Recently in Innovations Category

This post is part of a blog series leading up to Responsys Interact 2012 about how our customers are re-writing the rules of marketing.

Schwan's Home Service, America's largest home food delivery service of high quality frozen foods, has been working with Responsys to evolve its digital marketing from basic transactional emails to an integrated cross-channel program. I spoke with Erica Webb-Belzer, Director of Marketing Communications, about how her team at Schwan's is using targeted emails and mobile SMS messaging to build customer loyalty and engagement. 

Q: You've had some very impressive results in tying increased revenue to email campaigns - what in your opinion has been the most successful campaign or strategy?

A:  Our digital marketing success is in large part due to the automation that we've put in place with Interact Program. It has allowed us to be more sophisticated in targeting customers and driving sales. The Responsys software has enabled us to strategically automate and target communications about shopping cart abandonment, customer preferences, delivery reminders and special offers.  Having email campaigns automated and integrated has enabled my small team to produce some great results. 

Q: How has your digital marketing strategy evolved, have you seen a major shift in spend from offline to online?

A: Schwan's Home Service is a 60 year old company, but it's only been in the last several years that digital marketing has become a greater focus. With a dedicated team now in place, we're shifting our marketing strategy from acquisition to retention and moving customers from offline to online channels.  In 2009, our email program was minimal - we were only running two campaigns and the emails were very text heavy.  We've since created HTML emails that are branded, established a preference center and launched SMS alerts. And there's a lot more in store for 2012!

Q: Consumers are increasingly using smartphones and tablets and I would imagine Schwan's customers are no different.  How is mobile part of your digital marketing strategy?

A: On the mobile side, we've been very successful in using SMS to alert our customers 30 minutes prior to the Route Sales Representative stopping by with their frozen food delivery. Schwan's Home Service has approximately 6,000 drivers across the US who are delivering frozen food, so it's been great for our customers and drivers to know when a delivery is coming and ensure that the recipient will be home or allow them time to prepare their order for next time. The other feature we're putting in place this month is the ability for customers to text their email address to our SMS short code. This gives customers another avenue in which to opt-in to our email communications and provides them with early access to our special offers and discounts.  In turn, it helps us drive more customers to our online channels. This is all executed with Interact Program, allowing us to coordinate the opt-in and subsequent SMS messaging alongside our email campaigns.

We're also working with Responsys Strategic and Creative Services to ensure that our emails are mobile and tablet friendly. And we're using Return Path to do a lot of testing so that we can be sure our emails look good on mobile devices and in all ISP's. 

Q: How are you using offline marketing to drive online engagement and retention?

A: We are integrating our website, Schwans.com, into all printed materials and really focusing on driving customers to enriched content like recipes, videos and preparation instructions. For example, our summer promotion will focus on ribs and other great grilling meats, so there will be call outs throughout our Ordering Guide and Everyday Cravings Catalogs encouraging readers to visit Schwans.com  for grilling tips. Many of our offers and promotions also drive people to our social media sites including Twitter and Facebook.  In the future, we will promote our SMS short code in more places, getting more customers opted-in and engaged on mobile.  Finally, training of our Route Sales Representatives to encourage online engagement is critical to the success of our business as well.

Q: One of the themes at Interact this year is about how marketers are 're-writing the rules' and continuing to innovate - is there anything or anyone in the industry who you think is particularly innovative?

A: The airline industry, from an alerts and SMS messaging standpoint, is always innovating. I admire what Southwest Airlines has done with its 'Click N Save' program, getting consumers at the right time to opt-in their email address, using their mobile phone.  We have such a unique business model, so we don't have many direct competitors, but I do tend to watch General Mills since they are another Minneapolis-based food retailer. I love what they've done with the Betty Crocker email creative.  Also, I'm watching the mobile and tablet industry closely, as we expect our customers to increasingly use these devices and who knows - maybe one day they will entirely replace the PC!   We are also watching the use of Instagram.  Photo sharing is becoming increasingly popular and brands like Red Bull and Pepsi are making great inroads with this app.

Q: What are you looking forward to at Interact this year?  

A: I'm excited to learn from and share ideas with like-minded people who understand the industry.  We're in such a unique niche of an industry so it will be wonderful to have all these experts together in one place! I have several senior colleagues coming to Interact with me, so I'm looking forward to them experiencing the energy and excitement around email, SMS and digital marketing. What they take away from a high level will help us propel our program to the next level in the coming years.

