AM Inbox: Going logo-less
RetailEmail.Blogspot monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from our inbox this morning:
CompUSA, 4/11 — 3.5-inch GPS $99...Logitech VX Mouse $19...4gb SD Memory $24
Since CompUSA.com was acquired by Systemax in January, we’ve seen some pretty bold changes and experiments from CompUSA—including adding an unsubscribe link at the top of their emails and changing their sender name to “The All-New CompUSA.com” (see Jan. 31 AM Inbox). I think both of those are smart moves—and industry-leading in the case of the unsubscribe link placement. But I’m not so sure about their latest move, dropping their logo from the top of their emails. On the plus side, subscribers can see more offers in their preview panes and mobile users don’t have to scroll past the logo. But on the minus side, beyond the branding in the sender line, there’s nothing in the preview pane that tells me this is an email from CompUSA.
It’s not until you scroll down farther that you get some reassuring visual branding.
The question is, how many subscribers are going to take one look at this in their preview pane, not see a reassuring logo (like they’re used to), and simply delete the email?
Update: It appears that this was an accident, that a coding issue caused their new logo and nav bar not to load (see April 17 AM Inbox). It's a bad mistake but I'm relieved that they weren't permanently dropping it.
Petco, 4/11 — PETCO / PETCO.com Pays Your Sales Tax - 5 Days Only!
Petco offers subscribers a tax holiday as part of this tax season promotion. As an aside, I wonder if this subject line is overbranded. I like their standard “PETCO ” branding prefix, but in this case it’s redundant. Why not say “We” instead of “PETCO.COM”?
Sports Authority, 4/12 — Friends + Family Event: 25% Off Single Item - 2 Days Left
Last week I highlighted the rendering problems suffered by an EB Games email when viewed in Gmail (see April 9 AM Inbox). Just so no one thinks this is an isolated issue, here’s an email from Sports Authority that’s been chewed up and spit out by Gmail, which doesn’t support a number of HTML and CSS codes that are supported by other email clients. So make sure that your emails are coded to work around Gmail’s unique quirks.
Sephora, 4/13 — Brand founders pick M-Day gifts!
Sephora gives us a very clever Mother’s Day creative that uses a right-side-up heart to represent “Mom” and a sideways heart to “me.” Combine that with some celebrity testimonials from the beauty world and it’s very engaging. However, I’m not so sure about the use of “M-Day” in the subject line. Just like marketers occasionally use “V-Day” for Valentine’s Day, this conjures up war associations for me—and I’m not even a boomer. Also, if Mother’s Day is M-Day, is Father’s Day F-Day? Not very flattering.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER:
JC Whitney, 4/11 — JC Whitney Tax Season Savings - 20% Off Through Thursday!
AbeBooks, 4/11 — Best Buys: 49% off the 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winning Novel
Bluefly, 4/12 — Because it's finally spring...The Yippeee SALE -- EXTRA 20% OFF
Brookstone, 4/11 — Smart, self-watering planters keep your flowers blooming
Alloy, 4/11 — top 5 spring essentials + free shipping
Dell, 4/11 — Save up to $355 on Select Systems + Add Blu-ray to These Systems for $200 or less.
Bloomingdale’s, 4/11 — Introducing The Chanel Summer 2008 Makeup Collection
Lands’ End, 4/11 — Free shipping - no minimum, legendary quality, remarkable values
Chadwick’s, 4/11 — Take an EXTRA 40% Off-Here's to our great customer reviews!
Overstock, 4/11 — ELECTRONICS BLOWOUT
TigerDirect, 4/11 — DEALS
_____________________
SEARCH... By Post Category / By Selling Season / By Retailer / By Topic / Monthly Archive
CompUSA, 4/11 — 3.5-inch GPS $99...Logitech VX Mouse $19...4gb SD Memory $24
Since CompUSA.com was acquired by Systemax in January, we’ve seen some pretty bold changes and experiments from CompUSA—including adding an unsubscribe link at the top of their emails and changing their sender name to “The All-New CompUSA.com” (see Jan. 31 AM Inbox). I think both of those are smart moves—and industry-leading in the case of the unsubscribe link placement. But I’m not so sure about their latest move, dropping their logo from the top of their emails. On the plus side, subscribers can see more offers in their preview panes and mobile users don’t have to scroll past the logo. But on the minus side, beyond the branding in the sender line, there’s nothing in the preview pane that tells me this is an email from CompUSA.
