Christmas early birds

One of our friends told us she’s already completed her Christmas shopping for 2012. We don’t know for sure, but we like to think it’s because canny email marketers are already sending their Christmas offers. Here are some of the early birds we’ve spotted nesting in our inbox:

Firebox
You never know quite what you’ll get in a Firebox email, but we can all imagine the monstrosity that is a collection of “The World’s Best Christmas Jumpers, Ever”, which also happens to be the email’s subject line. The copy reads: “The festive season is fast approaching, and we’ve got the World’s Best Christmas Jumpers, Ever. Plus, some nice new additions to the Big Face T-Shirt range, customised coasters and cufflinks and some really Cynical Tea Bags.” Firebox knows novelty—and wears it so very well.

Notonthehighstreet
We want to get all “handmade” this Christmas, but we’ll probably end up getting all our presents gift-wrapped at checkout. Still, Notonthehighstreet does a stellar job in inspiring us to try a little bit harder this year.

Donald Russell
If, like us, you’re already thinking about your Christmas Day dinner, you’ll appreciate this email from Donald Russell. Pure carnivore heaven. But the best bit is clicking through to savour Donald Russell’s full Christmas menu. Yum.--MT

Mother’s Day emails we love

The other day I happened across the Xbox Live dashboard and noticed its Mother’s Day gift ideas. For the uninitiated, Xbox Live is the Microsoft console’s online service. It is accessible via the console itself or through the Xbox.com website. The service enables subscribers to access and download demos of the latest games, rent or buy HD movies, and interact with the various apps Microsoft has partnered with.

Curious to find out what Xbox recommends we buy mum this Sunday, I found its selection rather uninspired—dominated by cheesy romcoms and casual puzzle games. Clearly, Xbox doesn’t think mums would enjoy a spot of Modern Warfare.

It’s easy to fall into the stereotyping trap at Mother’s Day, so here are a few offers from retailers that thought a little out of the box this year, and made my list of favourite emails.

1. Astley Clarke
Subject line: 12 ways to get Mother's Day right plus Free Delivery
Why we love it: Have you ever bought your mum—or wife—something practical and really regretted it? We’ve all been there. New jewellery trumps a kitchen gadget every time and online jeweller Astley Clarke has done well to capitalise on this. The subject line is attention-grabbing and “plus free delivery” is always a winner. I also like the personal touch. When I clicked through from the email I discovered that the 12 items were handpicked by founder Bec Astley Clarke, who just had her second child and is in “full Mother’s Day swing this year”. Bec Astley Clarke has also, rather helpfully, picked items to suit all budgets, from a sterling silver small locket at £85 to the 18-carat yellow gold amethyst ring for £895.

2. Firebox
Subject line: Thanks Mum
Why we love it: Firebox just seems to get me. References to Terminator and Alien, Yes! A pen valued at €1,000,000. WANT! Oh wait, I’m shopping for mum… The Firebox email has topped many of my “favourites” lists for having its finger on the pulse. This Mother’s Day email is no exception. While I’m not that keen on all of the gifts—a campervan birdhouse, pink gin and a “social-media shower curtain”, you can’t help but smile at a photo of a bear sitting at a picnic table. Or for that matter, be won over by Firebox’s jovial copy.

3. Frugi
Subject line: Get something lovely this Mother's day! Free postage, free card and gift wrap!
Why we love it: I am a big fan of wish lists; primarily because I hate surprises. This is why I love Frugi’s email detailing a step-by-step process of actually getting what you want with tips on how to fill in a wish list and how to get it noticed by your loved ones. Not only that but Frugi will also deliver the parcel gift-wrapped and with free shipping—and include a card too. My only criticism is that the wish list is limited to Frugi’s breast-feeding wear. Perhaps, if successful, Frugi will repeat the offer and extend it to other lines. -- MT

 

Royal wedding emails we love

The old adage is true, be careful what you wish for. I had initially lamented the lack of royal wedding merchandise.But that was back in November. Since then we've been subject to a deluge of royal wedding-related memorabilia, including this £10 plastic tray spotted in a souvenir shop outside the London Eye.