This post is part of a blog series leading up to Responsys Interact 2012 about how our customers are re-writing the rules of marketing. 

Until now, display advertising has been a high cost, low return game: marketing to many to reach a few. Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group has been working with Responsys to turn that paradigm on its head by using Responsys Interact for Display to retarget individuals and add a new channel to its relationship marketing mix. I spoke with Sandy Martin, Director of eMarketing, about how Dollar Thrifty is using a variety of channels to reach customers at the right time and place.

Q: You're in an industry where consumers are extremely driven by price and are presented with lots of options. How has this impacted your digital marketing strategy?

A: Because travel is a commodity, we're very value conscious and strive to be the low cost provider. As a result, most traditional marketing like print and TV is way too costly for us. But more importantly, we want to be top of mind when consumers are researching travel or ready to make a reservation - and the majority of the time, this happens online. With all of our online marketing, the primary focus is to be relevant to consumers. That means showing consumers the right Dollar Thrifty message at the right time and place. One of the ways we've been able to do this, while increasing the number of customer touch points, is through display retargeting.

Q: Dollar Thrifty has had some great results using Responsys Interact for Display. How have you implemented this and do you have any advice for marketers looking to test out display?

A: A traditional display ad campaign targets hundreds of thousands of people online and the number of those who convert is often relatively small. Display retargeting is a new way to leverage display ads in a very targeted manner and frankly, it's inexpensive and easy to implement.

We've used Responsys' display retargeting solution to move existing customers through the lifecycle - whether it's to show up for a rental car reservation or opt-in to receive special offers or promotions from Dollar Thrifty. Once someone has given us the permission to talk to them and they're already aware of our brand, display retargeting provides another touch point, moving them toward a purchase.  

We've had some great initial results. We did a test on our confirmation emails and the group of people who received the confirmation email AND saw display ads about our early check-in product were 22% more likely to show up at the Dollar Thrifty counter and get the car they had reserved online.

I would urge other marketers to test display retargeting. I've found it to be effective and very easily integrated into the overall marketing mix, especially if you're using the Responsys Interact Suite.  It just takes dropping a pixel into a batch of emails and doing the creative for display banners. If there's an offer or campaign where you'd like a bit more traction from your customers, display retargeting is worth testing and having in your interactive marketing toolkit.

Q: What are you doing with the other channels, such as mobile and social?

A: We have a mobile site where people can make a car reservation and explore our city guides, which include maps and tips on what to see, where to eat etc. We are also planning a mobile app, which will enable a more personalized experience for users on the go.  We want our customers to have a variety of ways to access and interact with Dollar Thrifty, so we're excited to be offering a number of mobile options. We also have active communities on Facebook and Twitter. We of course leverage our email campaigns to encourage customers to find Dollar Thrifty on their phone and social networks.

Q: One of the themes at Interact this year is about how marketers are 're-writing the rules' and continuing to innovate - is there anything or anyone in the industry who you think is particularly innovative?

A: I'm always watching marketers across a variety of industries to try and determine what bits and pieces of their strategy could work for Dollar Thrifty. We don't have the same budgets as everyone else, so I like to think about how we can do something innovative and do it the 'Dollar Thrifty' way.  In this industry it's crucial to be bold and test new things, and I admire companies who do just that.

Q: What are you looking forward to at Interact this year?  

A: I really like the strategy sessions with Heather Blank and I'm looking forward to learning what other companies are doing with their interactive marketing campaigns. Also, it will be great to network with some really bright people in the marketing industry!

 

This post is from Rishad Tobaccowala's Reinventing Blog. Rishad is Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer of VivaKi.

As we enter 2012, here is a perspective on the five key arenas that marketers will grapple with:

Marketing as Mobilization: In a world of Twitter, Facebook, Google + and other social platforms, marketing will increasingly resemble political campaigns with Brands mobilizing and incentivizing their advocates to market to their friends and communities. They will also staff up to quickly address and limit the impact of negative streams of publicity such as complaints before they hurt the brand. The emphasis will be on marketing in real time, providing clear value and recognizing that what people say about a brand is more important than what a brand says about itself. Engaging the "peoples network" will be as, if not more critical than leveraging television, retail and other media networks. To do this many companies will recognize that the key challenge is not to develop a Facebook presence but update the corporate communications, legal and marketing infrastructure of their organizations and those of their partners.

