Hola! Bring out the mariachi band and the silver-studded suits—it’s Cinco de Mayo! This year, General Mills celebrates with Cinco-themed Betty Crocker and Dinner Made Easy newsletters. I don’t mention these just because I love a good margarita. (But if you’re ever in Seattle, you must order a Suprema at ¡Cactus! Tell them I sent you.) And while I haven’t been inspired to actually cook anything, the email marketers over at General Mills are doing a lot of things right. Learn from Betty: pick up these cinco tricks to go from email siesta to email fiesta!

(1) Make it easy.
Our subscribers are taking time from their busy lives to read our email messages. If we can find ways to save them time in return, they’ll keep clicking.
(a) Both the Betty and Dinner newsletters embrace this philosophy, down to the nuts and bolts. Both the preheaders and the footers are clear, concise and easy-to-use.
(b) The Dinner newsletter employs graphical icons like arrows, recipe cards and stars to indicate different content types at a glance, eliminating the need to read. Betty frames coupon offers with dotted lines and a pair of scissors.
(c) Copy is customer-centric; even the name Dinner Made Easy carries a benefit. The Betty newsletter takes both hunger and time-starvation into consideration with the headline: “Ready in 30 minutes!”

(2) Ask questions.
As Dale Carnegie says, the most interesting conversationalists are generally those who let you do all the talking. The Dinner Newsletter commences with a conversation starter: “Want to start a taco night tradition?”

(3) Add depth of perspective.
(a) Betty includes customer quotes from both Jessica and Tweety, letting readers—rather than writers—own the content. (Tweety prefers her tacos with lean ground chuck.)
(b) Customer ratings are sprinkled throughout both newsletters. I particularly enjoy the spoon rating system in the Betty vehicle. Beef Tacos: 4.5 spoons! Very cute.
(c) Mexican Hot Chocolate cookies get a halo when cited as a favorite of celebrity blogger and food editor Andi Bidwell. Like LeVar Burton says, “You don’t have to take my word for it.”

(4) Make a game of it.
Betty drives clickthroughs and daily website traffic with a Great Grilling Giveaway.

(5) Put it to a vote!
(a) The Dinner newsletter engages readers with a poll—classic or crescent? I say classic! I adore churros; have you ever had them with vanilla ice cream? It’s fantastic.
(b) At the end of the day, your subscribers are the ones who decide whether to open, whether to read...and whether to unsubscribe. How could you not ask them what they think of your newsletter? Both the Betty Crocker and Dinner Made Easy newsletters end with a request for feedback: “Help us improve our newsletter. How would you rate the usefulness of this email?” Overlaying answers with other performance metrics could yield interesting results. Plus, the placement of the request offers some insight into how many folks are actually scrolling down to the bottom of the message.

Speaking of which... How would you rate the usefulness (and/or the entertainment value) of this article? Do you have any favorite newsletters (or taco recipes) to share? Please post your comments below!

--> See the “Betty Crocker” Newsletter
--> See the “Dinner Made Easy” Newsletter

¡Salud!
—General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín
& Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

We’re star-struck! As websites roll out customer reviews, marketers are rolling them into their email programs. Here are three tips for integrating ratings into email with blockbuster performance.

(1) Show Your Stars (or Paws, or Produce...)
• The Home Depot uses a classic gold star motif, the most obvious customer ratings visual cue. (A Chiminea!? You learn something new every day!)
• PETCO.com shows puppy love with pawprint rankings. (To be sure they didn’t come from my pets, who don’t love Frontline.)
• Betty Crocker cooks up fun with spoon and strawberry star systems. (Super-cute!)

(2) Create Context
• Discovery Channel shows only 5-star items, which can feel over-edited. (Although how could a Dino DVD be anything less than awesome!?)
• Pillsbury mixes it up by including recipes with as few as 2-and-a-half stars, lending the ratings more authenticity and empowering higher-ranking content. (Mediochre Cherry-Almond Coffee Cake, anyone?)
• Macy*s increases accuracy and creates context by
showing ratings to the decimal point, as well as the number of reviews from which the rating is calculated. (Who doesn’t adore that mixer? It’s like a national icon.)

(3) Encourage Participation
• Chefs’ email program makes heavy use of customer ratings. To kick off the effort, they sent a dedicated email incentivizing review creation. (I like the instructional component of this one.)
• Boden recognizes reviewers by including quotes from those who’ve “been there and bought the t-shirt.” (Scooter’s mom is famous! Sweet, Johnnie!)
• Netflix acknowledges DVD returns with a simple email featuring 5 dark stars just begging to be lit up. (Check out my Netflix email experience review, too!)

