October Catalogue Log

Last month I predicted that as we get closer to Christmas we would receive more catalogues touting free delivery promotions on their front covers. The catalogues we tallied in October, however, proved me wrong.

September had seen a record number of catalogues offering conditional or unconditional free delivery, and, based on what we saw in 2009, it seemed that October’s crop of catalogues would follow suit. In fact, the number of catalogues promoting free shipping in October 2010 was fewer than one in five (19 percent), the lowest figure since July and down on October 2009 when 21.7 percent of catalogues promoted it. Among the catalogues that offered free delivery in 2009, White Stuff went for the same deal in 2010—free delivery and free returns; Past Times increased its order value threshold from £40 to £50 in order to qualify for free delivery; BooksDirect decided not to repeat the offer, opting for a free gift promotion instead, and Lands’ End shifted to a discount instead of free shipping.

That’s not the only decline we recorded. We received fewer catalogues in October—147 compared with September’s 185. We also noted that the number of catalogues offering any sort of offer was significantly lower than in September. We saw an almost even split between catalogues using their covers to promote a sale, discount, free gift, or free delivery and those that offered no special promotions at all. What’s more, the percentage of catalogues offering a free gift with purchase was just 10.2 percent, the lowest it’s been since December 2009.

Contributing to this downward trend is the fact that several of the catalogues we received did not feature a special offer on the cover, but did send a covering letter or included an insert within the catalogue that carried a promotion. This tactic was used by homewares catalogue Cologne & Cotton, which on a separate sheet of paper gave mainland UK customers free delivery on orders of £50 or more. At Lakeland, meanwhile, the order form was used to advertise its offer of free UK delivery on orders of £50 or more. I’m not sure why Lakeland would want to hide the offer. Is promoting free delivery from the cover not in-keeping with Lakeland’s brand values? Would a front-cover mention not lift take-up of the offer? I'd be interested to find out.

Here’s another little nugget for you, fact fans, out of 147 catalogues, 28, or 19 percent, had the word Christmas in the edition’s title. Just one had the word Halloween.--MT

Not hot on cold-related promos

Marketers are opportunistic by nature. So it’s surprising to see that relatively few are using the record cold temperatures and snowfall to anchor promotional emails.

Maybe merchants are concerned about the difficulties parcel carriers are having reaching some areas of the country. Numerous websites have caveats on their home pages admitting to weather-related delays. That concern shouldn’t hold you back, though: Consumers who are finding it difficult to get to the store to replenish their waning supplies of tea and milk (or in my case, Diet Coke) are well aware that delivery delays are inevitable, so a simple reminder on the website is enough. If they then decide not to place an order, so be it. But at least do what you can to get them to your website (or your call centre) first.

Home decor retailer Brissi, for instance, informs visitors to its home page that its carrier, DHL, is having some difficulties. And to drive consumers to that home page, it sent out an email with the subject line “Beat the freeze, we are delivering to your doorstep for FREE!”. The copy continues in the same vein: “Beat the Big Freeze and avoid the icy roads, now there is no need to venture out, while the cold snap is biting we are delivering everything to your door for FREE! Yes, free package and posting. So what are you waiting for? Put the kettle on, sit comfortably, browse through our gorgeous collections...”

Gifts merchant Past Times takes a similar approach with a recent subject line: “Beat the freeze and shop our Winter Sale online”. The email itself is a generic “sale continues” sort of thing, but by putting a more timely spin on the subject line and creating a benefit in the minds of readers (no need to trek out in the cold; we’ll enable you shop while lazing in front of your fireplace in your Slanket), Past Times manages to instil a bit of urgency and interest.

Apparel retailers arguably have it easier than most others when it comes to tying a promotion into the weather. Cataloguer Bonprix does it nicely while confirming its brand image as a source of fashion savvy on a budget, “Beat the big chill by layering!” reads the subject line. The text continues, “There's only one way to beat the big chill this winter and that's the layer look. Fight off the cold with a cami under a jumper, a cardi, and a coat and then simply peel off a layer at a time when you're back in the warm. For more inspiration, view our online fashion show to see just how it's done.” The runway video that the email links to does a great job of piling multitude items of clothing on each model; I wouldn’t be surprised if the clothes weighed more than some of the mannequins. But they sure look both warm and chic.

So many others missed this easy opportunity, though. EasyvoyageUK sent out an email to promote bargain trips to warmer climes. Its subject line: “Caribbean flights for under £650 pp”. Okay, that’s factual, but not very evocative. How difficult would it be to warm up the subject line with something like: “Get out your bikini—fly to the Caribbean for under £650” or “What big freeze? Warm up in the Caribbean for less”. Before you creatives write in to tell me that those subject lines stink, bear in mind that I whipped them up in a matter of seconds. I’m sure you could do better with just a bit more time—so why not take that bit more time and at least test a more relevant subject line?

Gadgets mailer I Want One of Those did more than simply come up with a clever subject line; it came up with a contest as well. “Stuck at home?" begins the email. "Use that snow before the gritters get to it! While you're working from home (or occasionally checking the work email and watching Cash in the Attic), why not make us a snow creature and post a picture on our Facebook wall? The best one posted will get a tasty £100 IWOOT Voucher! All we ask is that you include a purple element into it somehow, just to prove you're not dragging out photos from Winter '87.”

