This is a topic that I always harp on about but one that is not taken seriously enough. I often see the same mistakes being made over and over again with newsletters. Every newsletter that you send out should have a specific approach and should ALWAYS RESPECT THE INBOX!
It is not an exact science but an art and split testing should always be done. You have to keep tweaking until you find the formula that works for your business. Take a look at this article by Elizabeth Holmes in the WSJ.
The first one lands before the sun comes up: “Sale! Our buyers’ favorite picks up to 50% off.” An hour later, there’s another: “4 deals inside and everything ships free!” By the time you get to work, even more: “Exactly What She Wants: Chic Shoes and Handbags on Sale Now!”
In the avalanche of messages hitting inboxes this time of year, retailers’ emails work extra hard to stand out, with painstakingly-crafted sales pitches that nudge you through a desired progression that starts with opening the email, reading it, clicking through to the website and, finally, the holy grail, making the purchase.
The average consumer receives about 38 promotional emails each week during the holidays, up from about 25 a week the rest of the year, says Chad White, research director at marketing-software company Responsys MKTG +0.17% . So far this season, Cyber Monday, Nov. 26, was the day retailers sent the most emails, followed by Monday, Dec. 17, the industry’s unofficial “free shipping” day. Friday, Dec. 21, is expected to be busy, too.
Despite the glut, email is retailers’ most important tool for cranking holiday sales. With 45% of consumers expecting to shop online this holiday season, the Internet is now the No. 2 holiday shopping destination, second only to big-box discount and value stores, according to Deloitte’s 2012 holiday survey. Online holiday sales are growing three times as fast as sales overall, 12% versus 4%, the National Retail Federation says.
Stores time the arrival of their emails and design them with attention-grabbing subject lines, personalized messages, chatty advice and animation. They study every aspect of your response, from where and how you opened the email to which words and images made you click.
Brands say they go to such great lengths because the recipients are some of their most engaged and interested customers. Most retailers’ take what’s called an opt-in approach, meaning shoppers subscribe by willingly providing their email addresses. “They are people who reach out to say, ‘I want to hear from you’,” says Diego Scotti, chief marketing officer at J.Crew Group.
Emails used to arrive mid-morning, as people settled in to work at their computers. But with the arrival of smartphones, many stores prefer to send messages much earlier, sometimes before dawn, so that the message is there from the very first time a shopper checks email. “It’s about letting people consume it on their own time,” says Aaron Shockey, Neiman Marcus vice president of advertising and digital marketing.
Inside your inbox, retailers have just one hook—the subject line. It “is sort of a make or break moment where the customer is saying, ‘Do I keep it do I dump it?’ ” says Shelley Perelmuter, vice president of customer relationship management at Gap Inc., GPS +0.44% which includes Banana Republic and Old Navy. Messages must be catchy and succinct, with brevity being important for people reading on cellphones.
Etsy, the online marketplace for homemade things, has tested a number of subject-line approaches and found clever sayings work best, says Emily Bidwell, merchandising specialist and one of the six Etsy staffers who design emails. Subject lines playing off song titles are often big draws, she says. She once composed an email with the subject line “I Know What Toys Like” (playing off the 1980s song “I Know What Boys Like”) and recently sent one with “The Final Countdown” to flag last-minute gift ideas. “There’s something about the musicality of it that gets people excited,” Ms. Bidwell says.
In the main text, most retailers get right to the point. “You really have about five seconds to grab them or they are clicking out,” says Kelly Cook, senior vice president of marketing for shoe chain DSW Inc. DSW +1.12%
Many retailers adopt a friendly tone for emails, to make them feel like part of a conversation rather than a one-way marketing push. Some notes from J.Crew appear to come from one of the retailer’s two top stylists, Jack O’Connor and Gayle Spannaus, with their names in the “from” field. Emails offer style advice, such as how to dress down men’s wing-tip shoes or select holiday bangle bracelets. Each message also gives biographical tidbits: Jack lives in Brooklyn Heights. Gayle says Coco Chanel is a style icon.
“We want you to know that you are talking to a real person,” says J.Crew’s Mr. Scotti.
Most brands have two types of emails up their sleeves—broad blasts and tailored messages. During the holidays, emails tend to be a single message sent to the entire list of recipients because it is a cost effective way to spread the word, says Kurt Kendall, retail strategist at consulting firm Kurt Salmon.
Retailers also send emails that are increasingly personalized based on your preferences, whether you gave information voluntarily or they made assumptions based on your browsing and purchasing behavior. When shoppers sign up for emails, a savvy store might ask how often they want to receive emails, and which types of goods interest them most.
On some days, Macy’s segments customers into more than a dozen groups, compared with just five or six for most retailers. Each segment might get emails emphasizing a different product. For example, it identifies where customers live and might send emails with boots to New Yorkers and emails with sandals to Floridians. “The name of the game is to be relevant,” says Kent Anderson, president of Macys.com.
The department store chain studies shoppers’ purchases and uses its vast database to predict other areas of interest. Someone who buys a ring at the fine jewelry counter isn’t likely to buy another ring, Mr. Anderson says. But she may buy in the beauty department, so Macy’s sends her an offer accordingly.
To get a fuller picture of purchasing behavior, retailers are doing more to connect store activity with an email address, says Christine Cutten, a principal at Deloitte Consulting. Some stores offer to email a digital copy of a receipt, allowing them to connect the dots and match profiles.
Brands are sending more “trigger emails,” responses to things a shopper might do, like leave an item behind in a shopping cart. Online women’s clothing retailer ModCloth has a program called “Be the Buyer,” which invites shoppers to vote on which styles to produce. Those voting in favor of an item might get an email inviting her to buy it. “Sending her a generic sale message is not going to be nearly as effective as actually showcasing the dress that she helped bring to life,” says Megan Walsh, ModCloth’s director of retention marketing.
Even so, not all emails are read. In fact, most aren’t even looked at. Response rates vary, but consumers overall open only about 22% of the emails retailers send, according to the Direct Marketing Association. They actually click on an even smaller portion, about 8%, to get to a website. And just 1.5% of emails result in a purchase.
Charmaine Ng, a 33-year-old mom and grad student in Washington, D.C., gets some two dozen retailer emails each morning. She does a quick scan of them on her iPhone when she wakes up, deleting all but one or two in under a minute. “I’m in cleanup mode,” she says.
Shoppers who read the messages don’t always do so right away. Some ignore them until they are in the market to buy and then open many at once, says Mr. White, of Responsys.
Kenzel Fallen, a 26-year-old Houston consultant, sets up filters on her Gmail account to keep her inbox free of sales pitches. Instead, the emails go to folders sorted by category, such as “Apparel” and “Home Décor.” She checks the folders when she is planning a purchase. “I don’t have to see it until I’m ready to,” she says.