Superstar Bonus!: Our team of in-house scientists conducted an enormously complex astronomical survey, studying the email galaxy to determine which brands have enough star power to get VIE (Very Important Email) status. Using a secret formula devised by a team of MIT mathemeticians in Vegas, we paired the top 10 VIEs with 10 VIPs. Our findings:

Edmund Hillary: 4.5 stars, REI >
The Princess and the Pea: 5 stars, Brookstone >
Jimmy Buffett: 20 stars, Chefs >
Mr. Wizard: 20 stars, Discovery Channel >
The Best Grandma in the World (Mine!): 25.5 stars, Bisquick >
Scooter’s Mom: 26 stars, Boden >
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man: 26.5 stars, Pillsbury >
Tim Allen: 42.4 stars, Home Depot >
Martha Stewart: 43.7 stars, Macy’s >
Team Beckham: 74.5 stars, Sports Authority >

My stars!

Until next time,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Last July, the EEC community voted on which call-to-action treatment performs best: buttons or links? 72% of respondents agreed that buttons are more effective.
-->See the Survey Results

While every email is unique, the tests we’ve run since the vote confirm the results. They’ve also informed the development of a very specific button treatment that consistently outperforms others.

We call it The Bulletproof Button.

How to Build The Bulletproof Button:

(1) Pick a Color that Pops
A saturated color like red attracts attention and clicks. Just make sure to use it only when you mean it: for your primary call-to-action. Buttons are subject to the law of diminishing returns; including too many can dilute focus. Try underlined links for secondary calls-to-action.

(2) Use HTML Text
Create your call-to-action text using HTML instead of graphical text. Float the HTML text over a colored background cell so your text is legible even when a recipient’s images are disabled.

(3) Get Fancy
For a more custom button, create a graphical flourish—like a gradient—and pop it behind the HTML text as a background image. Add a carat to emphasize the action.

Bonus! After all that tech talk, here’s some button fun.

Are you a Button Buff?
How many email button styles can you match with their associated retailers? Post your guesses by commenting below.

I’ll announce the answers—and the winner—in next week’s “Make it Pop!” post. Enjoy!

Until then,
Lisa Harmon
of Smith-Harmon

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“The only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life email experience that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then—then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!”
—Holly Golightly

We are all searching for Tiffany’s, where “nothing very bad can happen.” Holly Golightly finds calm in taking her morning coffee window shopping; we search for solace sipping Starbucks over our inboxes, browsing emails, the windows into websites. As email marketers, we have the chance to create email programs that feel like Tiffany’s. Let’s leverage the strengths of the email channel to take care of our subscribers: inspiring calm, building loyalty, and (heck!) maybe even driving a furniture purchase.

I get in touch with my inner Holly Golightly via Netflix. I feel well cared for by their email program. Netflix employs powerful email strategies—including social commerce, enhanced transactional messaging, customer ratings and surveys—to provide great customer service via email, as illustrated by the four-message stream captured here.

(1) Movie Notes are smart social commerce. They enable Netflix members to send movie recommendations (and criticisms!) to friends. (I should have listened to Holly’s warning about “Material Girls.” OMG—bad! Don’t rent it!)
From: Holly Golightly
Subject Line: You've received a Movie Note
-->See the Movie Note

(2) Shipping Notifications not only communicate an almost-always accurate estimated arrival date, but also make category-relevant recommendations and upsell membership upgrades.
From: Netflix Shipping
Subject Line: For Thu: Breakfast at Tiffany's
-->See the Shipping Notification

(3) Receipt Notifications allow a recipient to instantly rate a movie they’ve just returned. (Obviously this one gets a five-star rating.)
From: Netflix Receiving
Subject Line: We've received: Breakfast at Tiffany's
-->See the Receipt Notification

(4) Mail-Back Date Surveys enroll members as partners in the rapid-receipt process. (Yes, Kozmo.com was too good to be true. Still, Netflix rentals ship scary-snappy.)
From: Netflix
Subject Line: When did you mail “Breakfast at Tiffany's”?
-->See the Mail-Back Date Survey

Darlings, let’s use this Netflix example to inspire us to sieze the awesome opportunities we have to deliver “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” via email. I’d love to hear about the email programs that make you feel simply marvelous!

