As we all know from our own experiences as subscribers, the marketing emails that people look forward to are those with the most distinctive personalities. Subscribers are much more eager to engage when they feel like they have a relationship with an individual or a persona than with a company.

For most brands, infusing messages with personality means cultivating a unique and consistent tone with design and copy choices. Increasingly, though, brands are finding ways to put actual human faces and/or human emotions into their email, making the messages seem more personal and creating continuity between messages. Below, we’ll take a look at how some top retailers are adding personality to their email.

• Backcountry’s memorial message is the most sincerely poignant example of personality in email that we’ve seen recently. The April 10th Backcountry email was sent with the sole purpose of memorializing a professional skier and inviting subscribers to help support his family. The message fosters a supportive sense of community between Backcountry subscribers.

• SmartBargains’ holiday message shows subscribers the actual people behind the brand. This is an approach not usually taken, very literally demonstrating that actual people are creating and sending the emails.

• Crutchfield’s marketing email features a picture of and quote from their CEO. In a similar way to the SmartBargains message, this makes it easier for subscribers to feel an individual connection to the company.

• Urban Outfitters' top reviewers email creates a community feeling and also encourages the subscriber base to become more active. When they see reviewers recognized, subscribers understand that their own reviewing efforts are valued, and they may be inspired get more involved. Sephora customer reviews function similarly.

• J.Crew’s Jenna’s Picks is a novel way to put a face on the fashions. The only problem? In many J.Crew emails, we don’t quite know who Jenna is! In this message, they describe her as “our in-house style expert and muse” (vague, but we’ll take it), but in other messages they just call out “Jenna’s Picks” without reminding subscribers why we should care about Jenna.

• Barneys New York’s Barneys Babble invites us into the sharp, funny mind of Simon Doonan. We get to follow Simon’s adventures and hear his insights on fashion, and Barneys thereby takes on more character.

• Nordstrom's "At your service" email makes online shopping seem more personal by calling out special services. It’s always personal to shop in-store at Nordstrom and interact with sales associates, and this email extends the service experience across the email channel.

There’s room in almost any brand voice to add a personal touch that will invite your subscribers to feel more connected with your company. For more musing on this topic, check out Silverpop’s Engagement Marketing Blog article, Do Your Emails Have a Personality?.

Bubbling with Personality,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

There is a consensus among email marketers that keeping uninterested subscribers on your email lists does more harm than good. Before your unengaged subscribers unsubscribe or – gulp! – report you as spam, take measures to reengage them and reinforce their positive relationship with your brand.

Here are a few ideas for keeping your subscriber base active and excited about your email:

• Run a relevant, engaging email program in the first place. The most important way to keep subscriber attention is, of course, to pay attention to your whole email program at each step. Maintain relevant content, design creatives that subscribers enjoy seeing, and refrain from overmailing.

• Send a “We Miss You” message with a special offer to inactive subscribers. When you know you have unengaged subscribers on your list, show them that you still care. One way to do this is with a “missing you” message, sweetened with a special offer. Smith-Harmon clients Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids added a dynamic “We’ve missed you!” banners to emails sent to inactive subscribers.

• Involve subscribers by inviting them to help support a cause. Strengthen subscriber relationships with your brand by encouraging them to help you support a cause. This shows subscribers that you care about more than just dollars and also fosters a sense of investment in your brand’s efforts. For example, Lucy has encouraged subscribers to help support the Breast Cancer Network of Strength, and PetSmart has invited subscribers to join them in helping homeless pets.

• Run contests or sweepstakes that encourage interaction with your brand. Everyone loves to win. If the reward is enticing enough and the process is simple enough, subscribers will jump at the chance to enter your brand’s contest or sweepstakes.

In a recent contest, The Cheesecake Factory asked for new flavor idea submissions from subscribers and then went a step further by letting other subscribers vote for the winner (I’m particularly pleased, since my pick won. Yum, Red Velvet).

Last winter, Urban Outfitters enticed subscribers to create a holiday wishlist by allowing them to enter a drawing to “win their wishlist.” Even the contest losers (such as myself) received an email with a discount offer to keep them shopping.

• Marketing a good or service your subscribers aren’t familiar with. By showing your subscribers something that they may not have known you carried, you may inspire them to revisit your site. For instance, The Container Store took Earth Day as an opportunity to reveal themselves as a vendor of environmentally-conscious storage options.

