Season Finale: Back to School 2009
A look back on seasonal trends, email activity and standout B2C marketing:
Start to finish: The first reference to back to school was on June 17 by Lillian Vernon. The final reference was on Sept. 23.
The distribution curve: The biggest day for back-to-school emails was Sunday, Aug. 9, followed by Sunday, Aug. 2. Retailers sent the majority of their back-to-school-themed emails after Aug. 7.
Most interesting emails: In this Aug. 28 email, PC Connection uses some fun hyperbole to encourage customers to upgrade their products for back to school.
Office Depot, in this July 31 email, appealed to their customers’ sense of charity and school pride by offering to give 5% of your purchase total back to your school.
In this Aug. 5 email, Bed Bath & Beyond engages subscribers by asking if they have any ideas for dorm room products. Bed Bath used this same tactic earlier in the year to reach out to women shoppers (see Mar. 10 AM Inbox). Does one of your customers have the next hot product idea?
Looking to address the problem of school-mandated (or job-mandated) all-white or all-black shoes, Finish Line sent this Aug. 5 email with the subject line “Dress Code Approved And Free Shipping!” What problems are you making easier for your subscribers to solve?
Email 2.0 angle: While last back-to-school season was characterized by a heavy use of video, I expected this year’s to have a heavy social media tone. I was wrong. Sears was one of the only retailers to include a social media angle in their emails, promoting their CampusReady page on Facebook in a July 20 email.
Lands’ End promoted their Packland microsite in an Aug. 5 email. The site allows kids to add various fantastical elements to a Lands’ End backpack like magic wands and rocket-boosters. It doesn’t appear that the site was very successful as it’s already been pulled down.
Standout call-to-action: While the “Shop Now” language is boring in this July 5 Toys “R” Us email, the pencil is fun. I wonder if they would have gotten more clicks if the pencil tip had been pointing to the right instead of the left.
Standout subject lines:
Lillian Vernon, 7/26 — Back to School Plus 15% Off Equals an A+
Hallmark, 8/1 — Ideas to encourage kids on the first day of school
RitzCamera, 8/22 — Super Student Special, 10% OFF (Use Coupon Code 1828)
Subject lines that stand out for the wrong reasons:
Sam’s Club, 7/23 — Go back totally stacked. Shop for college at Sam's Club.
I’m not sure what definition of stacked they were going for. Does Sam’s Club sell boob jobs now?
Read previous Back-to-School Season Finales: 2008, 2007, 2006
Explore Back-to-school 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 back to school was on June 17 by Lillian Vernon. The final reference was on Sept. 23.
The distribution curve: The biggest day for back-to-school emails was Sunday, Aug. 9, followed by Sunday, Aug. 2. Retailers sent the majority of their back-to-school-themed emails after Aug. 7.
Most interesting emails: In this Aug. 28 email, PC Connection uses some fun hyperbole to encourage customers to upgrade their products for back to school.
Office Depot, in this July 31 email, appealed to their customers’ sense of charity and school pride by offering to give 5% of your purchase total back to your school.
In this Aug. 5 email, Bed Bath & Beyond engages subscribers by asking if they have any ideas for dorm room products. Bed Bath used this same tactic earlier in the year to reach out to women shoppers (see Mar. 10 AM Inbox). Does one of your customers have the next hot product idea?
Looking to address the problem of school-mandated (or job-mandated) all-white or all-black shoes, Finish Line sent this Aug. 5 email with the subject line “Dress Code Approved And Free Shipping!” What problems are you making easier for your subscribers to solve?
Email 2.0 angle: While last back-to-school season was characterized by a heavy use of video, I expected this year’s to have a heavy social media tone. I was wrong. Sears was one of the only retailers to include a social media angle in their emails, promoting their CampusReady page on Facebook in a July 20 email.
Lands’ End promoted their Packland microsite in an Aug. 5 email. The site allows kids to add various fantastical elements to a Lands’ End backpack like magic wands and rocket-boosters. It doesn’t appear that the site was very successful as it’s already been pulled down.
Standout call-to-action: While the “Shop Now” language is boring in this July 5 Toys “R” Us email, the pencil is fun. I wonder if they would have gotten more clicks if the pencil tip had been pointing to the right instead of the left.
Standout subject lines:
Lillian Vernon, 7/26 — Back to School Plus 15% Off Equals an A+
Hallmark, 8/1 — Ideas to encourage kids on the first day of school
RitzCamera, 8/22 — Super Student Special, 10% OFF (Use Coupon Code 1828)
Subject lines that stand out for the wrong reasons:
Sam’s Club, 7/23 — Go back totally stacked. Shop for college at Sam's Club.
I’m not sure what definition of stacked they were going for. Does Sam’s Club sell boob jobs now?
Read previous Back-to-School Season Finales: 2008, 2007, 2006
Explore Back-to-school tag.
_____________________
SEARCH... By Post Category / By Selling Season / By Retailer / By Topic / Monthly Archive
Labels: Back to School, Bed Bath and Beyond, Charity, Finish Line, Lands' End, Office Depot, PC Connection, Recruiting, Sears, Season Finale, Social Networks, Toys "R" Us
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posted at 1:10 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.
1 Comments:
Chad,
Thanks for mentioning our email campaign!
We had a lot of fun with this promotion, especially when it came to hunting down some old school images for these categories (scary to see what some of these products used to look like)!
We got some great feedback from some of our customers during the promotion, and our team was really happy to see our work spotlighted in your blog today!
Thanks again for the shout out!
Best regards,
Seth Brady
Director of Ecommerce
PCConnection.com
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