I mean, a girl just can't go to Sing Sing with a green face.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

How many hearts does it take to Make it Pop!? I spent the past three weeks reflecting upon this exceedingly serious email creative quandry.

After counting the number of hearts that have appeared in over 50 V-Day-themed communications, I’ve finally calculated the definitive answer: eight.

It takes eight hearts to Make it Pop! Include only seven: you don’t show no love. But at nine you step over the heartbreak horizon—that’s a heart attack.

For your edification, the simplified results of my highly scientific study appear below.

How many hearts does it take to Make it Pop!? (Click the links to view creatives.)

01 Heart: One Love, Urban Outfitters

02 Hearts: Two Timer, Tumi

08 Hearts*: That Pops!, Harry & David

11 Hearts: A Hole in the Heart, Costco

13 Hearts: Unlucky in Love, Kate Spade

17 Hearts: Eat Your Heart Out, Williams-Sonoma

31 Hearts: I Swear I Counted, RedEnvelope

*Tabulations are halfhearted: partial hearts round to the half.

XOXO ;),
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Michael Della Penna’s debut Email Experience Blog post on The Customer Experience inspired me step through the looking glass and reflect on the positive experiences I’ve had as an email subscriber. My deep thoughts: the Sephora Beauty Insider email program has beauty and brains! How do they capture my clicks? By treating me like a VIP. It’s easy as 1-2-3…

(1) Roll out the red carpet. Want me to join your made-over email program? Send me a gold-lettered invitation. I feel special when Sephora welcomes me—“the beauty elite”—“behind beauty’s velvet rope.”
-->See the email invitation

(2) Give me some swag. If I take the time to give an exclusive interview, I want something exclusive, too. Sephora makes it worth my breath with the promise of super swag—exclusive freebies and insider-only offers, personalized tips and product picks, plus a birthday gift.
-->Check out the preferences page

(3) Send me roses. If I say red roses, don’t send white carnations! Sephora delivers roses: messages that clearly leverage the data I provide. I say I like the Bare Escentuals brand; they offer free Bare Escentuals lip polish. I say I have combination skin; they promote a revival treatment.
-->View an exclusive offer email
-->View a personalized offer email

Only, I don’t know why on earth I would ever have gotten an email about acne products. I swear—I’ve never had a pimple in my life! Ha.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon
of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

With the ubiquity of image disabling, the escalation of mobile email viewing and the expectation that recipients will not scroll, email senders have been hot to hop on the preheader train. For those of you who haven’t yet left the station, the preheader is the usually small and subdued text blurb at the top of an email that includes some combination of the below:

(1) View with images prompt
(2) Add to address book prompt
(3) Content teaser snippet(s)

Preheaders are meant to inform a recipient of:
(1) Who an email is from
(2) What the email is about and what to do about it
(3) How to view it with images

Below, check out four preheaders pulled from the tops of emails I received last week from Aveda, Blue Nile, Pottery Barn Kids and Stride Rite. The examples are displayed in order of increasing complexity: Aveda’s preheader takes the most basic (and common) form, while Blue Nile, Pottery Barn Kids and Stride Rite get fancy, adding additional details and click-through opportunities. Stride Rite gets brownie points for linking to a landing page with “add to address book” instructions for major email providers, but in my opinion rides the preheader express one stop too far. Theirs is epic, pushing the email itself down 122 pixels.

I am absolutely a best practices advocate, but let’s test to determine whether we are on the right track or off the rails. How much preheader is enough?! If any of y’all have performance stats to share, I’m sure the eec community would be grateful.

I’d like to get on a train to Cabo San Lucas right about now.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon
of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

From: Aveda Online
Subject Line: Top tips for straight hair, plus Free styling brush
Date: Monday, Jan. 21, 2008

From: Blue Nile
Subject Line: Special Promotion for Blue Nile Customers
Date: Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008

From: Pottery Barn Kids
Subject Line: Shop NEW nursery seating - over 50 designer fabrics!
Date: Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008

From: stride rite
Subject Line: New Arrivals, Baby and Cookie Magazine. Find out more...
Date: Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008

From the end of November through the start of January, I received 16 holiday cards from retailers in my email inbox. That’s more than double the number I received from friends and family in my snail mailbox! I suppose that’s what happens when you spend more time interacting with retail brands than you do with human beings. :)

Of the messages I received:
• 13.5% featured a Thanksgiving message
• 25% included generic season’s greetings
• 25% included direct references to Christmas
• 62.5% featured a New Year’s message
• 37.5% sweetened the greeting with a sale promotion

Ralph Lauren wins the “Most Frequent” award, sending three separate messages for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, while Harry & David takes the “Most Original” title for their highly entertaining placement of pears. I hope the Harry & David creative inspires more retailers to think of ways to interpret holiday greetings in a way that’s both unique and authentic to their brand in 2008.