Marketing to a New Mindset: Today, all around the world, people are not just more empowered and informed but they also are far less trusting of business and political organizations, leaders of all sorts and flatulence filled, florid, fancy marketing. They are looking for authenticity, community, value, relevance and simplicity. There is a gaping divide between the rulers and the ruled, between marketers, and customers and between the senior leaders and the rank and file. It is going to be critical to get real and stop repeating old shibboleths or behaving in ways that make so many leaders caricatures of themselves. Get real. Get great. Or you may be forced to get out. Personal re-invention is critical.

Marketing's future will be increasingly determined outside the confines of the "marketing industry": In addition to empowered customers, the biggest challenges to the status quo will continue to come from outside the marketing industry. Remember the day that meetings of industry groups were quite incestuous and closed? Those days changed as digital media eroded the differences between video, print and audio. Today, magazines and newspapers and television are all multimedia organizations broadening their competitive and opportunity set. Not so long ago "outsiders" like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and Facebook became the future of the industry. We expect this trend will continue with a vengeance with Adobe, IBM and many others from the tech industry bringing forth one front while names we have never heard of from both global markets and garages will continue to press us to stop thinking narrowly and becoming more open in both mindset and partnering. It is no surprise that the International Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas next week will be as important as Cannes to the advertising industry.

Significant Restructuring of Marketing Organizations of All Types: Todays marketing organizations at clients, agencies and suppliers are struggling to cope because they lack the right talent, organizational and service/product mix that they need to compete in an age of marketing as mobilization and to an highly empowered customer with a changing mindset. Marketing will have to be world class within organizations since it will be a critical part of the future of all companies. We will begin in 2012 to see significant restructuring and blowing up of existing marketing hierarchies and leaders. It will be messy, bloody and chaotic but the future does not fit in the mindsets or containers of the past and what will need to be done will be done.

Marketing basics will grow more important: In a fragmenting and fast moving world brands will matter more since brands are the ultimate search engines and navigation lighthouses. The great ones are trust marks. Storytelling will continue to be critical and there will be new ways to not just tell stories but have others participate in the stories. Joan Didion wrote "we tell ourselves stories in order to live" and in many ways brands that are alive and vital are stories. Finally the science of marketing particularly finding the right audience in the right mindset and right context to engage in story and brand building will be even more important and fortunately we will have amazing new technologies to make it happen.

The future of marketing is very bright since it is about identifying and meeting customer requirements and in an age of empowered consumers this skill will be increasingly critical. But, for both marketing and marketers to get to the next level we will have to work hard, learn a lot and change our approaches and mindsets in ways that will truly test our mettle.

With display advertising spend estimated to almost triple in the US over the next five years from $10 billion to $27 billion, almost every marketer is allocating substantial money and time to this area.  However, most display advertising efforts have been focused on branding and anonymous acquisition efforts, not CRM.  But why is that?   Many factors are in play, but the simple answer is that there has been no easy way to achieve the personalized one-on-one type of communication achieved with permission based email with display ads.

Mostly, the challenges have been around how to find a company's customers among the hundreds of millions of anonymous users on the Web, and how to serve ads to just those users instead of buying large anonymous user segments in hopes that they contain some of the target customers.  Other issues for marketers have been how to coordinate display ads with other marketing messages, and responsibly manage user privacy in an age of data-driven marketing where both users and regulators are highly sensitive to how marketers use customer data. 

In September, Responsys rolled out its new display offering called Relationship Retargeting, which enables marketers to reach customers with display ads as part of their relationship marketing programs. It provides relationship marketers with vast new opportunities to improve reach and frequency of touch, while augmenting the value of messages from existing channels such as email and mobile.     

By tightly integrating marketers' CRM data, user cookies, ad servers and ad exchanges, Responsys has opened up a powerful new channel for relationship marketers.  However, it also took significant evolution and maturation of the industry to make this happen. Display advertising technology has evolved rapidly in the last three to five years, making one-to-one marketing not only possible, but a highly effective way to reach customers and known users. We worked hard to make this happen, but to be fair, we were also the beneficiary of a market that is finally ready for this type of marketing. Some of the key industry evolutions include: 

Emergence of Real-Time Bidding (RTB):  The availability of real-time bidding on the ad exchanges allow marketers to target and bid for impressions at the user-level.  With over five billion daily impressions available via RTB, marketers can now reach their customers at an individual level without buying millions of other unknown users in the process.

