Williams-Sonoma — 1 Week Only - Free Shipping on all Cutlery
A few days after receiving a triggered email from Williams-Sonoma after I clicked through an email and browsed some cutlery (see Mar. 28 AM Inbox), they sent me this follow-up email which included an incentive. So while the first triggered email sought to educate me about the other cutlery and cutlery-related products they sell, this second email tried to address any price concerns I might have to get me to convert. Among the very few retailers I’ve seen send browse-based emails, this is the first I’ve seen use a series of emails.
Sephora, 3/30 — Sample Spree. One Week Only.
The “Select this sample” radio buttons in this email beg to be clicked on—even though they don’t work. Clicking anywhere takes you to the landing page, which has a similar (but oddly, not identical) product arrangement. This email does a smart job of exploiting behaviors that we’ve learned online, such as clicking radio buttons, pull-down menus and the like. Visual cues such as those can help generate clicks, which can lead to conversions when there is a smooth transition from the email to the landing page as there is in this instance.
SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines
Chadwicks, 3/30 — Shop Over 40 Dresses for Easter & More!
Lane Bryant, 3/30 — Update Your Bra Wardrobe For Spring + Bra Fit Event Weekend
Diamond.com, 3/30 — Rock the Runway with Fashion Collections
GameStop, 3/30 — Great Deals - We're knocking them out of the park this week…
Fingerhut, 3/30 — Fingerhut: It’s HERE! Shop the NEWEST Spring BIG Book!
J. Jill, 3/30 — 20% off your entire purchase. Hello, how do you hue?
_____________________
BROWSE... Archive / Post Categories / Selling Seasons / Topics Covered / Retailers Tracked
2 comments:
Interesting post about Sonoma-Williams' triggered series - do you think that if you had converted on their first cutlery email they would not have sent you the second one with the free ship incentive? I can only imagine that this must be the case, but I think this individualized level of triggered messaging comes off as kind of creepy. Did you feel a similar sensation?
Plus, do you think this kind of messaging might be seen as rewarding customers for not converting, instead teaching them to wait and see if they get a similar price incentive next time they are considering a purchase? If I was a W-S customer who had ordered cutlery and saw this post I would be dismayed that I had not received a price incentive.
In short, could a triggered campaign like this one backfire on retailers? Either way it was quite interesting to see the tactic outlined - and I wonder how many other retailers are running similar campaigns or plan to in the future.
James, those are all great questions. I would hope that if I had converted after the first browse-based email that they wouldn't have sent the second one. There's definitely a danger in training customers to wait for that incentive. This is a common concern with shopping cart abandonment programs that offer incentives. In general it's best to avoid providing incentives in instances like these because of the issues you identified, but testing a small incentive like 10% probably doesn't pose much danger.
Post a Comment