-->Click here to view the holiday card collection PDF

Enjoy!
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

This past holiday season, our email inboxes weathered flurries of free shipping and gusts of gift cards. (I’m still digging out from under it all!) A few retailers produced gift card promotions that transcended the torrent by employing clever creative devices to effectively pop their perks.

ANIMATION & PERSONALIZATION
With an intelligent application of animation, at a glance, Borders communicates the opportunity to personalize their gift cards with your own photos. Click here to view the animation in this email.
Link to http://ebm.cheetahmail.com/c/tag/hBHTAf3AQfEXsBkZV41BC9Jxb80/doc.html

From: Borders Rewards
Subject Line: The Perfect Gift -- With a Personal Touch
Date: Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007

SIMPLE & EASY
Meanwhile, fredflare.com features a simple order form screenshot to quickly enroll clickers in what appears to be an incredibly easy gift certificate order process.

From: fredflare.com
Subject Line: super last minute gift idea...
Date: Friday, Dec. 21, 2007

HUMOR & INGENUITY
And Timbuk2 wraps ingenuity in humor for an unexpected inbox gift: their step-by-step instructions show last-minute shoppers how to deliver a unique, printable “Oragami-ish Gift Certificate.”

From: Timbuk2
Subject Line: Instant Timbuk2 gift for slackers
Date: Friday, Dec. 21, 2007

In 2008, particularly during high-volume seasonal windows when so many retailers send similar messages, let’s resolve to use smart creative to help our communications stand out from the crowd.

Here’s to a super New Year,
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

David Baker’s piece on Zero-Calorie Email is refreshing in the thick of the holiday season, when retailers experience difficulty building slim (even coherent) campaigns. David defined “zero-calorie email” as “a reduced version of the original, with only the necessary things you really need and want.” This potential for economy, efficiency—even poetry—is a virtue of email that makes it not only an effective communication channel, but also an engaging form of creative work. I challenge email designers and copywriters to continually strive to find that just-right place where—ah!—form and function meet: where every image, every word, has meaning.

Below I feature recent holiday campaigns from Piperlime, crewcuts, Apple and CB2 that manage not only to stay streamlined but also to achieve a certain level of eloquence—a synthesis of season, text and imagery bordering on an art form.

Please share your favorite “zero-calorie emails” with the eec community!

From one Diet Coke-lover to another,
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

From: Piperlime
Subject Line: Get free shipping and free returns.
Date: Monday, Nov. 26, 2007

From: crewcuts
Subject Line: good night (and free shipping)
Date: Saturday, Dec. 1, 2007

From: Apple
Subject Line: Give a gift that’s music to their ears. iPod.
Date: Monday, Dec. 3, 2007

From: CB2
Subject Line: mod modern ornaments from 1.95
Date: Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007

Does this scenario sound familiar?:
Marketing: “We need to add another submessage to the 12/10 mail.”
Creative: “What!? We’ve already got five submessages in the 12/10!”
Marketing: “The VPs want to include gift cards.”
Creative: “Pass me another brownie, please.”

At this time of year, just as our waistlines bulge with too many holiday sweets, so our emails bulge with too many holiday submessages, stacking into unruly creative layer cakes.

I love cake. I also love a powerfully-packed multi-message. However, more than three pieces of cake – and more than three vertically-stacked submessages – make me queasy. (Did somebody say “garage sale”!?) That’s why this week, as a bookend to my holiday navigation post, it’s all about the GSF—the gift services footer!

Below, REI, Amazon.com, Macy’s and Crate & Barrel cut down on submessage layer-caking by finishing their emails off with smart little GSFs, fitting an average of four messages into the space of one. It’s like a super-dense, double-chocolate brownie!

REI, Dec. 4

Amazon.com, Dec. 5

Macy’s, Dec. 5

Crate & Barrel, Dec. 6

CHECK OUT THESE SEVEN TIPS FOR A SWEET GSF:
(1) Umbrella your GSF with a benefits-focused headline.
(2) Use equi-sized modules for easy last-minute message swap-outs.
(3) Link to your website gift center. It’s a great catch-all for gift givers.
(4) Promote gift cards. They’re so hot right now!
(5) Surface gift services —the unique ways you help make holiday shopping easy.
(6) Detail order-by dates, particularly as we approach mid-December.
(7) Dynamically generate local retail store info to drive brick-and-mortar traffic.

