MOST EYE-CATCHING DESIGN
Great eye-catching design combines great copywriting and inspired imagery. Here are my picks for standout design from 2009:
HPshopping, 3/30 — Shop the HP Monster Sale: Up to 50% OFF and Storewide FREE SHIPPING
Kudos to HP for recognizing this Monsters vs. Aliens movie tie-in email as an opportunity to flex their creativity and design an email that really stands out. Playing off the size of Susan/Ginormica, the 50-ft star of the movie, they have her poking out the top of the email frame. In fact, many subscribers probably will only see her head and shoulders in their preview pane, which should entice them to scroll down and see what’s going on in this email. It’s a bold, fun creative design. (You can read more about this award-winning email here.)
Spiegel, 4/23 — Celebrate "Bring Our Daughters to Work Day" with 25% OFF ALL Washed Linen!
Leveraging a minor holiday, this email humanizes Spiegel by showing the kids of staffers—and who doesn’t like cute kids? Plus, Spiegel deftly ties this dress-up session into their Style Quiz segmentation program. Simple and brilliant.
Tiffany & Co., 3/13 — A Charming Tiffany Tale
This Tiffany email is totally delightful with its engaging pictogram story about the arrival of spring. It’s clever, whimsical and engaging, and highlights products in a non-traditional way.
Dell, 2/28 — Dell Invites You to Experience Its Stunning New Studio XPS Desktop
Although it’s not immediately clear when you open the email that the body copy is written on the front of the computer case for the new Studio XPS Desktop, it definitely looks different from their usual email design and likely had subscribers scrolling down at which point they realized what the background image was.
Lane Bryant, 5/13 — Satisfy Your Curiosity And See What's Underneath It All
Submessage banners don’t usually get much design attention, and consequently are usually highly forgettable. But this Lane Bryant banner breaks the mold and stands out. Instead of a straight bottom edge, Lane Bryant uses a very on-brand curvaceous tape measure that complements the message of the banner.
BEST USE OF ANIMATION
Animated gifs can amuse, extend screen real estate and draw attention to a message. Here are some standout examples from last year:
Art.com, 10/26 — Up to 30% off! + Experience the Custom Frame Studio!
The animation in this Art.com email walks you through the steps of using the Custom Frame Studio. This unique instructional application of an animated gif allows subscribers to see how easy it is to frame a piece of art.
L.L. Bean, 4/28 — Summer Comfort: The Long & Short of It
A whimsical spin on a product demonstration, L.L. Bean gives us an excellent example of how to use animated gifs to produce a subtle, yet striking effect. Delightfully illustrative.
Harry & David, 10/23 — LAST DAY for Halloween treats with Standard Delivery - Free on select items
This was my favorite animated gif of the Halloween season. It’s eye-catching, fun, on-brand and supports the message of the email.
L.L. Bean, 3/3 — "A Great Investment"--in 19 Colors
Product reviews and testimonials have become critically important to converting sales. L.L. Bean has a strong grasp of this and has been active in using ratings and testimonial quotes from reviews to promote their products in their emails. In this email, they use animation to flip through three quotes related to value and how a purchase of a L.L. Bean duffle is an “investment,” looking to appeal to cash-strapped customers.
MOST INTRIGUING CALL-TO-ACTION
You should be testing calls-to-action in the same way that you do subject lines. Depending on your customer base, subscribers may respond better to something other than the oft-used “Buy Now.” Softening the sell, injecting humor or using a benefits-related call-to-action (CTA) may be more enticing in the end. Here are some standout CTAs from last year:
Backcountry.com, 5/5 — Rain or Shine - Get out and Play
Always shunning the overused “Buy Now,” Backcountry does a great job of using short, often action-oriented calls-to-action like “Brave the Rain.”
Spiegel, 1/27 — VOTE for Your Favorite New Spring Collection Look!
