AM Inbox: First reference to Valentine's Day
>>New year, new retailers to track. I’ve started formally tracking several new retailers as of yesterday, including BabyUniverse, Etronics, J&R, Kohl’s, Lane Bryant, NikeStore, PC Connection, Sierra Trading Post, and The Company Store.
The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:
Orvis, 1/5 — Give a hand-drawn portrait for Valentine's Day. It's easy, and it's on sale!
Orvis gives us our first reference to Valentine’s Day. This is certainly on the early side, but given the lead time necessary to create these custom portaits, it’s clearly necessary. Check out last year’s Valentine’s Day Season Finale for inspiration and to help plan your Valentine’s Day emails this year.
Sephora, 1/3 — Brand new year, brand new products
About a third of retailers changed their header for the holidays, adding either seasonal imagery or navigation to gift departments, or both. So now that the holidays are behind us, it’s not a bad time to think about updating your header, as Sephora does in this email. Perhaps you learned something from your holiday header that will help inform some smart changes to your usual header.
Some of the changes Sephora made are a little unusual. While they move to a white background, which is easier to read text on, the new header is about 40 pixels longer than their previous one. That’s in part because they’ve moved their free shipping offer up so that it’s at the top of the header rather than following the navigation bar as a preview pane banner. They also right-aligned both the preheader message and the links in the nav bar. While the right-justified preheader message creates space around and highlights the free shipping offer, right-justifying the nav bar links seems odd and counterintuitive. But presumably they tested it and it performed at least as well as before. Here’s the new header:
And here’s the old header from a Dec. 26 email:
Home Depot, 1/5 — 6 New Year's Resolutions for You & Your Home
Home Depot gives us another great example of a tightly designed New Year’s resolutions email. People like lists, so mentioning the number of resolutions in the subject line probably drove more opens.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Circuit City, 1/3 — Make those resolutions stick! Save on gear for fitness, family fun & more
Wal-Mart, 1/5 — Trim Your Body and Your Budget
Sam’s Club, 1/4 — Start 2009 with Healthy Living on Your Mind
Sports Authority, 1/5 — Start The Year Off Right - Free Shipping on Select Fitness Equipment!
Art.com, 1/5 — 20% Off + Resolve... to Suit Your Style
Cooking.com, 1/5 — Comfort Food Resolution: Recipes for Saucy Chicken, Lighter Casseroles, Baked Potatoes
Drugstore.com, 1/4 — Save up to 40% and ring in the New Year
Chadwick’s, 1/5 — Look forward to a new you! Over 100 new spring styles.
Barnes & Noble, 1/5 — Paul McKenna's Bestseller -- I Can Make You Thin
Sears, 1/5 — All Your Fitness On Sale
Norm Thompson, 1/5 — Best Rolling Tote still at '08 price...but only 2 more days!
Ralph Lauren, 1/3 — Missing Something From Your List? Shop These Great Savings On Select Styles
Old Navy, 1/5 — New Reductions! Save up to 75% on Clearance
Bloomingdale’s, 1/4 — Final Day: Take 50% Off Online + Save 50%-75% In-Store!
DisneyShopping, 1/5 — New Semi-Annual Sale Markdowns - Save Up to 65%!
Urban Outfitters, 1/5 — Last Chance - 25% Off Sale!
_____________________
SEARCH... By Post Category / By Selling Season / By Retailer / By Topic / Monthly Archive
The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:
Orvis, 1/5 — Give a hand-drawn portrait for Valentine's Day. It's easy, and it's on sale!
Orvis gives us our first reference to Valentine’s Day. This is certainly on the early side, but given the lead time necessary to create these custom portaits, it’s clearly necessary. Check out last year’s Valentine’s Day Season Finale for inspiration and to help plan your Valentine’s Day emails this year.
Sephora, 1/3 — Brand new year, brand new products
About a third of retailers changed their header for the holidays, adding either seasonal imagery or navigation to gift departments, or both. So now that the holidays are behind us, it’s not a bad time to think about updating your header, as Sephora does in this email. Perhaps you learned something from your holiday header that will help inform some smart changes to your usual header.
Some of the changes Sephora made are a little unusual. While they move to a white background, which is easier to read text on, the new header is about 40 pixels longer than their previous one. That’s in part because they’ve moved their free shipping offer up so that it’s at the top of the header rather than following the navigation bar as a preview pane banner. They also right-aligned both the preheader message and the links in the nav bar. While the right-justified preheader message creates space around and highlights the free shipping offer, right-justifying the nav bar links seems odd and counterintuitive. But presumably they tested it and it performed at least as well as before. Here’s the new header:
And here’s the old header from a Dec. 26 email:
Home Depot, 1/5 — 6 New Year's Resolutions for You & Your Home
Home Depot gives us another great example of a tightly designed New Year’s resolutions email. People like lists, so mentioning the number of resolutions in the subject line probably drove more opens.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Circuit City, 1/3 — Make those resolutions stick! Save on gear for fitness, family fun & more
Wal-Mart, 1/5 — Trim Your Body and Your Budget
Sam’s Club, 1/4 — Start 2009 with Healthy Living on Your Mind
Sports Authority, 1/5 — Start The Year Off Right - Free Shipping on Select Fitness Equipment!
Art.com, 1/5 — 20% Off + Resolve... to Suit Your Style
Cooking.com, 1/5 — Comfort Food Resolution: Recipes for Saucy Chicken, Lighter Casseroles, Baked Potatoes
Drugstore.com, 1/4 — Save up to 40% and ring in the New Year
Chadwick’s, 1/5 — Look forward to a new you! Over 100 new spring styles.
Barnes & Noble, 1/5 — Paul McKenna's Bestseller -- I Can Make You Thin
Sears, 1/5 — All Your Fitness On Sale
Norm Thompson, 1/5 — Best Rolling Tote still at '08 price...but only 2 more days!
Ralph Lauren, 1/3 — Missing Something From Your List? Shop These Great Savings On Select Styles
Old Navy, 1/5 — New Reductions! Save up to 75% on Clearance
Bloomingdale’s, 1/4 — Final Day: Take 50% Off Online + Save 50%-75% In-Store!
DisneyShopping, 1/5 — New Semi-Annual Sale Markdowns - Save Up to 65%!
Urban Outfitters, 1/5 — Last Chance - 25% Off Sale!
_____________________
SEARCH... By Post Category / By Selling Season / By Retailer / By Topic / Monthly Archive
Labels: AM Inbox, Email Redesigns, Home Depot, New Year's, Orvis, Sephora, Valentine's Day
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posted at 4:37 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.
2 Comments:
Hello,
I want to comment a little bit the part of your article concerning SEPHORA.
I read my emails on Outlook 2007 and unfortuneatly the nav bar of the new header doesn't render very well. Buttons aren't right aligned and there are spaces between them.
I didn't deeply look at in order to know where does the problem come from but it's a bit annoying...
Actually, for a retailer, Valentine's Day is just around the corner!
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