AM Inbox: First reference to Columbus Day
RetailEmail.Blogspot monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 of the top online retailers. Here are highlights from our inbox this morning:
Macy’s, 10/3 — Email exclusive: Free shipping at the Columbus Day Sale - promo code inside!
Macy’s gives us our first reference to Columbus Day, which is this upcoming Monday. Last year there were a little more than a dozen references to Columbus Day by major online retailers, all of them coming between Oct. 4 and 9.
Williams-Sonoma, 10/3 — Pumpkin Carving Tools & Tricks
A couple of interesting things about this email: First, a great 3-frame animated gif highlights the aprons and pumpkin carving tools promoted in this email. And second, Williams-Sonoma notifies subscribers that its sender address will be changing (although for some reason the language indicates that the sender address has already changed, which it hasn’t). To increase the chances that subscribers will see the new address, they’ve mentioned it at the top of the email where they always have their whitelisting instructions and also at the bottom of the email in a special banner.
Here’s the animated portion of this email:
Norm Thompson, 10/3 — It's news day...get the scoop!
I’m not exactly sure what to make of this email. It’s presented as though there are news articles inside—or articles of some type. But when you click through, the landing pages just contain products with the characteristic mentioned in the teaser text. So to me it sets expectations that it just doesn’t meet, which will leave subscribers feeling disappointed.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER:
Hallmark, 10/3 — Celebrate Halloween with Hallmark
Kmart, 10/3 — Free Shipping, Dollar Days & Halloween Savings
Fingerhut, 10/3 — Get ready for Halloween with Fingerhut.com
Nordstrom, 10/3 — Introducing Coach on Nordstrom.com
Target, 10/3 — Valued Guest, get free shipping on select furniture.
_____________________
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Macy’s, 10/3 — Email exclusive: Free shipping at the Columbus Day Sale - promo code inside!
Macy’s gives us our first reference to Columbus Day, which is this upcoming Monday. Last year there were a little more than a dozen references to Columbus Day by major online retailers, all of them coming between Oct. 4 and 9.
Williams-Sonoma, 10/3 — Pumpkin Carving Tools & Tricks
A couple of interesting things about this email: First, a great 3-frame animated gif highlights the aprons and pumpkin carving tools promoted in this email. And second, Williams-Sonoma notifies subscribers that its sender address will be changing (although for some reason the language indicates that the sender address has already changed, which it hasn’t). To increase the chances that subscribers will see the new address, they’ve mentioned it at the top of the email where they always have their whitelisting instructions and also at the bottom of the email in a special banner.
Here’s the animated portion of this email:
Norm Thompson, 10/3 — It's news day...get the scoop!
I’m not exactly sure what to make of this email. It’s presented as though there are news articles inside—or articles of some type. But when you click through, the landing pages just contain products with the characteristic mentioned in the teaser text. So to me it sets expectations that it just doesn’t meet, which will leave subscribers feeling disappointed.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER:
Hallmark, 10/3 — Celebrate Halloween with Hallmark
Kmart, 10/3 — Free Shipping, Dollar Days & Halloween Savings
Fingerhut, 10/3 — Get ready for Halloween with Fingerhut.com
Nordstrom, 10/3 — Introducing Coach on Nordstrom.com
Target, 10/3 — Valued Guest, get free shipping on select furniture.
_____________________
SEARCH... By Post Category / By Retailer / By Topic / By Selling Season / Recent Posts
Labels: AM Inbox, Animation, Columbus Day, Halloween, Macy's, Norm Thompson, Whitelisting, Williams-Sonoma
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posted at 11:49 AM by Chad White
I love Smith-Harmon's enthusiasm. It's so great to have a connection with people who really "get" and get excited by email marketing. (Truly, there are not that many of us out there!) I count myself very lucky to have found such accomplished enthusiasts to collaborate with on the REI program. They are helping to bring amazing opportunities to fruition with panache.
2 Comments:
Hi,
doing a lot of E-Mail Campaigns in Germany I would like to use an animation too, but I'm wondering how big the message would be. Have any suggestions about this email or animation in Newsletter in general.
Thanks
Jochen
The collective wisdom is that you should keep your emails under 50K, but you can still do that easily even when using animated gifs. For instance, the Williams-Somona email referenced in this post is only 19K. Obviously more complex animation will result in larger emails, but you can do a lot with an animated gif of 3-5 frames--and I've seen some with many more frames than that.
For more about how retailers have used animation in their emails, check out the Animation in Retail Emails Study: http://retailemail.blogspot.com/2007/06/animation-in-retail-emails-study.html
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