I look forward to breaking brownies with many of you in Park City next week!

Until then,
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

While it's a challenge we face all year long, avoiding the dreaded "garage sale" mish-mash of product photography becomes particularly difficult during the holiday season, when business requires hot but random items be featured together under various thematic umbrellas such as “for him” or "with free shipping."

Sephora, Williams-Sonoma Home, Coach (via Macy’s) and J. Crew have all effectively avoided this conundrum by photographing their gift-able wares in silhouette, thereby pulling product off the garage sale table and into the white space of possibility. To tie images together they create visual environments using graphical devices like line (Sephora), color (Williams-Sonoma Home), movement (Coach) and type (J. Crew).

This approach allows us to avoid both extra work and extra conflict: creative no longer needs to fake backgrounds to make products shot in different environments look as though they were taken at the same location; business and creative don't have to argue about which products can be tastefully featured in tandem (particularly at the last minute when one out-of-stock item needs to be replaced with another “immediately, as the campaign deploys in less than 12 hours!!!”)

Let’s allow these examples to inspire us all to do better photo planning for Holiday 2008. In short, let’s photograph absolutely everything remotely gift-able in silhouette and be done with it, then just sit around and eat peppermint bark all November and December, draped in monogrammed cashmere throws.

I can’t think of any other way to successfully feature a jewelry box next to a bowl of lemons.

Happy Thanksgiving!

As ever,
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

From: Sephora
Subject Line: Enchanting Gifts + Shipping Offer
Date: Friday, November 2, 2007

From: Williams-Sonoma Home
Subject Line: Expanded Gift Assortment + Free Shipping on Select Gifts
Date: Tuesday, November 13, 2007

From: macys.com
Subject Line: Coach: Free Shipping on $100 or more
Date: Thursday, November 15, 2007

From: J.Crew
Subject Line: Very Merry Gifts + FREE SHIPPING
Date: Monday, November 19, 2007

For the next two months, both Starbucks’ coffee cups and most online retail email creative will share a similar shade of red. And as Starbucks introduces this year’s holiday-themed cup sleeve, so a handful of retailers wrap their emails with holiday-themed navigation. This year Target, Amazon.com, Apple and REI all rolled out their holiday navs during the first week of November. Check out these before and after email navigation captures:

Target, Nov. 4

Amazon.com, Nov. 5

Apple, Nov. 7

REI, Nov. 9



FOUR WAYS TO DECK THE NAVS

(1) Show a Little Bit of Spirit
I know how much we all love to get in there and go crazy with the décor, but don’t get so heavy with your holiday nav that it visually overpowers your main message body. Bring in a touch of color or a playful graphic element to say: “holiday is here,” but not “and here, and here, and here …” All of the navs featured above do a good job keeping it light.

(2) Stay Non-Denominational
Red and light blue seem to be creative favorites this season; green is just too darn Christmassy, isn’t it? Apple and Amazon bring in just the right amount of generic holiday feeling with ribbon and trees; Target’s holly is super-cute but excludes folks who don’t celebrate on December 25.

(3) Add a Gift-Specific Menu Item
Be relevant and accessible to gift givers: Amazon.com, REI and Target all added a gifting menu item to their standard navigation. REI gets bonus points by using red to “make it pop”.

(4) Plan for the Un-plan-able
Anyone who’s lived through even one holiday season in retail email creative knows: despite the best-laid plans, things get cah-razy. Amazon.com and REI get all “Art of War” on that action with flexible HTML text promotional spaces at the upper right of their email creative. Include a spot that’s both front-and-center and easy-to-update to accommodate all those last-minute markdown and rush shipping upgrade messages.

Good luck!
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

In a multichannel retail business, using email to drive traffic to brick-and-mortar stores can be an interesting task. Chief challenges include:
(1) Internally, online and retail departments are often not only separate but also competitive;
(2) Generally, retail-focused campaigns don’t drive as many immediate web sales, causing email crack-cocaine withdrawal; and
(3) Actual store traffic and resulting sales can be difficult to track, yielding performance metrics that sound like this: “Wow! Tons more people came into the store that day!”

