Emails we love--VAT promotions

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, it can’t have escaped you that the rate of VAT has gone up from 17.5 to 20 percent. Always ready to take advantage of a marketing opportunity, retailers flooded email inboxes with offers to beat the hike. Here are some of the memorable ones we came across:

Glasses Direct
Subject line: “Beat The VAT - All Prices Held + 20% Off Frames For 1 Week!”
Why we love it: The attention-grabbing headline (above) entices customers to open the email whereupon they are greeted by an attractive graphic containing all the necessary details. We also liked that those unsure about taking up the deal were further coaxed by friendly copy: “We are chuffed to bits to be able to tell you that we will not be increasing our prices this year due to the increased VAT. In fact it’s even sweeter than that, as until 11th January we’ll be cushioning the blow of increased VAT even further by also offering you an extra 20% off frames!” There’s no doubt left in the consumer’s mind as to what the offer is and how he can take advantage of it.


White Stuff
Subject line: “Spring sneak peak & more sale items”
Why we love it: This email from White Stuff sees us digress. The VAT rise is clearly not the focus of the email, though it does get a mention in a comic book-style speech bubble: “We are not putting our prices up!” Primarily, we love it for its fun and vibrant superhero theme, and most of all, the “New Adventures of Superdog” comic strip.

Dell
Subject line: “Let Dell pay the VAT increase for you! Click here”
Why we love it: Yes, we know, the “Click here” in the subject line is redundant. So much better to say “Click to open and let Dell pay the VAT for you” or even just “Let Dell pay the VAT for you”. Aside from that, the idea is clever, it may only be a rise of 2.5 percent, but it’s better Dell pay it than us. Makes us feel like we’re sticking it to the man.--MT

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

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

The September Catalogue Log

In last month’s Catalogue Log, we were wondering why we’d received a scant 71 catalogues in August. No matter: Volume picked up in September, with a vengeance. We tallied 212 catalogues in September, the most in one month so far this year. To put it in context, in May, the month with the second greatest volume, we'd received 155 catalogues. Or, for more context, of the 1,081 catalogues logged during the first nine months of 2009, nearly one-fifth were received in September.

While the number of catalogues received had nearly tripled from the previous month, the percentage promoting sales and discounts dropped appreciably, from 43.7 percent in August to 34.4 percent in September. That’s somewhat higher than July’s 30.9 percent but nearly on a par with June’s 34.1 percent.

The percentage of the September catalogues offering free delivery was 18.4 percent, up from August’s 16.9 percent. It’s also the second highest rate so far this year. Top honours go to April, in which a full 20 percent of the books received had some sort of free P&P offer. Several of the September delivery offers were pegged to deadlines. Fashion brand Joe Browns, for instance, promised free P&P only on orders received by 18th September; fellow apparel brand White Stuff extended its offer till 15th October; yet another fashion brand, Fat Face, offered free delivery but only till 30th September and only on web orders.

The percentage of catalogues offering a gift with purchase was a fairly modest 10.8 percent in September. That’s down from August’s 14.1 percent and the high, in June, of 17.8 percent. Among September’s gifts-with-purchase were a £20 cosmetics kit with orders of £25 or more from BuyCosmetics.com; £12.50 worth of chocolates with each order of £50 or more from the Hotel Chocolat Corporate Christmas Gifts catalogue; and from apparel cataloguer Boden, a Jewelled Pebble Necklace worth £39 for new customers.

The Boden offer appeared in the mini-catalogue inserted in an issue of the Sunday Times; the catalogue cover also offered a 15-percent discount, free delivery, and free returns. Far be it for me to question the wisdom of Johnnie Boden et al, but one could argue that the plethora of promotions makes the brand seem a bit… needy. Yes, annual turnover rose 9.4 percent last year, to £168.1 million, so the company is undoubtedly doing many things right. Then again, pretax profit fell 9.5 percent, to £24.8 million, and while some of this was due to expanding its US facilities, could Boden be overspending on some of its customer acquisition?

Enough speculation; let’s get back to cold, hard percentages. Among the September catalogues, 42.5 percent promised no special offers at all. That’s a significant increase from 31.0 percent in August, though down slightly from 43.6 percent in July. As we get closer to Christmas, it might be interesting to wager how low the percentage of promotion-free catalogues will fall before the end of the year. My money’s on 20 percent: I predict that by December, four out of five catalogues will be touting some sort of discount, freebie, or other promotion. Your predictions?--SC

Your retailer needs you!

This will be the second time in a month that White Stuff is the topic of a blog post. And whilst I don’t want Catablogue e-business to be accused of favouritism, White Stuff clearly deserves a pat on the back for another excellent idea and cleverly executed creative.
“Women (and men) of Britain* - shop for Victory with the White Stuff Ration Book!” began an email titled Beat the Blitz. (The asterisk, if you’re wondering, was explained in the footer of the email—“We even deliver overseas”.)
It went on to explain that with every purchase made online or in-store customers would receive a free “ration book” packed with discounts and special offers from White Stuff’s partners to help customers get through the current recession. Not only that but White Stuff’s very own “land girls” Ivy and Lil (“who quite frankly have ‘been there, done that’ and are wondering what all the fuss is about”) dispense advice on how to “make do and mend, entertain the troops and beautify on a budget”. The ration book concept is well thought through too—customers can collect stamps throughout April, May and June to qualify for money off at White Stuff.
With the current talk of recession, deflation et al, it’s refreshing to receive such a clever, upbeat email full of fighting spirit. Good work, White Stuff. At ease. --MT

"High on a hill was a lonely goat..."

What does fashion merchant White Stuff have to do with The Sound of Music? Beats me--but I don't really care, not when there are pictures in the latest White Stuff catalogue of goats wearing Tyrol hats and blond braids.

White Stuff's spring edition has a Sound of Music theme. Some of the fashion shoots are set against rolling Alpine-esque hills; interstitial pages include an ad for a faux album, The Sound of Meowsic ("including classics like 'Edelmice', 'Do, Re, Meow', 'Climb Every Curtain' and many, many more"), a list of "top ten bizarre Bavarian activities", and instructions for making cardboard lederhosen. There's also a joint promotion with Edelweiss beer (ah! that explains the Austrian theme) in which one lucky entrant wins a weekend trip to Salzburg and tickets to the Sound of Music tour. And there's a limited-time offer of free P&P, so long as you quote the code "goat" at checkout. All of which ensures that recipients will give the catalogue more than a passing glance.

If only I could now get the song "Edelweiss" out of my mind.

PS--It's not part of the theme, but perhaps by favourite part of the entire catalogue is on the back cover: "Yipee! Freepost exchanges & returns are absolutely FREE". I'm a sucker for a well-placed "yipee!"--SC