Hopefully your email program is so relevant and engaging that no subscriber would ever DREAM of hitting the unsubscribe button. But if you happen to be seeing a high number of inactive subscribers, give some of these ideas a try and see if you can recapture some attention.

Always Active & Engaged,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

It’s spring! Everything around us is green and fresh…why not our email photography treatments? This week, we took a look at how brands have been discovering new ways to treat imagery in email, ranging from simple to strange.

Spicing up silos. Products silos are so effective that they’re fairly prevalent, but that’s no reason for bland designs. Check out these brands’ sweet silo treatments:

• Piperlime’s propping grounds their silo products while adding interest. What could look fresher than daisies?

• Sephora’s props help products pop on an otherwise stark background. They break the grid and add sensual context to products with benefits are tough to convey visually.

• Barneys New York makes their silos stand out against a black background with a jagged, artsy cut.

Thinking outside the grid. While sometimes the straight and simple product grid is the best option, it’s worth looking at how some brands have stirred up their gridding for a fresher look.

• Restoration Hardware’s clean design shows products framing body copy. It’s still a grid, but it offers an alternative to a hero with products gridded beneath.

• Urban Outfitters’ checkerboard collage of lifestyle shots features products and art imagery. The individual products don’t stand out the way they would in a conventional grid, but they create a strong impression of what the brand offers for spring.

• Boden’s use of product silos laid out on a mat-like background image shows a unique alternative to boxes. The inclusion of environmental shots in each section adds even more interest to what could have easily been laid out as a long, less interesting grid.

Why choose? Fun image combos. By incorporating more than one form of imagery, designs take on an artistic look that can suit unique themes.

• Betsey Johnson’s cartoon illustrations always complement their images and make the photography seem more interesting.

• Fossil’s combination of environmental photography, illustration and a product silo makes this seem like a page out of a scrapbook, suiting the style of the bag and the theme of “reclaiming pastimes.”

• Coach uses a silo shot right alongside an environmental shot of the same product. The contrast is visual interesting, and allows Coach to position the product both aspirationally and with functional details.

Set for success with inset images. Including smaller, inset photos over larger imagery is a sleek, simple way to add interest to designs.

• Macy’s inset photos set over an environmental shot add product imagery without disrupting the design’s windswept desert theme.

• Anthropologie insets a small image of a model over a larger photo of the same model in the same set. The photography is conventional but this treatment makes it seem fresh.

• Fossil includes small close-ups of the models’ hands over the larger environmental shot. This makes particular sense for Fossil as it allows them to highlight their watches while still using rich environmental photography.

Poppin’ play with color. Brighter spring and summer color palettes (in both products and design) offer an opportunity to have more fun with color.

• Nordstrom uses bright background colors behind their models to make the vibrant clothing stand out even more.

• Shopbop’s mix of color and black-and-white photography creates a somewhat jarring contrast and adds an edgy flare to their design.

• Free People’s use of a similarly-staged photo with four different-colored pairs of shorts is fun and playful – perfect for spring.

Other creative trends. Freshening up image treatments means taking risks, trying unique approaches and sometimes even getting a little strange….

• Neiman Marcus tries something fun and funky by showing faded version of their model behind the clear hero image. You get the sense that she’s actually spinning, per the headline.

• Barneys New York adds intrigue by playing with the orientation of their images in an inventive way.

• Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman all demonstrate the recent trend of incorporating snapshots into designs. (This must work; Lisa bought the “Taylor Momsen” look dress straight from the email!)

In many cases, the image makes the email. This spring, we challenge you to take risks and try photography treatments that will set your email apart in the inbox.

Getting Fresh this Spring,

Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon, Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

For too long, too many marketers have underestimated the value of email’s impact on offline retail. Some believe that email marketing boosts only online sales, when in actuality cross-channel messaging carries high value across brand sales, reinforcing relationships with customers and, when optimally leveraged, alerting them to brick-and-mortar sales and events.

We’ve been seeing a wide range of approaches to retail store messaging in email. Here are some noteworthy tactics to try:

• In-Store Discounts: Entice subscribers into stores by telling them about a special deal that they can’t get online. Victoria’s Secret advertises a lotion giveaway only available in stores. Betsey Johnson’s email alerts subscribers to an in-store-only “spend more, get more” gift card offer, where customers receive a gift card with their purchase, increasing in amount depending on their spending level. QFC invites subscribers to check out sale items at their local store, since deals vary across locations.