Making 1^st party customer data available for targeting:   Most marketers have rich customer data from both online and offline interactions that drive their email and direct mail marketing programs.  However, marketers increasingly see this data as a scalable asset that should be leveraged across other channels, including social, mobile and display.  Working with their email service provider or data management platform, marketers have undertaken efforts to make this data actionable for other online channels and make every customer interaction, whatever the channel, intelligently data-driven.

Standardizing and self-regulating use of cookies and Personal Identifiable Information (PII) :   Cookie'ing users is easy, and tying that cookie to rich user data is far more manageable than it was just a few years ago.  However, communicating with users based on what marketers know about them require the marketer to responsibly manage and protect the user data.   The Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance have done a great job implementing industry-wide self-regulation that provides data transparency and the opportunity for users to opt-out. 

This is a great time to be a relationship marketer, as the advances with display are exciting and quickly evolving.  However, there are also lots of issues to understand and consider when it comes to display, and this will be the first of many blog posts that examine what display means for relationship marketing and how to best take advantage of this new power channel.  

In the meantime, I suggest you check it out for yourself....

http://www.responsys.com/suite/display.php

From: Virgin America
Subject Line: Credit File Reminder
Date: Friday, April 8, 2011

This email is a travel MIRACLE. I must have credits with every major US airline, but for what amount, with which airline and where that information is stored is beyond me.

When an airline make credit information less accessible, as customers, many of us feel like that airline is trying to keep our dollars in their pockets. This doesn't inspire us to fly with that airline. For instance, not long ago, an airline I will not name here told me that the only way they could give me a credit is via a postal mail voucher. (Strike one.) I never received it in the mail. (Strike two.) I called their customer service number to explain that it never came, and they said the only way they could help me is if I sent them a description of my problem via postal mail. WHAT!? (Strike 3.) I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was the year 1800. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Virgin America sent me this helpful reminder today, listing out my credits with their respective expiration dates. I appreciate not only the credit details, but the many contact information options Virgin provides. When I see the actual phone number listed in the email, I feel like Virgin really wants to help me! 

Next time I book a trip, will this message inspire me to fly Virgin instead of another airline? You bet. 

Now Virgin, just give me a direct flight from Seattle to New York and we're all set!

Today I am at the Adobe Omniture Summit in Salt Lake City to announce some very exciting new enhancements to our existing integration with the Adobe Online Marketing Suite, powered by Omniture. Responsys has been very busy creating this integration aimed at accelerating time-to-market and reducing the complexity of cross-channel marketing campaigns, and I believe our customers will be impressed with the results. 

The improvement to the Responsys integration gives marketers a new level of power and ease of use by automatically summarizing web analytics data that is captured by Adobe SiteCatalyst, powered by Omniture, into pre-defined audience segments within the Responsys Interact user interface.  Without any manual work or technical resources required, Responsys Interact users can instantly target campaigns based on who has recently browsed, purchased, or abandoned a shopping cart on their website.  This better equips our customers to take advantage of today's technology to translate their data into smart business decisions.

Responsys and Adobe already work together with hundreds of  global brands such as Avery®, Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Freshpair.com, Intrawest, Onlineshoes.com, and Thomson Reuters to power their data-driven marketing campaigns to increase ROI and make smarter business decisions.  If you are interested in learning more about our offering, you can visit http://www.responsys.com/suite/index.php

 For those of you who are attending the Adobe Omniture Summit, I hope to see you at my keynote presentation , "Welcome to the New School of Marketing" on Thursday, March 10 at 9:10 a.m.

 

Best,

Scott Olrich, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, Responsys

Subject Line: Exclusive Discount: Save 10% on your ENTIRE order!

Date: 1.25.2011

What's this...another sale email? Yes, but it's not your average sale email, this one has been created specifically for me! The product shown here is the exact item I had looked at when I was browsing the site a few days earlier...CLEVER! 