There have also been plenty of royal wedding emails from marketers keen to boost sales ahead of the big day. Here are three that caught my attention. Feel free to send me your favourite Wills & Kate emails--and why you love them. We'll do another roundup in an upcoming blog post, email miri@catalog-biz.com.

Firebox
Why we love it: Think Channel 4’s alternative to the Queen’s Speech at Christmas and you’ll get the gist of the Firebox email. Titled “Wills & Kate: 100% Unofficial Merchandise with FREE UK Delivery!”, the Firebox email has everything for those who like their royal weddings with a pinch of salt. Presented against a backdrop of cheerful bunting, there are “Thanks for the day off” commemorative plates and Royal Wedding Top Trumps that rate guests on their age, style icon-ness and VIP status. If you want something less cheeky, there are Union Jack sky lanterns and a royal wedding heart mug.

Cosyfeet
Why we love it: Did you know that if Prince William were to get married before his 25th birthday he would have needed the Queen’s consent? No, neither did we, but thanks to Cosyfeet’s themed email we do now. Cosyfeet, a seller of extra roomy footwear, sent an email to its customer base with details on occasionwear to celebrate the royal wedding. The email, with the subject line “Cosyfeet magazine - Issue 8 - 10% off selected footwear” included a number of other factoids about the royals—as well as that all-important special offer. These features combine to give Cosyfeet real inbox staying power.

Notonthehighstreet.com
Why we love it: Breaking away from email marketing convention, this missive from gifts etailer Notonthehighstreet.com has no immediate call to action in the subject line. However, with the title “Weddings, weekends and winning” the recipient has a clear idea of what’s on offer. The wedding is clearly the royal wedding, with themed products including badges, biscuits, and bunting. The weekend is covered by travel bags and passport holders. And the win involves taking part in an Easter egg hunt. As the win element was consigned to a small graphic at the top right of the email, we would have liked to see more made of it. But otherwise this was a delightful email that made us long for a cream tea and a street party.--MT

Valentine's emails we love

Firebox
Subject: “You Can Hurry Love - Order by 5pm Friday 
to Spoil Someone Special!”

Why we love it:
We’re not really the romantic type, nor are we particularly organised when it comes to buying gifts, so that’s why this email from Firebox won us over. Received on Thursday, 10th February, there were a mere two working days to secure a present for our sweetheart. But Firebox reassured us, and the rest of its customers, that all wasn’t lost—we could still beat the last-order deadline.

Debenhams
Subject: “P.S. We love you...”
Why we love it:
This was suggested to us by BrightMinds’ IT and web manager, Joshua Geake for its “simple and remarkably apt” subject line. And we agree. There’s something for everyone in the email: an outfit for a night out, gifts for her and him, chocolate and champagne indulgence and best of all, the chance of winning a weekend away. And we said we weren’t romantic…

Bakker
Subject: “Bakker wishes you a happy Valentines day”
Why we love it:
We’re not sure we love it, but it certainly made us sit up and take notice. Sent on the 14th, the email wished us a happy Valentine’s Day. Making us feel even better, Bakker announced “Our customers love flowers, we love our customers!!” alongside a big picture of a bouquet of roses. Well, at least someone sent us flowers. The image almost led us to believe that this lovely arrangement was free with our next order, until we scrolled down a little further to see that a bundle of six towels was the free gift. We’re pretty sure “Huh?” wasn’t the desired the reaction.--MT

Where’s all the Wills and Kate merchandise?

Here at Catalogue e-business we were very happy to hear the news that Prince William and Kate Middleton are to get married on 29th April next year. Not only is it a very joyous occasion for all Great Britain to celebrate, we also get an extra bank holiday. I am a little surprised—and dare I admit, disappointed— though, that there isn’t more “Wills and Kate” merchandise out there, at least not judging from the emails and catalogues I have received lately.

While Tesco’s £16 version of Kate’s dress sold out within minutes, and replicas of the engagement ring are boosting trade at jewellery shops, I’m struggling to find any kitsch memorabilia. Since the engagement was announced on 16th November, I’ve received just one (yes, one!) email promoting royal wedding merchandise, from pottery brand Emma Bridgewater.

