that clickthroughs would be considerably lower than usual, but that conversions would be considerably higher. The people that click through this email and likely to be very serious buyers, so when measuring the success of an email this you’d want to focus almost wholly on revenue impact.
Furniture.com, 10/19 — Decorate with Framed Art and Save 15%!
The design of this email for Furniture.com’s art department stands in sharp contrast to the design for their usual emails, which is a lot blander. This art department email uses the navigation bar used in that department, has a preview pane message while losing the whitelisting instructions, features more compelling images, and pitches the product by lifestyle (traditional, contemporary, casual and global). Hopefully Furniture.com is planning to move all their email designs in this direction.
Here’s the art department email…
…and here’s one of their typical emails (this one from Oct. 17):
Ralph Lauren, 10/20 — Introducing Lauren Spa - Organic Bed & Bath
Right on the heels of Blog Action Day, Ralph Lauren introduces its Lauren Spa line of organic bed and bath products. Saks Fifth Avenue’s 5 Fashion Clicks email below also included an eco-friendly product. It’s good to see retailers starting to push the eco-friendly messaging more.
Saks Fifth Avenue, 10/19 — 5 Fashion Clicks
Saks looks to be trying out a new email format, one that is focused on five large product shots paired with a descriptive sentence or phrase.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER:
Drugstore.com, 10/21— Halloween savings: deals on costumes and more
Northern Tool, 10/19 — Chad, Unique + Hard To Find, Great Gift Ideas On Sale
Kmart, 10/19 — Ghoulishly Good Savings On Halloween & Harvest
Circuit City, 10/21 — Instant winners daily—plus spooktacular savings
Petco, 10/21 — PETCO Don't Miss Out on Halloween...
Newegg, 10/20 — Lead the Conversation - Get the Latest for Your Mobile Lifestyle
REI, 10/19 — REI Welcomes Winter with Burton, K2, Columbia and more
Macy’s, 10/19 — Web Busters at our One Day Sale!
Norm Thompson, 10/19 — Ship any order for just $5...thru Sunday only!
Foot Locker, 10/20 — Jordan Retro 8 -- Now Available! Order your pair today.
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2 comments:
Chad -
Just coming back to this post from 22 Oct 07...Looking at the message from TigerDirect makes me a little ill. If I print out an email and it uses up most of the ink, it is cause for concern, in my book. At least this is what I convey to clients.
Any idea of how this type of message performed (performs)? Unsubscribe rates? Complaints? ROI?
dj at bronto
DJ, I don't have the inside scoop on this, but I think the fact that they used this tactic a second time means that it was at least passably successful the first time around. It certainly flies in the face of the "keep it short and scannable" advice. And that's what makes it interesting.
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