AM Inbox: The price of sincerity

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

J. Crew, 7/30 — With our apologies...
Apparently J. Crew has been suffering a double whammy of both website and call center problems as they roll out some enhancements—enough problems that they felt the need to apologize to their subscribers. That’s nice. But they don’t give subscribers any reason (other than the apology) to forgive them—no discount, no free shipping coupon, no nothing. Even worse, the subject line sets up subscribers to expect something by using “please accept this with our apologies” language. Perhaps they felt that handing out an incentive would give them an unwanted surge in web traffic. Fair enough. So how about including an in-store coupon instead? It was good to see the acknowledgement of the problems—and that it was signed by executives—but the apology feel a little flat without a goodwill gesture to back it up. For more on apology emails, check out When and How to Say You’re Sorry.



Norm Thompson, 7/30 — Doing right pays off! $4.95 ship with a "green" buy.
Here’s a “green” focused email from Norm Thompson, where they promote bags made out of recycled plastic bottles. I liked them noting how many bottles each bag was made out of; for me there were echoes of TigerDirect’s recent email that included gasoline metered products (see June 5 AM Inbox). The email also highlights other eco-friendly products, plus a box about their green headquarters. That box was recycled from an Earth Day email sent earlier this year. There’s a joke in there about recycling and reusing old email content but I’ll spare you. Explore eco-friendly tag.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Bed Bath & Beyond, 7/30 — Keep your family safe with Bed Bath & Beyond
Sephora, 7/30 — 3 Steps To EYEmazing Lids
AbeBooks, 7/30 — The Avid Reader: Cream of the Crop Cookbooks
Cabela’s, 7/30 — Fall Gear Preview @ Cabelas.com
Spiegel, 7/30 — FREE SHIPPING EXTENDED! Plus, Be the first to shop the New Fall Must-Haves!
Fingerhut, 7/30 — Be cool and stay cool: Free headphones when you spend $225 at Fingerhut
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Season Finale: 4th of July 2008

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 June 3 by Oriental Trading. The final reference was on July 8 by CompUSA.

The distribution curve: The biggest day for 4th of July emails was Thursday, July 3, followed by Friday, July 4. Retailers sent the majority of their 4th of July-themed emails after July 1.



Most interesting email: Considering its strong association with fireworks, the 4th of July is a great occasion to try out some eye-catching animation, as Harry & David did in a June 30 email with the subject line “4th of July Savings on BIG, beautiful Cherries!” Rather than using animation to demonstrate product features or anything deep like that, Harry & David is just trying to add a bit of sparkle and dynamism to their email with a clever cherry bomb pun. For an in-depth look at animation tactics, check out the Animation in Retail Emails Study.



Here’s the animated portion of that email:



Pleasant surprises: It was nice to see that at least a couple of retailers went beyond the fact that people had off from work on July 4 and hooked their emails on the historical reason for the holiday. AbeBooks had it relatively easy, sending a July 3 email with the subject line “America in Flux: Books on the State of the Nation” that highlighted books about American politics and history.



Apparel retailer Ralph Lauren had a slightly more difficult time given their product assortment, but because of some charity efforts they were able to promote a special book about the preservation of the flag that inspired the “The Star Spangled Banner” song. They sent a July 3 email with the subject line “Honor Independence Day With The Star Spangled Banner Book” promoting it.



Multichannel tactics: In a July 3 email, Circuit City lets subscribers know that their stores will be closing at 6pm on July 4, but that their website is standing by to fulfill their orders. We’ll see retailers using this strategy again on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.



Standout subject lines:
SmartBargains, 7/5 — The Bargains are coming! Monumental sales & an extra 10% off
Ralph Lauren, 7/4 — Honor Independence Day With The Star Spangled Banner Book
AbeBooks, 7/3 — America in Flux: Books on the State of the Nation

Read previous 4th of July Season Finales: 2007

Explore the 4th of July tag.
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AM Inbox: Department launch and nav bar change