I’m sure as the wedding date draws closer I’ll receive more promotions for commemorative souvenirs. In the meantime, and in the absence of any really bizarre royal wedding products, I’ll leave you with a little frivolity from Firebox and Twitter. The gifts and gadgets etailer asked its followers on the social networking site to suggest Wills and Kate merchandise befitting Firebox’s quirky style. One respondent suggested barbeque gloves, another said racing Wills and Kate in the style of the Racing Grannies, and another liked the thought of a Wills and Kate-themed double Slanket.—MT

The email campaign trail

In fewer than 24 hours, the polls will open and us Brits will be able to vote in the general election to shape the country’s future. If you haven’t yet made up your mind who to vote for, the following emails from cataloguers and online retailers won’t help you much, but they are an irreverent look at how the election was used as a marketing opportunity.

Boden
Title: Attention, Boden needs your vote- choose your offer wisely‏
Premise: Just two parties in Boden’s email—the stripes party and the spots party. Each has a different offer. Vote for spots and receive £15 off a £100 spend. Voting for stripes, which "campaigns" for a VAT-free Britain, gives the recipient 17.5 percent off.
Our vote: This definitely gets our cross in the box. A great offer and superb creative—when it comes to memorable emails, Boden never fails to deliver.

Feather & Black
Title: Vote for Style! Up to 50% off This Bank Holiday Week...
Premise: Bed and bedding retailer Feather & Black is tired of the hype around the general election, so it’s running its own election campaign. Feather & Black is calling on customers to go to its stores and vote for their favourite product to be in with a chance of winning a Salisbury Panelled Bed worth £599. As well as the star prize, Feather & Black is also running a sale with up to 40 percent off, plus a further 10 percent off during the bank holiday weekend.
Our vote: Although dominating the subject line, the words election and voting seem secondary to the main thrust of its email, which focuses on promoting the bank holiday sale. Perfect for those bored of hearing about manifestos and promises.

Firebox
Title: If we ruled the world - the Firebox Manifesto‏
Premise: Firebox’s party political broadcast calls for compulsory radio-controlled helicopter flying lessons on the curriculum and a knighthood for David Hasselhoff.
Our vote: Plenty of product, plenty of tongue-in-cheek humour, but I don’t think I’d really want to live in Firebox’s Utopia. And the policies all seem a bit obvious—was this email more hastily put together than Firebox’s other missives?

Pets at Home
Title: Brown and Cameron-themed dog toys plus huge deals on cat and dog food‏
Premise: Pets at Home runs with a promotion for dog toys in the shape of David Cameron and Gordon Brown. The idea is that presented with both toys your pet pooch will pick his desired prime minister.
Our vote: In interests of fairness we abstain from voting as there’s no Nick Clegg doll.

Waterstone’s
Title: Who gets your vote?‏
Premise: A serious note from Waterstone’s. No gimmicks, just political books to provide the recipients of this email all the background information they should need on each of the parties and candidates.
Our vote: The early bird catches the worm. Waterstone’s gets top marks for sending the email on the first day of campaigning. That’s enough time to read more than one book—smart, eh?--MT

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

Making print more sociable

Molly Flatt of social-media marketing firm 1000heads wrote an article for the October issue of Catalogue e-business (due to hit desks 5th October) that, among other things, wondered why few multichannel marketers made use of social marketing in their print catalogues. Many mailers include customer testimonials in their catalogues, but that’s pretty much the extent of their word-of-mouth marketing efforts in print.

Orvis has the right idea. The outdoor gear and apparel merchant runs an annual photo contest; the winner’s picture is used as the front cover of its autumn Orvis Dog Book (and the photographer gets a £500 Orvis gift card too). Consumers are the judges; they’re encouraged to vote via the print catalogue and the website. This year Orvis also posted on YouTube and on its own site a video slide show of some popular entries. The video received more than 6,000 views on YouTube in just two months—and you know a significant portion of those viewers clicked the link to the Orvis website, had a browse, and maybe requested a catalogue or made a purchase.