Spiegel’s “Vote” call-to-action is a softer sell than a “Buy Now” button, while also being more participatory and interactive. Given the state of the economy, subscribers may also appreciate and respond better to a less demanding CTA. Spiegel may also use the clickthrough data from this email to inform their decisions on which outfits (and models) to feature in their catalog, advertising, etc.
TigerDirect, 3/10 — New Trend Saves Money...Acer 22" LCD $139...Acer Netbook $239...More Deals
While “Click Here!” is a pretty tired call-to-action, using the coffee cup as the “button” for the CTA is very attention-getting and complements this newspaper design really well.
BEST USE OF MULTICHANNEL
Facebook, catalogs, Twitter, stores, mobile… In today’s environment, you can’t see these as channels that are competing against email. They’re complementary, and provide your customers with a menu of ways to get involved with your brand. Here are some inspired examples of multichannel engagement from the previous year:
Buy.com, 5/27 — Buy.com's Tweet n Seek
Rather than simply saying, “Follow us on Twitter,” Buy.com dedicates an entire email to their Tweet n Seek game, which engages subscribers on Twitter. Even better, the game has participants searching Buy.com, visiting their Facebook page, and reading products pages. When people talk about multichannel engagement, this is what they’re talking about.
Barnes & Noble, 7/7 — This Week -- Coupons, Nora Roberts, Free iPhone App, Blu-ray Sale, More
As a submessage in this email, Barnes & Noble promotes their B&N Bookstore iPhone app, which allows users to take a picture of a book, CD or DVD and get reviews for it. B&N strengthens the call-to-action by spurring downloads with an in-store incentive of free coffee at a B&N Café. So in a tight little package, they’ve tied together their email, mobile, internet and store channels. Customers see this as all Barnes & Noble, so there’s no reason not to mingle all your channels like this.
Sony, 1/8 — Exclusive preview: Sony launches new products at Consumer Electronics Show 2009
In this email, Sony perfectly pairs their new product launches at CES with a variety of digital touchpoints, driving subscribers to their newly redesigned blog, Facebook page for CES, Flickr page, YouTube channel, and Twitter stream. It’s great to see Sony not hesitate at all to refer email subscribers to other channels for additional engagement. For a technology brand like Sony, this kind of email supports their brand image by showing that they’re tech-savvy and plugged into the web 2.0 world.
Bluefly, 6/30 — Party Girl's Night Out!
Increasingly, retailers are moving beyond simple appeals to “join us” on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. Instead, they’re giving email subscribers a compelling reason to take part in a conversation on a social network. For instance, in this email Bluefly asks subscribers to go to their Facebook page and tell them what their summer must-have is. The contest instructions were a little lacking, but the idea behind the social campaign was solid as it was intrinsically viral because it encouraged people to ask their friends to “like” their post so they could win.
Want more design inspiration?
Check out the 2008 and 2007 inductees into the Design Hall of Fame, as well as the Email Design Look Book.
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5 comments:
Good picks ... but Bluefly's 6/30 design should be disqualified based solely on the fact that they can't spell. "Shoping"? Oops!
And the misspelling landed this email in the Oopsy Hall of Fame as well, but I looked past that for their inclusion here. The approach with this Facebook campaign was truly innovative.
Sure, they are good looking, but are they emails?
Most of them are pictures sent in an email.
These emails will most guaranteed not reach my inbox but will be trapped in my spam filter, because that they are not really emails, but pictures.
You americans don't seem to be favourising design instead of deliverability. In europe it is more important to reach the inbox.
Anonymous,
I don't think that anyone takes deliverability lightly. I'm not a deliverability expert, but it's my understanding that image-text balance has a relatively small impact on deliverability--which is to say that if you shun images because of deliverability fears then you probably have permissioning problems and other issues that are hurting your sender reputation. It's smarter to clean up your reputation than to hamstring your email design, especially considering that image-based emails outperform for many brands.
I agree with the comment that these are not emails, but rather images. Were I to receive any of these messages, they would appear blank because all four email clients I use default to images turned off. I can't be bothered to read anything like this.
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