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

Newegg, 7/29 — Free Shipping on Mega Newsletter Deals!
Toward the bottom of this email, Newegg announces the launch of their Home Appliance Store. The landing page is interesting in that it uses a big arrow to point out the addition of a “Home Appliances” tab to the navigation bar. It’s a nice touch, making it clear to subscribers how to reach the department on future visits. Here’s the department page as it would appear if you navigated there from the homepage. They also added a “Home Appliances” tab to the nav bar in their email template, which makes me wonder if they’ll do a email dedicated to the new store launch and use the same arrow treatment pointing out the tab in the nav bar that they used on the landing page.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Sports Authority, 7/29 — Best Brands for Back 2 Sports
HPshopping, 7/29 — Everything You Need for Back To School from HP
Oriental Trading, 7/29 — Beat the back to school rush + get free shipping
Nascar, 7/29 — Back to School + Tony Stewart Smoke Gear
Backcountry, 7/29 — Gear for Higher Education - Plus 50% Off Outlet
KB Toys, 7/29 — Sneak Peek at This Season's Hottest Toys
EB Games, 7/29 — EB Games News: Brett Favre now playing for...uh?
Crutchfield, 7/29 — Sony BRAVIA HDTVs & Blu-ray players; plus $20 gas card offer
Banana Republic, 7/29 — Last 3 days to take 30% off select styles + Meet the season's elegant new color in our latest arrivals
Gap, 7/29 — What to Wear Now: Ultra-Feminine Tops
CompUSA, 7/29 — Find Your Way with CompUSA - GPS Deals from $99
B&H Photo Video, 7/29 — B&H Takes a First Look at Sony's New XDCAM
Crate & Barrel, 7/29 — New convertible desk is space-saving, budget-saving.
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Join me at a free virtual conference on retail engagement on Aug. 6

With the holidays approaching, now’s a great time to optimize your customer engagement with some new advice, benchmarks and insights gained at the Customer Engagement Conference. This free virtual conference is focused exclusively focused on CRM strategies and includes sessions on a variety of channels—including one on email engagement that I’ll be presenting at 3pm. Here’s the full agenda. I hope you’ll tune in.

Retail TouchPoints’ 2008 Customer Engagement Conference
Wednesday, Aug. 6
>>Register Now for this no-cost virtual conference!
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AM Inbox: Promoting additional email subscriptions

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

Walgreens, 7/28 — Photo News: Magazine Covers, PayPal + Lighting Tips
At the bottom of this quarterly newsletter that Walgreens does on photography they remind subscribers of two other email newsletters that they offer. Very few retailers do this and it’s a missed opportunity. The other great thing that Walgreens does is that they link to the web-hosted versions of the Monthly Health Newsletter and Quarterly Diabetes Newsletter so people can see a sample. But on the downside, the subscription module is at the very bottom of those hosted versions rather than at the top where they would be a stronger call-to-action for folks that are checking out the newsletter. Some people may also not scroll all the way to the bottom and therefore not see it and be confused as to how to subscribe. One nitpick: The name of the first newsletter is the Wellness Newsletter, not the Health Newsletter.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Orvis, 7/28 — See it here first: 40+ new home & gift items for fall.
Kmart, 7/28 — Go Back to School with up to 25% Savings
Dell, 7/28 — Save Big this School Year on Dell's Inspiron 1525
Urban Outfitters, 7/28 — Class Act
Frederick’s of Hollywood, 7/28 — Vamp it up with the lowest prices of the year.
Neiman Marcus, 7/28 — MANOLO BLAHNIK Fall boots
Saks Fifth Avenue, 7/28 — Fall's New Jackets
Chadwick’s, 7/28 — Experience the Collection. New Styles & a Free Gift for You.
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AM Inbox: Longer preheader messages appearing

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

eBags, 7/24 — Final Day for extra savings + free shipping. See top 20 deals before it's too late.
Retailers are embracing preheader messages to the point that we’re starting to see some pretty long ones, like this one and the one that Art.com had last week (see July 23 AM Inbox). The preheader space is very valuable real estate so be succinct, but don’t be afraid to experiment with longer messaging. But if you’re thinking of using a longer preheader message, consider dropping your whitelisting instructions or “click to view” language, or at least minimizing it. For more on preheaders, check out the Retail Email Rendering Benchmark Study.



Macy’s, 7/26 — Hurry! Shop now for a special discount at our Semi-Annual Furniture Sale
In my 7 Tactics for Driving Traffic to Stores with Email report I talked about “pick up in store” programs, but in the email uses a “browse in store” tactic with their new MyMacy’s furniture program. The program recognizes that many people want to see, touch and try out furniture before buying, so they use their inventory visibility to show people the furniture that’s available in local stores and to give them the location of those stores. It’s then up to the customer whether they want to buy in the store or go home and buy it online.



Home Depot, 7/25 — Online Exclusive: $10 Off a $100 Purchase
With the Olympics starting on Aug. 8, I suspect that we’ll start seeing lots more Olympic messaging and themes.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
RadioShack, 7/27 — Best School Stuff Ever, Plus Web-Only Savings
CompUSA, 7/25 — CompUSA's Back to School Buyer's Guide: Laptops, LCDs, PCs, Cell Phones & More
Office Depot, 7/25 — Back to School Gear at Must Have Prices
REI, 7/25 — REI News: Expert Paddling Advice
Kmart, 7/25 — Sparkle More, Spend Less, Save up to 70%
SmartBargains, 7/25 — 14 hot sales PLUS 10% more off. Tahari, Kate Spade, Gucci...
Norm Thompson, 7/25 — Dazzling batik prints! + New deeper discounts.
Finish Line, 7/25 — 100 Years Old And Still Kickin' [promoting Converse shoes]
Orvis, 7/25 — Rave reviews! See our latest 5-star customer favorites.
Blair, 7/26 — Deals under $20 and shipping under a buck
RitzCamera, 7/26 — Adobe Software for Photo, Video, Web, & More
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Week-End Trends: Back to school nearing peak