• Printable Store Coupons Bar Codes: Including barcodes or printable coupons in email, like Half Price Books and Janie and Jack, is becoming more common. It provides a way to measure the success of email in bringing people into stores, and is an effective way for email marketers to show marketing managers how the value of email reaches beyond online sales. The Container Store email gives a bit of a tease, asking subscribers to click to find out what the in-store offer is. While this has its charm, the extra step of requiring subscribers to click and download might deter some.

• Exclusive In-Store Products and Events: Email is an excellent way to spread the word about events or special offers happening only in stores. Starbucks sends a local events calendar that not only promotes the opening of a new store, but also demonstrates Starbucks’ interest in their larger community. Pottery Barn Kids includes a module at the bottom of their retail customer messages about upcoming events at local stores, and REI promotes one of their free classes in a dynamic module.

• Promoting the In-Store Experience: Detailing excellent customer service offerings, such as the personal shopper touted in this J.Crew message, encourages subscribers to come in and interact with a brand representative in real life. This J.Crew message did miss an opportunity to dynamically populate the email with the subscriber’s local store info (I know J.Crew has my address). Similarly, Apple reminds subscribers both of their great in-store service by including a picture of a blue-shirted expert alongside store offerings, and also by using beautiful store photography to make subscribers eager to experience in-store shopping.

• In-Store Charity Events: Using email to spread the word about in-store charity events both encourages involvement and reinforces a positive brand image. Gap’s Give and Get program offers subscribers a printable coupon. White House Black Market invites subscribers in for “A Special Evening to Give Hope,” during which shoppers received a discount and a portion of proceeds went to the organization Living Beyond Breast Cancer. The invitation makes the event seem like a special experience that subscribers don’t want to miss.

• Prominent Store Directions: It’s becoming more and more common for emails to include subscribers’ local store info, as in REI holiday email and this Crate and Barrel email. When brands don’t have subscribers’ location information, most include links inviting subscribers to find their local store, as at the bottom of this Pottery Barn email.

• Invitations to New Store Openings: When brands have subscribers’ location information, email is an effective way to spread the word about new store openings. Williams-Sonoma includes a special offer to encourage subscribers to come check out their new space. Urban Outfitters’ store announcement takes it up a notch. Their creative shows a theme that fits city, includes an early bird offer to ensure a crowd when the doors open, and shows their commitment to the community by announcing their donation to a local scholarship fund.

• Personalized Invitations to Loyal Subscribers: The least common (but most awesome!) way email is used to get subscribers into stores is a personal email from a sales associate to loyal customers. Nordstrom personally invited their most loyal customers in for a sale screening before their anniversary sale.

Get the most bang from the inbox by optimizing cross-channel marketing opportunities. Remember that there’s likely much overlap between your most loyal email subscribers and your loyal store visitors, and when there isn’t overlap, aspire to create it!

Faithfully in Email and In-Store,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Marketing to a belt-tightening consumer base, it’s now more important than ever to entice subscribers with the most compelling offers you can dream up. It’s equally important, of course, to deliver the offers in the most compelling emails possible. It’s been interesting to see more inventive sale messaging strategies and design approaches appear in the inbox recently.

Stunning Strategies:

Fun Themes:

• Spend more, Get More: Barneys New York recently offered gift cards to high-spenders: the more you spend, the more you get! Offering gift cards in climbing denominations makes it possible for Barneys to offer fewer straight discounts.

• Find the Savings!: Last year, Disney (scroll down a little) created an Easter egg hunt-themed sale, where browsing was rewarded with “hidden” discounts ranging from 15% to 40%. Not only was the childhood throwback brand-appropriate, but the tactic also encouraged subscribers to keep browsing in search of that elusive 40% off.

• Daily Deals: Piperlime recently ran a fun “Five Days of Treats” series. They presented a new special deal each day, keeping subscribers checking back to find each exciting offer.

Value Messaging in Full-priced Messages:

• Emphasizing Value: Nordstrom, traditionally comfortable in its position as a higher-end, higher-priced retailer, has been shifting its email messaging to include an emphasis on value. Recent subject lines and body copy call out lower costs available on full-priced Nordstrom goods.

• Eating In: In their subject line, “Eating in? We’ve Got all the Essentials You Need,” Pottery Barn acknowledges that their subscribers are likely spending less time and money out on the town. They take advantage of the opportunity to remind subscribers that Pottery Barn’s high-quality, long-lasting wares provide the necessities for nice evenings at home.

