Season Finale: Thanksgiving 2008
A look back on seasonal trends, email activity and standout B2C marketing:
Start to finish: The first reference to Thanksgiving was on Sept. 18 by Blair. The final reference was on Nov. 30 by Neiman Marcus.
The distribution curve: The biggest day for Thanksgiving emails was Thanksgiving Day itself, Nov. 27, followed by the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 26. Retailers sent the majority of their Thanksgiving-themed emails after Nov. 24.
Most interesting email: I continue to like Crate & Barrel’s unique weekly countdown to Thanksgiving—although I wasn’t in love with the first email in the series this year (see Oct. 31 AM Inbox). The series started off with no captions for product images and poor calls-to-action. However, those faults were corrected later in the series as you can see in the final email here:
Noteworthy trend: Creating special seasonal headers and navigation bars for the holiday season is quite popular, with about one-third of retailers using the tactic. But Thanksgiving headers are more rare, with only home-oriented brands like Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma using them. One of the newer trends with seasonal headers is the use of animation. This year Williams-Sonoma was the first to introduce an animated header, which they used to countdown the days until Thanksgiving.
And here’s the animated portion of this email:
Standout subject lines:
Crate & Barrel, 11/1 — Time-saving Thanksgiving menu. Plus Free Shipping.
Cooking.com, 11/26 — Last-Minute Thanksgiving: Quick Recipes & Tips, Plus Holiday Gift
Walgreens, 11/26 — Open Thanksgiving Day! 50% Off Collage Calendars + Toys. Thursday
Subject lines that stand out for the wrong reasons:
TigerDirect, 11/28 — 72hr After Thanksgivinig SALE w/ $1.99 Shipping
They misspelled “Thanksgiving.”
Read previous Thanksgiving Season Finales: 2007, 2006
Explore Thanksgiving tag.
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SEARCH... By Post Category / By Selling Season / By Retailer / By Topic / Monthly Archive
Start to finish: The first reference to Thanksgiving was on Sept. 18 by Blair. The final reference was on Nov. 30 by Neiman Marcus.
The distribution curve: The biggest day for Thanksgiving emails was Thanksgiving Day itself, Nov. 27, followed by the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 26. Retailers sent the majority of their Thanksgiving-themed emails after Nov. 24.
Most interesting email: I continue to like Crate & Barrel’s unique weekly countdown to Thanksgiving—although I wasn’t in love with the first email in the series this year (see Oct. 31 AM Inbox). The series started off with no captions for product images and poor calls-to-action. However, those faults were corrected later in the series as you can see in the final email here:
Noteworthy trend: Creating special seasonal headers and navigation bars for the holiday season is quite popular, with about one-third of retailers using the tactic. But Thanksgiving headers are more rare, with only home-oriented brands like Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma using them. One of the newer trends with seasonal headers is the use of animation. This year Williams-Sonoma was the first to introduce an animated header, which they used to countdown the days until Thanksgiving.
And here’s the animated portion of this email:
Standout subject lines:
Crate & Barrel, 11/1 — Time-saving Thanksgiving menu. Plus Free Shipping.
Cooking.com, 11/26 — Last-Minute Thanksgiving: Quick Recipes & Tips, Plus Holiday Gift
Walgreens, 11/26 — Open Thanksgiving Day! 50% Off Collage Calendars + Toys. Thursday
Subject lines that stand out for the wrong reasons:
TigerDirect, 11/28 — 72hr After Thanksgivinig SALE w/ $1.99 Shipping
They misspelled “Thanksgiving.”
Read previous Thanksgiving Season Finales: 2007, 2006
Explore Thanksgiving tag.
_____________________
SEARCH... By Post Category / By Selling Season / By Retailer / By Topic / Monthly Archive
Labels: Animation, Countdowns, Crate and Barrel, Season Finale, Thanksgiving, Williams-Sonoma
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posted at 4:26 PM 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.
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