Email activity and promotional trends during the past week:

The Retail Email Index down 4% to 197 during the week ending July 25, and is down 2% from where it was four weeks ago. The Index score indicates that the top 100 online retailers sent just shy of 2 promotional emails each on average last week.



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



The Retail Email Seasonality Meter: Back to school continued to build last week and should peak over the next two weeks.



Other things referenced by retailers: fall, swimwear, outdoors
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Ping Time: Privacy assurances, Goodmail's video plans, etc.

Our latest spin around the mediasphere turned up the following nuggets:

>>Mark Brownlow at Email Marketing Reports did a little experiment and removed the privacy notice from his email sign-up form. The results were counter-intuitive and also inconclusive. >>Follow the ping

>>The New York Times talks about Goodmail’s plans to safely deliver embedded video emails—and the commenters freak out big time. >>Follow the video

>>The latest BrontoFire from DJ Waldow and Kimberly Snyder of Bronto Software addresses preheaders, with the duo taking a look at the practices of Bed Bath & Beyond, Brooks Brothers, Expedia and Orvis. >>Follow the ping

>>Campaign Monitor discusses how to use conditional comments in your CSS to get Outlook 2007 to behave better. >>Follow the ping

>>In my latest Email Insider column, I talk about Jason Calacanis forsaking blogging for email and about how the web 2.0 world has changed how marketers have conversations with consumers. >>Follow the ping
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AM Inbox: My advertisers are more interesting than I am

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

Costco, 7/24 — 3.75% APY - New Online Savings Account
I’ve explained before how much I hate third-party ads in retail emails so I won’t rehash that here (see June 5 AM Inbox). What I will say is: What does it say about the quality of your content when you highlight an ad’s content in your subject line? In this email, Costco is telling subscribers that the most interesting deal in this email is nothing from Costco—it’s the online savings account deal advertised by CapitalOne (and when you clickthrough it takes you to a co-branded page on capitalone.com, not costco.com). That’s a sign that you’ve got your priorities totally backward.



Circuit City, 7/24 — Deals so good we had to share them! Friends & Family discounts inside
Finally a “Christmas in July” email. Last year there were several more—and more Christmas emails during the month overall. We’re off to a slow start this year. So far, several of the emails that have mentioned the holiday season thus far have been about pre-ordering anticipated products.



Buy.com, 7/24 — New GPS = $99.99, DELL Notebook = $379.99, Verbatim 500GB = $79.99, Microsoft Office = $87.99,..
A variation on a video product review, here Buy.com presents some videos where they interview parents with different aged children about their back-to-school purchase plans. For example, here’s Barry’s advice. The videos are less than 2 minutes long and move along pretty quickly. The parents are inarticulate enough to be believably genuine, but not so much that they’re annoying.



HPshopping, 7/24 — HP's Back to School Buying Guide
HP presents computers that are ideal for students in college, high school and grade school. This kind of arrangement gives you a good opportunity to send segmented follow-up emails that target subscribers that clicked on each of the different age groups.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Sam’s Club, 7/24 — Introducing the Sam's Club Collegiate Membership
Eddie Bauer, 7/24 — Fall '08 is here & you're invited to see it first.
Barnes & Noble, 7/24 — Save an Extra 5% When You Pre-Order Books Online
Macy’s, 7/24 — Save a total of 40-80% on clearance sitewide + enjoy extra savings on home when you use your Macy's Card!
Norm Thompson, 7/24 — According to our customers...
Spiegel, 7/24 — Save up to 75% OFF Sensational Swim Looks at our Lunchtime Sale!
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Going to eTail East? I’ll see you there

If you’re going to be at eTail 2008 next month, stop by Premiere Global Services’ booth (#25) to see me and enter for a chance to win a limited number of pre-release copies of the Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season, which is sponsored by Premiere Global. I’ll be talking about the guide and also sitting on an Email Marketing Day roundtable with Kara Trivunovic, Premiere Global’s director of strategic services, where we’ll be discussing the holiday email season. Hope to see you there.

eTail 2008
Aug. 4-7, 2008
The Hilton, Washington, D.C.
Register for eTail and book with code 10359.003XZ368 to get 20% off to attend on behalf of Premiere Global.
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AM Inbox: Email reminders underutilitized?