I received the email at around 3:30pm on 7th January. By noon on 8th January, 151 snow creature pix had already been posted on the I Want One of Those Facebook page. The email about the contest didn’t push product, but it certainly helped engage customers with the brand and, judging by the retweets on Twitter, is spreading the word to prospects as well.

The only things more clever than the promotion are some of the snow creatures photographed for the contest. This photo and caption made me laugh, but my favourite is the one labelled “Snowman cat & dog by Justin Adams” (see below), which for some reason reminds me of Jeff Koons's Puppy.—SC

What we learned from one day’s worth of pre-Christmas emails

In the summer I had the bright idea of logging in every marketing email that Miri and I received for a week. It made for one of our most popular blog posts, as well as for an exhausting several days. So since I couldn’t eke out the time to repeat that experiment (I have prezzies to buy and latkes to fry), I decided to instead home in on the emails we received on 9th December, two days after the so-called Mega Monday. At this point merchants should have had a solid grasp of which products, if any, they needed to push to meet sales goals, so it seemed as good a time as any to take a snapshot of their marketing efforts.

During the week in July that I tallied up the emails, we’d received 150. On 9th December we received 51, not counting duplicates (which makes me even more glad I decided to limit the experiment to one day!). Of those 51, nearly two-thirds—33, or 65 percent—offered some sort of discount or sale. That doesn’t include the email from fashion retailer Warehouse, which promoted a 25 percent discount voucher in the current issue of Grazia magazine.

Free postage and packing was appreciably less popular: Only nine of the emails, or 18 percent, offered it. For the most part the free P&P was tied to an order deadline (Neom Luxury Organics, womenswear cataloguer Gray & Osbourne), a spending threshold (toys cataloguer Letterbox, A Hume Country Clothing), or both (outdoor gear mailer Patagonia), though home-entertainment merchant Play.com and womenswear retailer Wall London offered unconditional free P&P.

Although these emails were sent just two weeks and a day before Christmas, only one in four notified recipients of the order deadlines for Christmas delivery. Orvis, for one, specified the date in its subject line (“Order by 14th December for guaranteed Christmas delivery”).

Gifts retailer Past Times spelled out last order dates not only for the UK but also for Continental Europe, US and Canada, and “rest of the world”. Granted, those overseas deadlines had already passed, which Past Times duly noted by striking through them, but by including them on the email it subtly reminded customers that it does indeed delivery worldwide.

Snow and surf gear seller Blue Tomato went one better, specifying dates for both standard and expedited delivery to EU and non-EU countries. I was confused, however, by the addition of dates for delivery to “AT” and “DE”. After a bit of sleuthing Miri deduced they meant Austria and Germany. (Since when did those countries drop out of the EU?)

So engrossed were marketers in their Christmas promotions, they for the most part neglected to follow email best practice. Take personalisation: A scant 8 percent of the emails (those from toys cataloguer BrightMinds, Conrad Electronic, wine merchant Vintage Roots, and pet supplies seller Zooplus) had any degree of it, and even these limited the personalisation to the salutation. Fewer than one-third—31 percent—of the emails included some sort of “forward to a friend” link. Only 27 percent included a link to their Facebook or MySpace page, their Twitter feed, or some other social-networking site, though that was an improvement from July, when just 17 percent of the emails we tallied offered such links.

In terms of subject lines, few really stood out. There was Orvis’s previously mentioned reference to the ordering deadline, and several others that also emphasised urgency (“Christmas gift ideas--Special Offer--One day only SAVE 20%” from gardening gifts merchant Primrose, “Wild Wednesday--Up to 80% off for 24hrs only” from general merchandiser Sendit.com, “20% OFF EVERYTHING--Ends Midnight Friday!” from fashion retailer Evans). Others simply stated their offers (the awkwardly punctuated “25% Off Everything and Get Ready for Christmas, shop now!” from Laura Ashley, “25% off all purchases at The Body Shop”). I did like “Stuff Those Stockings—Gift Ideas” from fashion brand White Stuff and “Christmas gifts? Ask the experts!” from gadgets merchant Firebox.com because they were somewhat different.

Only two subject lines really stood out, though. One was from cosmetics brand Space NK, and that caught my attention because of the typographic error: “Limited Time Offer: Receive #10 Off Your Purchase”. As an American, this made sense to me: What is called a hash tag on this side of the Atlantic is known as a pound sign on the other side. But I’m sure it baffled many other recipients.

Then there was this: “Christmas Tree Almost Ruins Christmas--A Case Study from The Healthy House”. C’mon, you have to open an email with a subject line like that. Apparently the writer of the email once had a genuine Scotch pine for the family tree, but the kids ended up being allergic to the attendant dust, mould spores, and terpene (yeah, I had no idea what that was either). The moral, according to Healthy House, is to be conscious of people’s environmental sensitivities and other allergies, and if you’re going to opt for a real tree, click through to the Healthy House website to buy an antiallergy spray.

On a happier note, here are my picks for the most aesthetically pleasing emails. The vast majority featured a broad selection of the merchants’ product ranges, which was quite practical. After a while, though, they blurred together in my memory. These didn’t:

Patagonia didn't eschew its creative trademark--fabulous action shots--and it also tied its copy to the photo: "Don’t be cast out in the cold because you didn’t get your gift there on time. There’s still time to pick up great Patagonia presents and get them there on time..."

The simplicity of this message from fashion brand Howies is refreshing. Plus Howies was one of the few marketers to promote gift vouchers, which are always popular to give and to receive.

Okay, I'm a sucker for puppies. Want to make something of it?--SC