Bonus: when I click on the image in the email, it takes me directly to the product's landing page. 

This is similar to a cart abandonment email, except I never actually put the item in my cart. I think this a great approach to remind the customer of items they were interested in, while giving them a little extra incentive to go back and buy it. Genius.

When I'm feeling a little uninspired or simply want to procrastinate in my writing just a little bit longer, I like to get lost on the web. I find that it gives me fresh ideas and opens my mind to new ways of engaging people. In my web wanderings this week, I came across some fun and unexpected animations, proving once again that subtlety is truly an art. What have you found in your web wanderings? Do tell.

BURTON >>
Check out the little eyes by the search box and the video in the logo!

FREE PEOPLE >>
LOVE the dangling ornament.

BLOOMINGDALES >>
See what happens when you drag your mouse over the ornaments and the wrapped gifts!

From: Anthropologie
Subject Line: Outfits, on film.
Date: Tuesday, October 12, 2010

If you haven't see it yet, check out the homepage on Anthropologie.com. It's simply brilliant. Rather than just put up a slideshow of their fave looks for fall, they created a live-action street scene, complete with pedestrians and a well-placed cab.

There are five vignettes to choose from: Flower Shop, Bookstore, Cafe, Bike Ride or Bakery. And while each is really short, they're stunning to watch again and again. (My only comment is that the model isn't actually riding her bike in the Bike Ride video. Maybe she had a flat?)

As much as I love the site execution, I have to say that the email could have done a better job of enticing me to click by incorporating the five vignette titles. The subject line is great: Outfits, on film. But the body copy is so subtle that the true beauty of the site experience doesn't really come through in the email. I would have loved to see them figure out a way to bring the movement of the homepage to the email. But then again, I clicked. So they're clearly doing something right!

From: Disney Movie Rewards
Subject Line: Earn Bonus Points When You Visit Our New Site
Date: Thursday, April 8, 2010

Disney Movie Rewards sent an email unveiling their new website design in a creative and compelling manner.

The offer: Earn 100 reward points by exploring our new website.
The rules: The CTA loads a PDF with "treasure hunt" instructions.

Each of the 5 steps earns you points while guiding you through the website, and providing incentive to do so.

I love this idea. Way to think outside the box, Disney Movie Rewards!

Did you know that more and more retailers are simply clicking the Spam button to unsubscribe from email lists? Not a good trend for the health of our email programs, by any means. So what's a retailer to do? Read the latest report from Chad White. Highlighting examples of the good, the bad and the downright ugly, this in-depth study will help you whip your opt-out process into shape. It examines the unsubscribe experiences at 100 top online retailers - covering everything from unsubscribe instructions in emails, to opt-out page components and confirmations, to the honoring of unsubscribe requests.

Get the whole scoop. Download the free report now

From: Amazon.com & Netflix Subject Lines: Various Date: Friday, November 6, 2009 - Friday, March 12, 2010 If you're looking to increase user engagement & loyalty, personalization is sure to help. My advice: 1) Get creative. Think about what your subscriber would like to receive rather than what you want to send them. The more you know about your subscriber and use that information to target relevant messages, the more likely you are to hook that customer for the long haul. 2) Start a dialogue. Surveys are a great and easy way to find out what your subscribers are experiencing. If they report problems, work to correct them. 3) Seize the opportunity to add ratings and reviews to your website. They're sure to drive more traffic to your website. A good way to collect reviews: after a subscriber purchases a product, wait a few weeks (to give them time to test the product) and send them a friendly reminder to rate the product. Many people will be happy to share their good or bad experience. Two companies that I've noticed do an awesome job at personalization are Amazon.com and Netflix. Here are just a few examples of great personalization emails that they send: Amazon.com: Lets you to create a gift list for friends/family and sends you reminders when their birthdays are approaching. Allows you to be notified via email when a movie is available for order or pre-order, by request. Suggests product suggestions based on your browsing and order history. Netflix: Sends emails asking you to rate your movies. By rating your movie, Netflix can recommend other movies you might enjoy, based on what other users enjoyed who also liked that movie. And what's really awesome, is that they allow you to rate the movie with one-click in the email itself, simple & time-saving. Notifies you which movie has shipped and when you can expect it. Asks you when you mailed your movie to determine if they are sending/receiving movies in a timely manner according to their policy.