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

Lillian Vernon, 7/23 — Never Forget Again With Lilly's Reminders. Plus Get $5 Off!
Many retailers offer email reminders—including 1-800-Flowers, Barnes & Noble, Hallmark, Neiman Marcus, Overstock, Omaha Steaks, ProFlowers, RedEnvelope, Sharper Image and Sportsman’s Guide—but Lillian Vernon is the only one I’ve seen make their email reminder program the primary message of an email. Do they know something that everyone doesn’t? I do wonder if these programs are underutilized. For instance, when I was collecting data on retailers opt-out practices for the Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study, I saw that no one offered departing subscribers the opportunity to sign up for gift reminders. For customers that want more control over email frequency that may be an attractive opportunity.



Bed Bath & Beyond, 7/23 — Go Back To College with Bed Bath & Beyond
Bed Bath & Beyond joins Macy’s (see July 14 AM Inbox) in offering a back-to-school checklist.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Victoria’s Secret, 7/23 — Fall Styles You Can Wear Right Now.
Spiegel, 7/23 — Fall Preview: Be the First to Shop our Latest Collections + Pay Nothing Until December!
Neiman Marcus, 7/23 — LAST DAY OF FREE RUSH DELIVERY + DESIGNER WEEK: 5 days of fabulous new fashion
Bluefly, 7/23 — Christian Siriano’s New Collection - Exclusively for Bluefly
Sephora, 7/23 — Hi, Value: Philosophy Sample + Beauty Bargains
Ralph Lauren, 7/23 — Sales Tax Holidays PLUS 10% OFF
Norm Thompson, 7/23 — 48-hr offer: 10% off your order! + See new arrivals.
Oriental Trading, 7/23 — Get free shipping on a carnival of summer values
Coach, 7/23 — Hamptons Collection: Online Now, In Stores Friday
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AM Inbox: Quick additions in the preheader space

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

Art.com, 7/22 — Choose your reward + Trend Alert!
In this email, Art.com uses their preheader text to slip in an announcement about their home decor expert being on The Today Show on Monday. This is a quick alternative to creating a banner to promote the appearance and a novel way of using the preheader space.



Bass Pro Shops, 7/22 — Big Savings with Fishing Clearance at Basspro.com
Bass Pro Shops announces the launch of an online forum, Outdoor Answers, where you can ask and answer questions about fishing, hunting, camping and other areas that Bass Pro serves. I clicked through on a couple of topics and there weren’t any questions or answers yet. Bass Pro probably should have spent a little time seeding the discussion boards with some material to get things rolling.



Orvis, 7/22 — 3 great reasons to use your Orvis Rewards Visa today.
This is one of the best credit card pitching emails that I’ve seen. It very succinctly lays out the reasons to use your card, tells you how to get one, and the icing is that they include four products that you can use your points on. That last element is what I haven’t seen in past credit card pitches.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Newegg, 7/22 — Go Back to School in High Tech Style with Newegg.com!
Walgreens, 7/22 — Back to School: Save 20% Online + Great In-Store Offers
OfficeMax, 7/22 — Pack Up a Penny Deal for Going Back to School
Finish Line, 7/22 — Free Shipping For Your School Shopping!
KB Toys, 7/22 — It's Almost Time -- Shop Back to School
Toys “R” Us, 7/22 — Star Wars: The Clone Wars Midnight Event!
Gap, 7/22 — Introducing the Perfect Trouser
Linens ’n Things, 7/22 — New Home Energy Savers + 20% Off
Crate & Barrel, 7/22 — Best Buys at the farmers market
B&H Photo Video, 7/22 — B&H Pro Audio Insight: A guide to head-worn mics
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AM Inbox: Nascent video product views trend grows

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

Urban Outfitters, 7/21 — Who/What/Wear
In this email Urban Outfitters announces a new denim shop with 360-degree video views. This is similar to the video catalog announcement made by Saks Fifth Avenue back in March (see March 25 AM Inbox). Video product views are definitely nascent, but it should be a wake-up call to retailers that only have one image of a product.

It’s also worth noting that in this email (as with many of their emails) Urban Outfitters does a great job of engaging subscribers with free music and blog content, in addition to product promos.



Sam’s Club, 7/21 — The hottest finds and gadgets from Sam's Club
Sam’s Club reaches out to college kids with a special Collegiate Membership just for them. I assume this is a soft launch and that we’ll see a message dedicated to the launch soon, complete with a forward-to-a-student call-to-action like the one used by AbeBooks the other day (see July 21 AM Inbox).



Wal-Mart, 7/21 — Small Spaces 101: Introduction to Savings
Toward the bottom of this back-to-school email, Wal-Mart announces the launch of Wal-Mart Classifieds to subscribers, apparently looking to take on Craigslist.