As I was editing Molly’s article, I came up with all sorts of possible ways to “socialise” catalogues, in addition to those Molly suggests (and no, I’m not going to tell you what those are—you’ll have to read the issue to find out). For instance, gadgets retailer Firebox.com runs a fortnightly contest in which it awards a gift card to the person who submits the best photo and video. The contest is promoted on its website and the winning entrants featured, but I haven’t seen the winning photos included in the Firebox print catalogue. Why not?

For that matter, why not ask catalogue readers to submit photos of themselves using/wearing products they’ve purchased from you, then include a smattering of them in the catalogue and on your website? Why don’t more kitchenware merchants solicit recipes from customers, or art-supplies cataloguers run contests for readers to design their covers?

The internet didn't create social marketing; it merely put a flashy shiny gloss on the concept. Cataloguers (and even more prominently, magazine publishers) have long invited their audiences to participate with their brands via contests, testimonials, and requests for pictures, stories, recipes, and helpful hints. The mechanics of setting up a blog or a forum or online product ratings are relatively easy; the challenging part is crafting a compelling, attention-getting reason for your audience to get involved.--SC

What we learned from 150 marketing emails

In this day and age, you’d think that a significant portion of marketing emails would be personalised to some degree. I’m not talking about something sophisticated like a product recommendation based on previous visits to the company’s website; a simple “Dear Sherry” would do. But of the 150 emails that Miri and I tallied during the past week, just 13 had some sort of personalisation. That’s a scant 8.7 percent--even though studies have indicated that personalising an email greeting can increase both open and click-through rates. (For instance, in a study by MailerMailer, emails with a personalised message had an average open rate of 15.15 percent, compared with 13.01 percent for nonpersonalised messages. And personalised messages had a 4.12-percent click-through rate, compared with 2.59 percent for nonpersonalised ones.)

Personalisation, or the lack thereof, was just one of the basics that the majority of companies that emailed us got wrong. And even when companies did try to personalise a message, there were snafus. Stainless-steel equipment seller Teknomek tried, bless ‘em, but the salutation read “Dear –”. And health-food purveyor Higher Nature evidently thinks I’m a man (“Dear Mr Chiger”).

Judging by the emails, social networking is something direct marketers love in theory more than in practice. Only 25 of the emails—16.7 percent—included a link to the company’s Facebook page, Twitter feed, or other third-party social-media site.

Granted, more of the messages included some sort of “forward to a friend” link. But not that many more: only 29.3 percent. And it’s not as if adding this sort of link to an email template should be all that difficult. As Tink Taylor of DotMailer wrote recently for Catalogue e-business, “viral and word-of-mouth marketing is an inexpensive way to spread your marketing messages, drive traffic, collect contact information, and ultimately boost sales”.

Nor should proofreading the emails be all that difficult either, yet too many had obvious misspellings. The subject line of a message from menswear cataloguer Jolliman, for instance, read “Jolliman Summer Bargins”. A Pet-Supermarket subject line read “New website, 4,000 new product & 3 new animal categories”. Office and industrial supplies mailer Slingsby urged recipients to “Safeguard your employee’s health”, which would have been fine if that particular subject line appeared only on emails to people who supervised just one staffer. It was particularly depressing to see a company misspell its own name in the subject line, as The Children’s Furniture Company did: “The Childrens Furniture Company Summer Sale Now On!” Ironmongery Direct ended an email with this caveat: “30% Offer ends: 5th July 2009”; unfortunately we received the message on 16th July. In one of its emails, Staples labelled a link "Click here to view our full range of clearance itmes". Am I being pedantic? I don’t think so. Spam tends to be riddled with typos, so I think many consumers are immediately suspicious of messages that are misspelled.

Not all of the emails were dire. Some were simply uninspired. Nearly three-quarters (71.3 percent) of the messages we received promoted some sort of sale or discount in the subject line. Yes, I know that “Free” does translate to opens and click-throughs, and that “sale” and “one-third off” are similarly magical. And yes, chances are good that the people who receive your marketing emails probably don’t have as many competing messages in their inbox as we do. But the similarity of the promotional subject lines left me both overwhelmed (by the sheer volume) and underwhelmed (by the sheer tedium).

