AM Inbox: White backgrounds, larger headlines dominate redesigns

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

CB2, 7/19 — go bold with this hot new color palette.

CB2 has redesigned their email template, with most of the clear changes being in the header. They’ve made their logo bigger and centered it. The preheader message is to the left of the logo and the “view as text” and “view with images” links are to the right of it. As many brands have done lately, CB2 removes the background color from their navigation bar. However, they did keep the same number of nav bar links—10—which is way on the high side. It’s a little difficult to say absolutely what their new body copy approach is, but it appears that they’ll be avoiding background colors for the primary message block, which has been the trend lately, and are significantly increasing the size of their headlines so they’re easier to read on smartphones, which has also been the trend lately.

Here’s the new design (left) and the previous design from a July 7 email:

View the new design full-sized. View the previous design full-sized.

Nordstrom, 7/19 — Our Hottest Looks for Barre, Yoga and Pilates | Anniversary Sale Starts Tomorrow!‏

Countdowns are getting more sophisticated in emails. Emails used to include countdowns that were accurate at the time of send. Then they became accurate at the time of open. This email from Nordstrom takes this trend one step further by being accurate at the time of open and for the next 60 seconds. The correct number of hours, minutes and seconds remaining are accurate at the time of open and then countdown for a full minute before stopping. Refreshing the email brings the countdown back up to live and it counts down for another 60 seconds.

View this email full-sized.

J&R, 7/19 — Mid-Summer Sale -- One Hot Weekend of Savings!‏

Bringing context to a promotion, as J&R does in this email by mentioning the record heat this summer, always makes it more effective.

View this email full-sized.

SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject lines

Lowe’s, 7/19 — Life Is Better Outdoors ... The Outdoors Is Better on a Patio.

Home Depot, 7/19 — Special Buys to Help You Hide the Clutter and Pocket the Savings

Sam’s Club, 7/19 — Head back to Campus with the latest gear

NikeStore, 7/19 — The New Nike Speed Top: Made to Run as Hard as You Do

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