Home Depot, 7/21 — Make Your Home a Vacation Destination
Home Depot joins Toys “R” Us (see June 30 AM Inbox) and Wal-Mart in using “stay-cation” messaging, even if they’re not yet using the term, which refers to staying home for vacations to save on travel costs.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Dick’s Sporting Goods, 7/21 — Back to School Savings
Kmart, 7/21 — Back to School Savings - Get 10% off $49 Clothing Purchases and More
TigerDirect, 7/21 — 50 Deals Cheaper than a Tank of Gas
Hallmark, 7/21 — Photo Cards: Buy and customize online. We'll mail.
NFLshop, 7/21 — NFLShop - Free Shipping - Get Ready For Training Camp
Bluefly, 7/21 — Up to 40% Off New Fall Outerwear
Saks Fifth Avenue, 7/21 — Fall's Must-Have Shoes & Bags
J. Crew, 7/21 — New shoe debut...
SmartBargains, 7/21 — Was $200, now $59.98. Plus 10% off your order.
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AM Inbox: Forward-to-a-friend as the primary CTA

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

AbeBooks, 7/18 — Textbooks: Give a Student the Gift of Savings!
This is a pretty compelling use of forward to a friend. They’ve made it the primary call-to-action of this email and instead of saying “Forward to a Student,” they used a much more compelling “Help a Student Save” call-to-action. Hitting the button takes you to a special forward-to-a-friend form with the student language on it. They wisely didn’t use their standard forward-to-a-friend landing page. Sometimes I hear marketers saying that they only see forward rates of less than 1% and I always ask, “What have you done to try to boost that? Do you ever incorporate the send-to-a-friend button into your primary message?” This is the kind of treatment I’m referring to. I’m sure they saw much more than a 1% forward rate from this (and that’s not including folks that forwarded it via their email client). For more on forward to a friend, check out the Send to a Friend Benchmark Study.



Nordstrom, 7/18 — Anniversary Sale! Shop the Fashion Event of the Year
Instead of using the traditional “the sale ends Monday, Aug. 4” language, in this email Nordstrom says that “Prices go up Monday, Aug. 4.” The alternative wording is refreshing and perhaps worth testing.



Lands’ End, 7/18 — Go back to school with backpacks that are Guaranteed. Period.®
Lands’ End has debuted a new header. They’ve dropped the background color around the email, which sometimes made the preheader text difficult to read, and reversed the colors on the logo so it’s now navy on white. Those two changes give the email a cleaner look. On the downside, the new header (including the preheader and nav bar) is about 50 pixels taller than before, which means that less of the body of the email appears above the fold. All the white space between the logo and nav bar seems excessive.



And here’s the old header from a July 15 email:



Sephora, 7/20 — You 5 top eye questions, answered!
Normally Sephora’s emails are super solid, but they’ve gotten a little sloppy lately (see July 18 AM Inbox). In this email, they left the “r” off of “Your” in the subject line and say they answer 5 eye questions when 6 are actually answered in the email.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Blair, 7/19 — Men's Christmas in July special. $2.99 shipping.
Sears, 7/18 — Back to School Fashion Moving Fast. Shop now at Sears.
DisneyShopping, 7/18 — Free Shipping in Our Back to School Shop
Neiman Marcus, 7/18 — FREE TOTE & NEW JUICY: Back 2 School Event + Free Shipping
JCPenney, 7/18 — Save 30-70% Online! Plus, In-Store Savings This Weekend
Kmart, 7/18 — Try Kmart Pharmacy and Get a $10 Gift Card, $1 Rewards and More
Avon, 7/18 — FREE Gift & FREE Shipping with NEW ANEW 24-Hour Eye Moisturizer
Chadwick’s, 7/18 — Take an extra 10% off, from our Sr. Vice President!
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Week-End Trends: Where are the surfing Santas?

Email activity and promotional trends during the past week:

The Retail Email Index rose 1% to 204 during the week ending July 18, and is down 4% from where it was four weeks ago. The Index score indicates that the top 100 online retailers sent just more than 2 promotional emails each on average last week.



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



The Retail Email Seasonality Meter: There have been surprisingly few “Christmas in July” emails so far. Last year at this time, about 2% of the weekly email volume mentioned Christmas. Given all the economic uncertainly, people may just not be in the mood yet for Christmas cheer.



Other things referenced by retailers: Batman, summer, fall, outdoors, travel
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Ping Time: Jason Calacanis converts to email, permission expires, etc.