It’s not until you scroll down farther that you get some reassuring visual branding.
The question is, how many subscribers are going to take one look at this in their preview pane, not see a reassuring logo (like they’re used to), and simply delete the email?
Update: It appears that this was an accident, that a coding issue caused their new logo and nav bar not to load (see April 17 AM Inbox). It's a bad mistake but I'm relieved that they weren't permanently dropping it.
Petco, 4/11 — PETCO / PETCO.com Pays Your Sales Tax - 5 Days Only!
Petco offers subscribers a tax holiday as part of this tax season promotion. As an aside, I wonder if this subject line is overbranded. I like their standard “PETCO ” branding prefix, but in this case it’s redundant. Why not say “We” instead of “PETCO.COM”?
Sports Authority, 4/12 — Friends + Family Event: 25% Off Single Item - 2 Days Left
Last week I highlighted the rendering problems suffered by an EB Games email when viewed in Gmail (see April 9 AM Inbox). Just so no one thinks this is an isolated issue, here’s an email from Sports Authority that’s been chewed up and spit out by Gmail, which doesn’t support a number of HTML and CSS codes that are supported by other email clients. So make sure that your emails are coded to work around Gmail’s unique quirks.
Sephora, 4/13 — Brand founders pick M-Day gifts!
Sephora gives us a very clever Mother’s Day creative that uses a right-side-up heart to represent “Mom” and a sideways heart to “me.” Combine that with some celebrity testimonials from the beauty world and it’s very engaging. However, I’m not so sure about the use of “M-Day” in the subject line. Just like marketers occasionally use “V-Day” for Valentine’s Day, this conjures up war associations for me—and I’m not even a boomer. Also, if Mother’s Day is M-Day, is Father’s Day F-Day? Not very flattering.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER:
JC Whitney, 4/11 — JC Whitney Tax Season Savings - 20% Off Through Thursday!
AbeBooks, 4/11 — Best Buys: 49% off the 2008 Pulitzer Prize Winning Novel
Bluefly, 4/12 — Because it's finally spring...The Yippeee SALE -- EXTRA 20% OFF
Brookstone, 4/11 — Smart, self-watering planters keep your flowers blooming
Alloy, 4/11 — top 5 spring essentials + free shipping
Dell, 4/11 — Save up to $355 on Select Systems + Add Blu-ray to These Systems for $200 or less.
Bloomingdale’s, 4/11 — Introducing The Chanel Summer 2008 Makeup Collection
Lands’ End, 4/11 — Free shipping - no minimum, legendary quality, remarkable values
Chadwick’s, 4/11 — Take an EXTRA 40% Off-Here's to our great customer reviews!
Overstock, 4/11 — ELECTRONICS BLOWOUT
TigerDirect, 4/11 — DEALS
_____________________
SEARCH... By Post Category / By Selling Season / By Retailer / By Topic / Monthly Archive
Labels: AM Inbox, Branding, CompUSA, Design Issues, Mother's Day, Oopsy, Petco, Rendering, Sephora, Sports Authority, Subject Lines, Tax Season
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posted at 12:01 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.
1 Comments:
Our experience with misalignment in Gmail - it has always been a missing tr or td tag. Something that everyone else (including Dreamweaver) has thought so trivial that tracking it back down has been a really tedious process.
Sure, ours to undertake, we made the mistake. But amazing how strict the Gmail client is. Again, not faulting them. But it almost seems more important these days to test in Gmail than it is to test in Lotus Notes.
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