From: crewcuts
Subject Line: cooper's D.I.Y tips
Date: Saturday, March 6, 2010

This is actually a spread from the physical catalog, but it completely grabbed my attention, and I'm hoping for crewcuts to create an email campaign based on the DIY idea. I have always been into crafting and all things creative, and particularly adore the ruffled seasaw dress with the dots. There's part of me that has an aversion to the idea of spending $64 for a kids dress and then messing it up with a marker, but really, the dot-finished look is like cuteness personified.

In October, I wrote about the genius EEC Marketing Haiku Slam. Since then (at random moments on the elliptical or on an airplane), when inspiration strikes I jot one down. My most recent favorite is below. I'd love to hear yours!

A/B Test
Ideally I'd split
My existence and test B
Against the control

Deep thoughts on a Monday morning... :). Have a great week!

From: Mitch Stewart, BarakObama.com
Subject Line: A holiday video for Van
Date: Thursday, December 17, 2009

I have to give it up - Obama's stellar team of campaigners continues to impress. There has been a proliferation of personalized videos in the past few months such as Gap's Cheer Factory to Land's End's Big Boston Warm-up. Last Thursday, Obama sent me a holiday card and I LOVE IT.

These videos take personalization to a new level, placing dynamic content such as a name in different parts of video clips. This effect has such a great impact. I've gotten used to seeing my name in the email salutations, but not in a streaming video. Who doesn't like seeing their name on a card signed by the President?

Great job, Obama team!

From: Facebook
Subject line: New Privacy Settings
Date: Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Great job by Facebook making it easier to share and not share. Once you have lots of people on Facebook you are bound to have a mixture of who you know (from college buds to in-laws). You need to post on a "need to know" basis. Now you can.

The "Specific People" option lets you choose friends individually or from your predefined Friend Lists.

So for a small business, you could do social posts just like you send targeted email. Don't think you can do that yet for a large business due to restrictions on Friend List sizes.

I've always been blown away by the way designers bring copy to life. The way they think is completely different than how I think. I think in black-and-white word docs; they think in color, color, color. Bringing these two ways of thinking together is what creates the perfect email.

Coach put a fresh step in my inbox with this newsletter. At first glance, I loved the way they gave the product silos in the hero some breathing space by not confining them to a box. That said, it also felt like too many tricks in one bag. To get the real scoop from a designer's POV, I enlisted Amy Hamilton, SH designer extraordinaire, to help me out with the 360-degree look at the creative.

Here's what she said:

My first thought when seeing this email was, WOW COOL, this is different! I immediately noticed the overlapping text, colors and imagery. Coach is definitely creating a style here.

However, after the initial WOW factor wore off, my eye wasn't sure where to go. The hero copy and right rail copy seemed to fight each other, and the lower half of the email felt a bit cluttered. The call to actions also fell pretty far below the fold. While this email has some nice and inventive approaches, I think it could use a little more focus. I would suggest:

• Move a call-to-action above the fold
• Create a primary message focus by expanding the hero image through to the left rail, or by bringing down the font size in the left rail so it's more obvious that it's a secondary message
• Use a unified headline and copy treatment (as well as HTML text for body copy)
• Clean up a bit of the cluttered imagery at the bottom

From: Latimes.com
Subject Line: The new Latimes.com

With a little help, I finally got my hands on the L.A. Times website redesign email mentioned in a comment about my August 24th post about Hollister. I have to say... I love the originality of this email. It feels totally out of the boxy grid, which is fantastic. It's brilliantly simple and provocative. Since they don't TELL you how it's different with a bunch of copy, they create a bit of mystery. They want to SHOW you the difference.

Some cool stuff to mention:

1. I love the headline and the "Scroll Right". Giving direction is key.
   
2. I also love the big ink spot. It's got this free-form, Jackson Pollack feeling to it. Dig it.
3. The "Take Our Tour" call to action totally delivers on the "Scroll Right"

On the downside, I think it's a big bummer that they're not doing anything more with this template. While on the hunt for this particular email, I signed up for every email subscription I could on the L.A. Times site. After sorting through the 15 or so emails each day for a week, I gave up. They were all the typical vertical email format you see with other news organizations. Wish they'd done a multi-email campaign about the redesign, highlighting a different part of the site with each email.