That’s why I liked the subject lines that added a sense of urgency to the promotion (“Free delivery on holiday shop - 3 days only!” from Figleaves.com) or did something clever with the offer (from Peeks Party, “How low can you go? Summer party limbo kit 27% off”).

Because I don’t want to end this lengthy post on a down note, I’m going to close with a few more examples of emails we liked:

* The sales promotion email from fashion brand Ben Sherman (above) had some eye-grabbing cartoon graphics that set off the silhouetted product shots gorgeously.

* The subject line from supplements mailer Trust William certainly stood out: “Every 10th Order Refunded!” Trust William planned to notify the lucky 10 percent within seven days after the specified time frame, so recipients couldn’t try to cheat the system. The notification emails also provided the company with an excuse to contact its customers again.

* The “denim heaven” email from plus-size womenswear retailer Evans (above) promoted a sale (two pairs of selected jeans for £30), but the email text gave additional reasons besides price to buy jeans from Evans. In bullet points, it spelled out “why our jeans are a great fit”: three leg lengths for most styles; stretch added to the fabric; “a higher waist for an amazing fit”; “we fit all our jeans on real women, which means you get a better, more-flattering fit every time”. That’s great, benefit-driven, easy-to-digest selling copy.

* In addition to promoting its summer sale, womenswear retailer Wallis used its email to encourage recipients to take a survey about the company, by offering participants the chance to win £150 in vouchers. Menswear merchant Brook Taverner did something similar: It included a link to its survey but rewarded all participants with a £20 voucher.

* The “minimail” message from Firebox (above) featured just one product, the Cool-er eBook Reader, but the graphics and the copy made a real hero of that item. My favourite line from the product description: “…this wafer-thin eReader is the greatest thing to happen to literature since Jeffrey Archer got banged up”.

My number-one lesson learned from this experiment? That next time I come up with a brilliant idea along the lines of "let's log and analyse all the marketing emails we receive in a week; how long could it possibly take?", I should ignore it.--SC

Twittering on

Now that Catalogue e-business has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon (twitter.com/catalogbiz), I've been checking out how some multichannel marketers are using the channel.

A number of retailers simply use their Twitter feeds to advertise their promotions and offerings. Lingerie etailer Figleaves, for instance, touts the addition of womenswear, menswear, and children's apparel to its product line and asks readers to vote for it in the Prima Fashion Awards. It also contributed this intriguing post: "Getting in some training for our attempt at breaking the world record for most bras unclasped in one minute!"

Upscale fashion etailer Net-a-Porter.com dresses up its promos with fashion advice ("For office cool, we're giving our peg leg pants an urban edge with a tucked in tank!"). Jackson's Art goes one better and links to artists it (or at least Julie Caves, who runs the feed) likes and quirky articles.

The best feeds make the most of Twitter by encouraging a dialogue with readers. For years lots of lip service has been paid to communicating directly and personally with customers and prospects; Twitter enables it, easily and quickly, and that may be its greatest value to merchants.

Gadgets marketer Firebox, for one, understands this: Its posts in response to reader queries and comments far outweigh its self-promotional posts. (Firebox also won me over by posting a link to Cake Wrecks, a blog that posts photos of... well, see for yourself.)

In short, companies that view Twitter only as a means of pushing out their message are missing out. Doing so is like going to a Michelin-starred restaurant and ordering only a cheese toastie.--SC

Knot good

One of our favourite blogs EVER is Photoshop Disasters. And whilst our design manager positively shudders at every posting, we editorial types laugh heartily and thank the lord it wasn’t us who messed up this time! So from otherwise A-star etailer Firebox.com, here’s one Photoshop Disasters seems to have missed.—MT
(Oh wait... Now I feel guilty. I just checked my emails and Firebox have sent me a £5 voucher because I haven’t shopped for a while. Sorry folks.)