The Email Wars

Love is in the air, or in the inbox this week with many brands reaching out to their subscriber lists with Valentine’s Day email campaigns. Now many retailers are predicting that the economy is going to impact this major retailing holiday as well. Are we all going to cut flowers from our yards and make our own greeting cards this week? Maybe the economy is taking some of the “love” out of the air. Fear and uncertainty can do this I think. 

But let’s get back on track here. I had three examples that I wanted to share with you of Valentine’s day email campaigns that are worth pointing out. 

First up, MetroPark. Now the reason to point out this creative is that it is well done. Not just for the fact of the clear messaging, but the other elements that last past the event. They are clearly using social media links in the header to drive long term relationships past the inbox. By not focusing on all the chatter lately about making email social media, but instead using social media links to expand the reach past the inbox, I think it wins. 

Besides the social aspect, the messaging is crystal clear, shop, buy, save. End of story. On top of that the imagery is good and audience relevant. 

Next up, Myspace. Can I clearly say FAIL? And can you look at this and see how bad it really is? Look at the length and the waste of space. This is not myspace but blank space. This message could have been laid out so much better to properly use the space for the images. Now they did animate the images, but it was completely cheesy. Fail. Guys think about reading some blogs on email design and focus on using the creative and the space to not only your advantage but to the time advantage of your subscribers. Better yet, they called me Larry. Complete Fail. 

Final example is a favorite email marketer of mine in the consumer realm, The Body Shop. Their creative has been great these past months and they seem to be paying attention to best practices (minus the whole image retail design). Look at the preheader, it could be better used to promote that content of the email for mobile clients, but at least they are using it. The top nav block is good, uses three clear level of relevant site navigation and is color blocked to work well even with 3 levels of navigation. To end it they properly use the “win-back” footer. As people sometimes do not scroll back up it is good to use footer nav to capture the subscriber at the end of an email. 

Three different examples and hopefully things for you to take in for your next email campaign.