As for a best practices miss, they didn't use a preheader. Plus, they don't give me a link to update my preferences or my account, which I think they should. As much as I love the focused message of the email and the lack of clutter, I do think they could layer in a few understated links to drive people to do stuff on the site, without taking away from the sleek creative. Anyone else have thoughts about this one?  

From: Ann Taylor
Subject Line: Meet Our New Designer + Shop Our New Perfect Pieces.
Date: August 24, 2009

I love the way that Ann Taylor unveils a new designer in this special email. This approach aligns perfectly with the current trend of putting real faces on big companies and of forging more of individual connections with customers and email subscribers. Not only do we get a literal face to associate with Ann Taylor designs, but the entire email creative represents the artistic process behind all Ann Taylor clothing. The swatches and sketch allows subscribers to envision the creativity and thought invested in clothing by real people, allowing shoppers to feel like they are purchasing something special and unique.

From: Hollister
Subject Line: Woke up in shreds
Date: August 23, 2009

First things first. Love this subject line. Love it. I had 30+ emails waiting in my strictly retail email inbox this morning and this is the first one I opened. What I also love is that the subject of the email delivers on the promise of the subject line. It's all about torn-up jeans.

Two big misses for me: 1) At first, second, and third glance, I didn't realize this was a horizontal email. I love that they're exploring a new perspective, but they need to offer some copy to help their email subscribers along. This is a shift in the norm, so a little help would be good. A cool "Keep scrolling" would've helped me figure it out, at least. 2) An even bigger issue for me is that there's no CTA. A simple "Get shredded" would do the trick. 

But, even without the CTA, I clicked on the image anyways and was taken to a fantastic landing page within the chick portion of the site. What I can't figure out is how Hollister knew I was a Betty and not a Dude. They never asked when I signed up for email, so I'm thinking they just guessed. Rather than taking a 50/50 shot, my suggestion would be to just add a question to the sign-up a process: Are you a Betty or a Dude? Or better yet, add two CTAs to the email, Betty Shop and Dude Shop. 

At any rate, the subject line rocks and so did the landing experience. Now, to try and fit into those skinny-leg shredded jeans... but that's another story for another blog.

From: Hollister
Subject Line: Have you heard our new tracks?
Date: July 21, 2009

Super-cool idea. Not-so-super-cool execution. The concept of creating a "lounge" on the Hollister site where Dudes and Bettys can listen to tunes is fantastic. Unfortunately, there are some glitches in the experience.

Glitch #1: When I clicked from the email, it took me to the homepage, rather than landing me in the lounge. Glitch #2: A streaming video with sound that has absolutely nothing to do with the music automatically starts playing and continues to play even when I click on one of the bands. It's chaotic. Glitch #3: I wish the album cover would pop up in the HUGE video space available on the page, rather than this dinky little pop-up window. It'd also be cool if they had a bunch of info about the band and their music influences.

On the plus side, I got to hear the entire song vs. just a snippet and they do have links to the band sites. All in all, I wish they'd dialed this experience in like they did for www.hcoridethewave.com.

From: Saks Fifth Avenue
Subject Line: Watch Fashion in Action
Date: Saturday, April 5, 2008

The email's a snore, but Saks' Video Catalog is MAGIC! This is the most practical and useful marriage of video and commerce I've seen yet. It's fantastic to be able to watch the way a garment moves and falls on a figure; it gives us one more reason to shop online instead of making a real-life retail store stop. Check it out >

P.S. After browsing the Video Catalog, don't you just hate how much BETTER this email could have been!?!?

From: J.Crew
Subject Line: The well-traveled tote (see video)
Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2008

From: Louis Vuitton
Subject Line: The first Louis Vuitton movie : Travel and Emotions
Date: Monday, February 18, 2008

While it is still logistically impossible to embed actual videos into email messages, we have found that including links to videos noticeably increases clickthrough. Here, I like how J.Crew and Louis Vuitton extend that idea to the subject line, presumably hoping to up open rates as well. I recommend this; it's definitely worth testing. I also recommend including strong visual cues to indicate links to video; recipients respond best to obvious treatments like play buttons and frame treatments that look like Windows Media and Quicktime players. Both J.Crew and Louis Vuitton could have added more visual flair to draw attention the video factor here. (Video: so hot right now.)