Our latest spin around the mediasphere turned up the following nuggets:

>>TechCrunch reports on Jason Calacanis abandoning blogging for emailing and posts his first email to subscribers, which explains why he made the switch. >>Follow the ping

>>DJ Waldow talks about the expiration of permission (it doesn’t last forever). The post includes a great graphic that everyone should print out and post in their office. >>Follow the ping

>>Jeanne Jennings shares a program for re-engaging inactives on your email list. >>Follow the ping

>>Loren McDonald explains how each of the major mobile platforms handles multipart emails. >>Follow the ping

>>Lisa Harmon over at the EDM Review shares a couple of birthday emails from Tully’s and Sephora. >>Follow the smell of cake
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AM Inbox: Circuit City launches wish list sweeps

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

Circuit City, 7/17 — Deals of the Day & bonus coupon for you
Toward the bottom of this email, Circuit City incentivizes wish list creation with a sweeps. I’m not sure if this is targeting the holiday season or not—seems really early for that—but this promotion is similar to Old Navy’s “Wish It, Win It” sweepstakes last holiday season (see Nov. 19 AM Inbox). I really like the concept of these kinds of sweepstakes because they encourage browsing and product attachment and in this case familiarize customers with an ecommerce tool they may not have used before. If you’re still running product giveaway sweeps, then it’s time to step it up and get more creative with your sweepstakes. For more on incentive tactic ideas, check out Incentives Aren't Just for Conversions Anymore.



Sephora, 7/17 — New! 6 life-changing beauty innovations
I doubt that many subscribers noticed, but this email actually has only 5 life-changing beauty innovations. I wouldn’t have noticed if it hadn’t been for the preheader message which got it right. It’s good to spot check your subject lines and preheader messages to make sure they’re in sync. As far as oopsies go, this is squarely in the “no apology necessary” camp. For more on apologies, check out When and How to Say You’re Sorry.



Home Depot, 7/17 — Save Big on New RIDGID Reconditioned Tools
Over the past few months I’ve noticed an uptick in emails promoting “reconditioned,” “refurbished” and “recertified” products. With consumers feeling pinched economically, they are probably more receptive to these products right now.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
KB Toys, 7/17 — Batman Toys You Must See
Bluefly, 7/17 — Fall Dress Preview
Coach, 7/17 — Little luxuries, just a click away
Sports Authority, 7/17 — Exclusive Offer: 25% Off Online or In-Store
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AM Inbox: Your sister's name is Spam

>>Two-Click Survey: What is the primary metric by which you measure the success of your subject line A/B tests? See the results.

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

Babies “R” Us, 7/16 — Save up to 30% on Spring/Summer items PLUS Free Shipping on Select Graco!
When I subscribed to Toy “R” Us’s email program I was given the option to also receive emails from sister brand Babies “R” Us. I distinctly remember not checking that box, so after months of receiving Toys “R” Us emails I was pretty perplexed to see this Babies “R” Us email land in my inbox with zero explanation. Sent under the “Babies R Us” sender name and from a Babies “R” Us branded sender address babiesrus@babiesrus.rsys1.com and with a Babies “R” Us logo, this is the kind of explicit permission violation that’s likely to turn into spam complaints.



PetSmart, 7/16 — See what's new at the pets.com pet community!
PetSmart did considerably better with this Pets.com email. They used the familiar “PetSmart” brand as their sender name and worked the Pets.com brand into the subject line. On the downside, they sent the email from a different address than usual (although it still bore PetSmart branding (petperks@e1.petsmart-mail.com)), and used the Pets.com logo instead of PetSmart. There is PetSmart branding in the header, but I don’t see why they couldn’t have used their normal banner. The call-to-actions would have still driven subscribers to Pets.com just as effectively while the PetSmart banner would have boosted recognition in the inbox.



Bluefly, 7/16 — Its Time To Think About Cashmere...
It’s time to think about spelling “it’s” correctly.

SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Macy’s, 7/16 — Gas prices got you down? This week clearance items ship for only 99¢
Kmart, 7/16 — Midnight Madness is Back Tonight - Save up to 40%
Spiegel, 7/16 — Lunchtime Special: Extra 25% OFF Already-Reduced Designer Styles & More!
Saks Fifth Avenue, 7/16 — The New Denim Shop
Drs. Foster & Smith, 7/16 — Our Biggest Sale Ever Plus Photo Contest Winners
Target, 7/16 — What makes a house a home: Stylish finds and select free shipping.
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Stat Source: Subject line length, embedded video, etc.

Retail email marketing statistics and benchmarks from the past month:

Stat: Longer subject lines (of 70 or more characters) earn a much higher click-to-open rate—an indication of real relevance—than shorter subject lines. Out of 700 subject lines monitored recently, only 6% of them were over 70 characters long and therefore likely to optimize click and CTO rates. Source: Alchemy Worx’ Subject Lines: Length is Everything and Challenging Subject Line Length Assumptions
>>If you haven’t tested longer, more descriptive subject lines, here’s your justification.

