From: Brookstone
Subject Lines:
1) FREE Sitewide shipping with $95 minimum purchase
2) Hurry, only 4 hours left for FREE Sitewide Shipping at $90!
3) Deal of the Day: $20 OFF our Men's Fleece Heated Vest plus Sitewide FREE SHIPPING!
4) Discover this year's hottest holiday gifts plus FREE Sitewide Shipping!
Date: Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Brookstone has stepped into one of the most common holiday traps: over-sending.
I have received up to four emails in one day from Brookstone, and an average of more than one email per day overall. While a small handful of people may enjoy getting blasted by that many emails, I think you're more likely to lose subscribers by over-sending.
Make sure if you're sending more than one email a day that the messages differ enough to make it worthwhile. On 12/15 I received two postcard-style emails, a deal of the day AND a general product collage email. The two postcard emails were essentially the same: Free Shipping on orders over $95, and the other, Free Shipping on orders over $90 - baffling. The other two emails mentioned the free shipping offer again in a top banner. Were four emails really needed for the free shipping promo? I doubt it.
If you're not sure how many emails to send, I would suggest creating a "my account" option where the subscriber can login and choose the amount (and type) of emails they would like to receive. If you already have an option like this on your website, make sure to include a link in each email to "change my email preferences." If that's too much work (on you or your subscribers), place a survey at the bottom of each email with a simple one-click answer.
EXAMPLE: How many emails would you like to receive from us?
[ ] More than two per week [ ] Two per week [ ] One per week
[ ] Bi-weekly [ ] One per month
If you give the customer a chance to control how many emails they receive, you'll be more likely to retain your subscribers by giving them a program that fits their personal needs.
Subject Lines:
1) FREE Sitewide shipping with $95 minimum purchase
2) Hurry, only 4 hours left for FREE Sitewide Shipping at $90!
3) Deal of the Day: $20 OFF our Men's Fleece Heated Vest plus Sitewide FREE SHIPPING!
4) Discover this year's hottest holiday gifts plus FREE Sitewide Shipping!
Date: Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Brookstone has stepped into one of the most common holiday traps: over-sending.
I have received up to four emails in one day from Brookstone, and an average of more than one email per day overall. While a small handful of people may enjoy getting blasted by that many emails, I think you're more likely to lose subscribers by over-sending.
Make sure if you're sending more than one email a day that the messages differ enough to make it worthwhile. On 12/15 I received two postcard-style emails, a deal of the day AND a general product collage email. The two postcard emails were essentially the same: Free Shipping on orders over $95, and the other, Free Shipping on orders over $90 - baffling. The other two emails mentioned the free shipping offer again in a top banner. Were four emails really needed for the free shipping promo? I doubt it.
If you're not sure how many emails to send, I would suggest creating a "my account" option where the subscriber can login and choose the amount (and type) of emails they would like to receive. If you already have an option like this on your website, make sure to include a link in each email to "change my email preferences." If that's too much work (on you or your subscribers), place a survey at the bottom of each email with a simple one-click answer.
EXAMPLE: How many emails would you like to receive from us?
[ ] More than two per week [ ] Two per week [ ] One per week
[ ] Bi-weekly [ ] One per month
If you give the customer a chance to control how many emails they receive, you'll be more likely to retain your subscribers by giving them a program that fits their personal needs.
Comments
I'm with you Amy!
I've also been getting non-stop emails from Brookstone this holiday season. Just glancing through and deleting, I felt like their offers were always around FREE SHIPPING (which was for orders over $85 - not as compelling as the subject lines made it seem).
Bottom Line:I don't need daily reminders of the same non-compelling (I never acted on it) offer all holiday-season long.
Had the offers come less frequently and with some variation, I may have been intrigued.
Posted by: Kristen Gregory | December 18, 2009 6:24 AM
I unsubscribed from Brookstone's emails because of this. I was bombarded with so many emails that looked exactly alike that I didn't think it was worth subscribing to them anymore. That's pretty bad if you scare your customers away.
Posted by: Christina K | December 21, 2009 11:32 AM