eCommerce Blog

As you know, staying in front of your customers is a key component to business success. It costs more marketing dollars to get new customers than it does to keep ones you already have, so you do the math. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go after new customers. What it does mean is that you need to put some thought into how you’re going to take care of the ones you already have. One way many e-commerce sites does this is through email marketing.

At first blush, email marketing sounds simple. I mean, what’s so hard about sending an email, right? But like everything else, just because it’s easy to do, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do right. Effective email marketing takes thought. Here are questions you should ask.

• What content will your customers find valuable? Sales? Holiday gift ideas? Free shipping? Recommendations on other products? Case in point: Amazon does a great job at this. It looks at products you bought, compares it to other buyers who bought those products, and then tells you other products those buyers bought that you might be interested in.
• How often will your customers be willing to receive an email from you? Weekly, semi-weekly, monthly? Hint: the best way to know the answer to this is to ask them, either through a survey or during the sign-up process.
• Who will write your newsletters? You don’t necessarily need to be an award-winning copywriter to pen effective email campaigns, but you do need to understand how to write in a style that matches the tone of your site, the basics of punctuation and grammar, and how to write a compelling subject line that gets people to open your email.
• What will get people to BUY NOW or click through on the offer I’m promoting?

The best way to consider these questions is by looking at a couple of examples. Both companies that I’m going to write about are ones that I’ve personally bought stuff from, and I consider both good at what they do. Any critiques I make have to do with the email marketing only.

Cookie Bloomers Email Marketing Campaign: Critique

Cookie Bloomers is a fun company. They sell “cookie bouquets.” Basically, you receive a long box in the mail that’s the same size and shape that a dozen roses come in, but instead, you receive a dozen cookies on stems that you stand up in a vase. (For those of us who like sweets, this is a more exciting gift than flowers.) The company has many variations on this main product–bags of cookies, boxes of cookies, care packages–and they design them around all sorts of gift-giving themes: baby showers, Christmas, Halloween, Mother’s Day etc.

Here’s a screen shot of the company’s home page, just so you can get a feel for its logo, colors, branding.

I subscribe to their email newsletter, which usually comes once a month. Since there’s at least one holiday per month that can tie into the product, I think this is a reasonable schedule.

Here’s the August newsletter, as it looks when I opened it in Outlook. The first image below shows the “above the fold” shot (what I saw before I had to scroll), and the second image is the “below the fold” shot.

Subject Line Assessment: “Back to School Savings”
I had the opportunity to attend a recent email marketing seminar at Constant Contact (CC). The folks at CC said that studies show that subject lines that are less than 40 characters have a much better chance of being opened. The folks at CC also offered this advice for subject lines:

• Keep it short and simple
• You have 3 seconds or less
• 30-40 characters including spaces (5-8 words)
• Incorporate a specific benefit
• Capitalize and punctuate carefully

Cookie Bloomers’ subject line is: “Back to School Savings.” Four words and 22 characters, so it falls within CC’s recommended guideline. It’s short and sweet. And it incorporates a benefit–savings. It’s not a sexy subject line per se, but since I signed up for this newsletter and already know what Cookie Bloomers sells, it stands a decent chance of compelling me to open it. Students are heading back to college, so what better care package than a cookie bouquet or box of cookies, right?

However, there’s a problem with the “from” box. People are much more likely to trust a from address from @yourcompanyname.com than AOL, Gmail, or, in this case, @SBCglobal.net.

Body Content Assessment
That’s a lot of black. Overwhelming, really. There’s no logo. There’s no branding. If all you had to go on was the look and feel of this email campaign, I doubt you’d connect it to the same company that owns the corporate site above.

And while it’s true that 40 percent of the time email clients won’t download images (forcing the reader to download them manually), images are still key, especially for a product like this. Until the scent of cookies can be sent via email, we need the images to remind us how cool the product is and to remind us about the different packaging options.

Having a phone number is fine, but where’s the URL? Maybe I work all day and don’t read my personal email until 11:00 at night (during my seminar, CC said that studies show that B2C emails have a better open rate when they’re sent later in the day, after 5:00 pm). Doubt there’s going to be a customer rep standing by to take my order, which means I’ll want to order online. Why make me hunt for the URL? It’s not until I get to the coupon at the very bottom of the email that I see the web address. Nothing else in the email is clickable–not the black box, and not the picture (which didn’t format correctly in my Outlook, which shows how important it is to test email campaigns in different browsers and email clients).

Let’s talk about the content. It sounds like CB is packaging a bunch of cookies in a pizza box–what an awesome idea! Of course, I can’t see what it looks like, which is a problem, but let’s talk about the content.

First, this idea could lend itself to sexier subject lines.

• Pizza, College, & Cookie Bloomers (34 characters)
• Back to School Never Tasted So Good (35 characters)
• Pizza, Cookies, & Back-to-School Savings (44 characters)

Second, the copy could be punchier as well. What will compel someone to send a cookie care package to a college student he or she knows? CB hits on a couple of the reasons: you can’t bake for them but you can show you care.