Stat: When asked “Embedded video in email, does it work?” 89% of respondents selected a No response, with the leading result being attributed to poor support in email clients (50%) and rendering issues (27%). Source: EmailKarma’s Video Poll Results
>>Stick with links to video content online. For tips on how to maximize video content in your emails, check out MAKE IT POP!: Video in Email – So Hot Right Now on the Email Experience Blog.

Stat: New research out of the UK has examined the relative effectiveness of different advertising media for encouraging consumers to visit a company’s website and seriously consider a purchase. The report found that emails to existing customers easily topped the list, as it is 52% more likely than average to inspire a web visit and serious purchase consideration. Source: Response One Group’s Online Turn On?
>>Consider this more ammo to convince executives to shift more marketing budget to email.

Stat: During the second quarter (April-June), 50% of major online retailers used a “preview pane banner” in at least one email. A preview pane banner is a banner that typically appears right beneath the header and promotes something other than the primary call-to-action. Source: The Retail Email Blog’s The Rise of the Preview Pane Banner
>>If you haven’t tested adding a preview pane banner, give it a whirl.

For more stats, read past Stat Source posts or visit eec silver sponsor EmailStatCenter.com. Also check out results from the eec’s latest Two-Click Survey.
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AM Inbox: Promoting TV programming via email

>>Two-Click Survey: What is the primary metric by which you measure the success of your subject line A/B tests? See the results.

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

Bluefly, 7/15 — Extra 10% Off Everything - Today Only
TV-commerce players like HSN, ShopNBC, ShopPBS and QVC routinely promote their TV schedule in their emails. But other retailers can also get in on the TV action. For instance, in this email Bluefly continues their sponsorship with Bravo’s Project Runway and promotes the season debut, in addition to using host Tim Gunn’s visage to promote a 10% “auf” deal. Cute.



MLB, 7/15 — Watch the All-Star Game tonight on Fox
MLB also uses their email program to promote TV programming and in this case uses a subject line dedicated to that TV call-to-action.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
TigerDirect, 7/15 — Top 10 Back to School Deals
Dell, 7/15 — Stay Connected on Campus - Up to $400 Off Select Systems
Bed Bath & Beyond, 7/15 — Enter for a chance to Win! Shop Smart For College.
Drs. Foster & Smith, 7/15 — How to Remove a Tick
Crutchfield, 7/15 — Save now on Sony BRAVIA HDTVs; Video - Wall-mounting your TV
Neiman Marcus, 7/15 — 2 parts chic, 1 part sweet=NANETTE LEPORE + Free Shipping
Banana Republic, 7/15 — WorkStyleFile: elegant and versatile new looks just in
Victoria’s Secret, 7/15 — New Fall Looks You Can Wear Right Now.
Nascar, 7/15 — Customize Your Own Driver Apparel!
Alibris, 7/15 — NOTICE: Only 6 days left to use your coupon, Book lover
Spiegel, 7/15 — SALE: Irresistible Swim Savings up to 75% OFF!
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AM Inbox: Sam's Club announces 'pick up in store' program

>>Two-Click Survey: What is the primary metric by which you measure the success of your subject line A/B tests? See the results.

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

Sam’s Club, 7/14 — Upgrade your lifestyle today
Sam’s Club soft launches a “pick up in store” program that they’re calling Click ‘n’ Pull. With this email, they’ve added a new “Click ‘n’ Pull” tab to their navigation bar and called it out with a box in the left-hand rail below the fold in the email. Sam’s Club joins Cabela’s, Circuit City, Coach, Linens ’n Things, Sears and Wal-Mart in promoting their “ship to store” and “buy online, pick up in store” programs via email.


…


Art.com, 7/14 — 20% off + 3 Ways to Reinvent a Room
With this email, Art.com has started adding a personalized greeting to their preheader text, adding it right before the preheader message that summarizes the content of the email. That placement allows the subscriber’s name to appear in the snippet text for the message when viewed in Outlook or Gmail. Right now, the only other major retailer that includes a personalized greeting in their preheader text is Drs. Foster & Smith. For more on preheaders, check out the Retail Email Rendering Benchmark Study.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Sears, 7/14 — Huge TV Deals & Back To School Savings To Match
Kmart, 7/14 — Back To School Savings Have Begun. Shop Kmart Now.
Neiman Marcus, 7/14 — Latest trends in shoes & handbags + FREE SHIPPING
Coldwater Creek, 7/14 — Save up to 50%...Shop your size now!
Victoria’s Secret, 7/14 — One More Reason To Love Summer: 300+ Swim Styles.
Road Runner Sports, 7/14 — Last Chance to Save on 1,737 Top Items!
Chadwick’s, 7/14 — Ten of your favorite things! 50% off...
NFLshop, 7/14 — FREE 2008 NFL Fantasy Football Preview Magazine w/ $75 Order
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Reportlet: The Rise of the Preview Pane Banner

The increasing use of preview panes to view emails has changed how marketers design their messages, putting great emphasis on getting the primary call-to-action above the fold. The retailers that I track have been steadily improving in regards to this design imperative. Along with this improvement, during the first half of this year there’s been a growing trend of using what I call “preview pane banners”—which are banners that typically appear right beneath the header and promote something other than the primary call-to-action. Whereas in the past these secondary message banners would have appeared after the primary message, where they would have fallen below the fold and gone unseen by many subscribers, they’re now appearing before the primary message to increase their visibility.