Despite the hurdles, as retailers experience at least anecdotally positive results and simultaneously improve their geo-targeting capabilities, they also grow more sophisticated in store-specific creative execution. While in-store discounts, coupons and incentives will always remain a favorite tactic, I’ve seen more brands experiment with two of my favorite C’s: content and cachet.

Below, Pottery Barn Kids, Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma serve up varying degrees of virtual and physical content with Pottery Barn Kids heavy on virtual, get-psyched pre-visit tips and Williams-Sonoma listing a truly impressive breadth of in-store cooking classes and demonstrations. (This is one of the rare cases in which the events seem to exist for reasons other than to justify an email blast.) I do appreciate that Crate & Barrel has contextualized their store events by giving them a name. How cute is “Crate Ideas”?

From: Pottery Barn Kids
Subject Line: In stores now: Everything you need to celebrate the holidays.
Date: Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2007

From: Crate & Barrel
Subject Line: Crate Ideas store events this weekend
Date: Thursday, Oct. 25, 2007

From: Williams-Sonoma
Subject Line: Join us for Culinary Demonstrations
Date: Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007

Pottery Barn, PUMA Women and Ann Taylor play the cachet card, peppering their subject lines and designs with words like “exclusive,” “most-valued,” “private” and “after-hours” in the hopes that making subscribers feel special will also make them feel like getting into a car. (Did I mention “exclusive”? “Exclusive” is clearly the new “luxury.”)

Pottery Barn upped the ante by offering wine, which has been proven to increase spending by 20% per glass. Just kidding. But probably not! SPG—spend per glass. Is that a new KPI?

From: Pottery Barn
Subject Line: You're invited to an exclusive wine and cheese event
Date: Monday, Oct. 29, 2007

From: PUMA Women
Subject Line: You're invited to our After Hours Party!
Date: Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007

From: Ann Taylor
Subject Line: Hurry! Private Sale Today, Only for You
Date: Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007

As ever,
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Halloween is my best holiday. On Oct. 31, it's absolutely OK to do two of my favorite things: dress up and eat candy. I monitored my inbox today (in costume – I was a nun) to see which retailers were celebrating with me. The results were frightening! Out of the 42 commercial emails I received, only 3 directly referenced Halloween—that’s scarcely more than 7%. Bluefly, J. Crew and Lands' End each offered up a treat: a percentage discount, a free shipping offer and a dollar discount, respectively. (They also used eerily-similar subject lines, following a “Boo!” + “Offer” paradigm. We do have our SLs down to a science.)

From: Bluefly
Subject Line: BOO! Extra 10% Off-Today Only
Date: Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007

From: J. Crew
Subject Line: Boo! Free shipping's ending…
Date: Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007

From: Lands' End
Subject Line: Boo! A $10 Gift For You.
Date: Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007

We all talk so much about relevancy, and while many of us find technological obstacles between our email programs and that fabled state of totally targeted, segmented, dynamic-data-driven email nirvana, there is absolutely nothing stopping any of us from sharing something as simple as a batch-and-blast Halloween greeting with our subscribers. I certainly received a deluge of Halloween-focused messaging in the weeks leading up to the event—costumes, treats, décor and more, right?!

As we move into our next phase of holiday preparation—Thanksgiving—let’s consider ending our T-day-focused communication stream with an exclamation—Happy Thanksgiving! You know you’re gonna send out a Black Friday sale message anyway, so why not offer it as a gift in thanks? Check back post-turkey; I’ll report on whether the well-wishing ratio is any more bountiful.

Until next week!
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

I’m sometimes asked what it is that inspires me to focus on email creative specifically. Why attempt to perfect an ephemeral digital communication that most all recipients eventually delete?

There’s a Japanese term—mono no aware—that describes beauty as the awareness of the transience of things. It’s also referred to as the “ah-ness” of things, the “ah!”s marking passing moments of instinctual feeling. These are the “ah!”s of a baby’s first words, random acts of kindness and falling autumn leaves.

I like to think of every email as an opportunity to evoke an “ah!” While we can probably count the number folks who actually save our work forever on one hand (Chad White and I being two of the five), each email we send holds within it the chance to surprise and delight potentially millions of recipients, even if for just a moment. I think that’s brilliant.

For my first EEC blog post, I’d like to share a couple of these email “ah!”s with you. This fall, Kate Spade has been sending out the sweetest little inbox haikus. Enjoy!

From: katespade.com
Subject Line: key shoes for fall
Date: Tuesday, September 25, 2007

From: katespade.com
Subject Line: dress up for fall
Date: Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Until next week,
Lisa Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.