CB should consider leading with this. First, some sort of personalized greeting would help.

Dear Mary,

Do you know a special college student heading off to college? What better way to say you care than with a care package from home.

At Cookie Bloomers, we take college care packages to a whole new level. Our Pizza Box Special –9 cookies in an authentic pizza box, or 18 cookies for everyone to share–will be the envy (and curiosity) of all the other kids in the dorm. And it will show your college student that even though you can’t bake for her right now, you can still make sure she gets the cookies she loves.

Ordering is easy. Call us at 1-877-SEND or shop online. And be sure to check-out all the cool extras you can add on to your college care package.

Oh, and as a way of thanking you for ordering before September 19, 2008, we have a special coupon below, just for our email subscribers like you. Mention it when you call, or use it when you checkout online.

Wishing you and your family a happy back to school season.

Sincerely,
The name of a real person

PS–Want to get a jump start on Halloween? Check out these boo-licious products now.

I wrote this copy fast, so we could probably improve it even more (and I welcome your thoughts in the comments thread). But notice we encourage click-through to the site. Constant Contact mentioned that the Gap’s email campaigns are incredibly effective and that most of the purchases made when a campaign goes out is NOT for the product being featured. I think the same theory might apply to Cookie Bloomers. Maybe you don’t know anyone in college, but perhaps your sister’s birthday is coming up and you just know she’d get a kick out of a cookie bouquet. We explain how easy it is to buy and we make the reader feel she’s part of a special club that gets special discounts just for being a subscriber. In essence, we’re wooing the customer. Add in some great pictures (ones that we can see, and ones that have clear Alt tags in case we can’t) and the CB logo, and we’re good to go.

Crate & Barrel Email Marketing Campaign: Critique

I subscribed to Crate & Barrel’s email newsletter, because I like the store and because so many couples have wedding registries through this company. I get emails on a weekly basis, which could be over-kill for some people. But CB does a great job of featuring one product and making most of its newsletters image heavy and above-the-fold accessible. Translation? Opening it doesn’t eat up much of my time, and I often get an idea for a gift just by clicking on the campaign.

Subject line assessment: “May we freshen your drink?”
A company like CB can afford to be a little coy in their subject lines from time to time. After all, they have immediate brand recognition. I see the name in my inbox, and I know who/what the company is.

“May we freshen your drink?” is 26 characters. It’s short and sweet. It definitely gets my attention, as I assume it will be some sort of special on glassware. The “from” line is appropriate.

Body Content Assessment
So here’s something interesting. I’m expecting a sale on glassware–or at least the announcement of a new product–yet my expectations are completely subverted. Instead, CB is introducing me to its corporate products, which I didn’t know they sold. As a business person myself who works with many different types of companies, I found this concept intriguing. I totally forgot about what my original expectations were.

And this line in particular got me: “…makes a unique business gift, incentive, or event favor.” The “event favor” line resonated with me, as I know of both clients as well as friends who are planning their weddings who are looking for interesting event favors.

But let’s think about this. Would this have worked with the stay-at-home mom who’s not interested in corporate gifts? I’m not sure. However, if I opened this with glassware on my mind, CB makes it very easy to click through to the site. I might do that just to see if there are any sales or special deals.

From an aesthetic standpoint, CB is doing everything right. It has its well-branded logo at the top, along with the permission reminder (something that Constant Contact is recommending that more of its clients keep turned on). It offers a PDA viewing option. The image is lush and inviting. The copy is clear. The call-to-action is clear. There’s also easy navigation to other areas of the site, including the registry, which could be the perfect “Oh, gosh, I have to order that wedding gift soon” trigger. And the whole email reads above the fold (note: some Crate & Barrel emails require some scrolling, but many appear in full above the fold).

The one thing I may–may–do differently is this. In order to not lose the stay-at-home mom who has no interest in corporate sales, I may include a second call-to-action on a glassware special. So I might end the email like this:

This is just the beginning.
Choose from our entire collection at crateandbarrel.com

Learn more about our corporate sales.

Or just browse for your own personal use–we promise not to tell. Besides, we have a great deal on martini glasses right now.

Of course, this would require CB to disable the whole image from linking to the site. Right now, anywhere you click on the image, copy, or link, you’re directed to the corporate sales page.

Recap

So what have we learned? You need to brand your emails. They need to look like your corporate site. You need a compelling subject line that’s under 40 characters. You need compelling body copy with intuitive links that lead your readers to where you want them to go. You need to make it easy for readers to act on your offer. You should offer a text only option, and it’s good practice to include the permission reminder at the top of the page.

What are some “best practices” strategies that you incorporate in your email marketing? Leave your ideas in the comments.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 11:45 am and is filed under email Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.