Preview pane banners allow marketers to squeeze an additional call-to-action into the preview pane while taking away only a little viewable space away from the primary message. Judging by the uptake of this design tactic, many retailers are finding the trade-off worthwhile. During the second quarter (April-June), 50% of major online retailers used a preview pane banner in at least one email. These banners ranged from a slender 26 pixels in height up to a beefy 180 pixels, with an average in the neighborhood of 65 pixels.

This 13-page reportlet goes on to discuss the various content strategies for preview pane banners and provides 19 examples of creatives from retailers.

Visit the eec’s Whitepaper Room to download “The Rise of the Preview Pane Banner,” which is free or discounted for eec members and available for a nominal charge to non-members. Not a member? Learn more about becoming a member of the Email Experience Council.

Other reportlets available:
7 Tactics for Driving Traffic to Stores with Email
Sender Line Branding Tactics in Retail Emails
Incentives Aren't Just for Conversions Anymore
When and How to Say You’re Sorry
Holiday Retail Email Volume Soars
Retail Email Year-End Trends for 2007
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AM Inbox: Toys 'R' Us in CAN-SPAM gray area

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

Toys “R” Us, 7/11 — A Message from Gerald L. Storch, Chairman and CEO, Toys R Us Inc.
Toys “R” Us has sent another email about their child safety campaign. It’s very similar to their email from last November (see Nov. 19 AM Inbox), with a couple of notable differences. First, you’ll notice that at the end of the email there’s no unsubscribe link. While this particular email is not promotional, it was sent under a permission grant that was for promotional emails—this is, this email is part of a subscription for promotional emails. Given that fact, why should people not be able to opt-out of the email stream at this particular point? Toys “R” Us included an unsubscribe link (as well as a subscribe link for folks who received the email from a friend) in that safety email on Nov. 16, so I wonder what prompted their change in thinking. While mostly likely not a violation of CAN-SPAM, this is certainly not subscriber-friendly.

And second, the subject line is much shorter this time—65 characters vs. 100. While longer subject lines may be much more effective than we previous thought, accord to new research from Alchemy Worx, I argued back in November that there were some empty words in their subject line: “Our Commitment to Safety: A Holiday Message from Toys"R"Us, Inc Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.” While I was happy to see that they abbreviated “CEO” this time around, and adding Storch’s name probably gave it more gravitas, they missed an opportunity to drop some key words in there—namely, “child safety.” What parent isn’t concerned with child safety? So a subject line like “A Child Safety Message from Gerald L. Storch, Chairman and CEO, Toys R Us Inc.” might have done better. And “A Child Safety Message from Toys R Us CEO Gerald L. Storch,” which moves the brand name up and tightens Gerry’s title, might have done better yet. Of course, there’s no way to absolutely without testing, but those are changes worth considering.



REI, 7/11 — Run, Bike, Swim...Triathlon Gear and Advice at REI
This is the first asymmetrical animated gif that I’ve seen. It appears that REI uses one frame each of the “SWIM,” “BIKE” and “RUN” images followed by about 8 frames of the “TRI” image. The extra time that the “TRI” image is displayed gives subscribers time to read the deck on the image. REI couples that animation with boxes promoting swimming, biking and running products, plus a banner highlighting expert advice.



Here’s the animated portion of that email:



Macy’s, 7/13 — Shop our Buy More, Save More Event now!
Just like Bed Bath & Beyond and others provide wedding registry checklists, Macy’s provides a back-to-school checklist. These checklists are not only a nice service piece, but also a good way to get customers to buy things that they might not have thought of.



SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Dell, 7/11 — Save $369 on Select Systems from Dell to Stay Connected on Campus
MLB, 7/11 — Get Free All-Star Game Text Alerts
Frederick’s of Hollywood, 7/11 — How can you resist? The hottest styles. The lowest prices.
Lands’ End, 7/13 — Summer's End Savings Event: click and save on swimsuits and more
Walgreens, 7/13 — 25% Off Posters thru July 19 at Walgreens
TigerDirect, 7/11 — Over $5000 in Savings for Chad
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