• Living Simple: Anthropologie uses this email to emphasize how they can cater to an earthy lifestyle rather than highlighting their clothing collection. It’s a bit off that their landing page shows their fashion rather than housewares or books, but the message conveys how Anthropologie acknowledges the turn towards simple living.

• DIY: Sephora’s “DIY” angle caters to recession-savvy shoppers with eyes on beauty. By calling out salon pricing and the savings of styling oneself, Sephora finds their niche in the value-conscious arena.

Dynamic Designs:

• Unique Text Treatments: A lot of brands send crisp and direct copy-only emails for unfettered sales messaging. Using unique text treatments, like Banana Republic’s, can add visual interest without requiring graphics or images.

• Placement of Special Offer Submessaging: Some brands, like The Container Store, add sale messaging as a banner or promotional text in the preview pane. This calls attention to savings without disrupting the rest of the email message. Gymboree manages to convey three different savings offers by packing some punch in their preview pane space. Others add sale submessaging at the bottom of the email so that their main message makes the first impression, as in this Janie and Jack email.

• Graphic Representation vs. Product Imagery: Most brands avoid product imagery in their sale messaging, instead using graphic treatments to create interest, as in REI-OUTLET.com‘s use of logos. Another graphic approach, still fun and fresh, takes the form of discount tags, like those of Chicos and Old Navy.

With the upcoming months economically uncertain, all we can do is hold on tight and keep an eye to inventive and engaging approaches.

Scoping out the sales,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Email marketing copy can sometimes start to feel stale. For instance, how many ways can we say “sale”!? It’s often necessary for us to actively seek ways to refresh our messaging. As spring begins, let’s take a look at some strong, unique copy treatments. Let’s look at words with fresh eyes.

Choosing from our favorite brand “artists,” we’ve compiled a “mix tape” (or, these days, an iPod playlist) of copy treatments. Check it out and see if it inspires any new moods.

I Saw the Sign: Subject Lines

• Boden subject line: “A Boden offer to get your knits in a twist.” Including branding at the front of the subject line has shown to boost open rates in some studies, implying that some subscribers just scan subject lines without looking hard at the “from” name. Boden picks up this tip and also entices subscribers with the promise of an offer inside. Love the “knits in a twist” rhyme .

• Sephora subject line: “Pick 5 samples!” This short subject line stands out amongst the longer ones and engages the subscriber with a direct call-to-action and a fun offer. While there’s some debate around subject line length best practices (check out Chad White’s Email Insider article), most email marketers aim for between 35 and 45 characters. Some of the most attention-catching subject lines are shorter than that, though, like this one.

• Nordstrom subject line: “Dive In: New Swimwear from Miracle Suit.” The subject line is clear about the email content, and the unique punctuation and fun intro “Dive In:” may garner some extra attention.

RESPECT: Preheaders

• Staples: Last week, Chad White blogged about Staples’ preheader in his Retail Email Blog. Staples used clever copy to appeal to their subscribers’ point of view, asking them “Is your coupon not displaying correctly? Prompt to view.” as well as prefacing their whitelisting request with “Don’t miss the savings.” Staples recognizes that their subscribers don’t care about missing emails, they care about missing savings, and the copy conveys this understanding.

• Piperlime: Because their (adorable!) headline “Tailor Made” probably wouldn’t make sense to someone viewing the email without images, Piperlime writers include a different headline for the preheader text, which maintains the playful tone but adds clarity: “Turn it up in menswear-inspired heels. Shop now.”

I Heard it Through the Grapevine: Forward to a Friend
Most “forward to a friend” links are direct and clear, but some brands spice it up.

• J.Crew asks subscribers to “spread the word” to their friends as a main CTA in this message.
• giggle includes their FTAF link prominently at the bottom of their email and prefaces it with “Psst,” to give the impression that they are inviting their subscriber to pass on a secret.

Greased Lightning: Headlines

• Apple always has great headlines. Their recent email for iPod Touch games is particularly genius: “Score major points this Valentine’s Day.” The play on “scoring points” is fun and, coupled with the image of the iPod Touch Scrabble game spelling out “LOVE YOU,” the whole message is playful and engaging.

• Urban Outfitters: The headline on this email, “YOU LOST” is hilarious. It came long enough after I entered this sweepstakes that I’d forgotten all about it, and the headline caught my attention and led me to read the rest of the email, which contained a special consolation prize discount offer.

• J.Crew’s headline “On it way…” freshens up a shipping message that would otherwise be drab. Cool copy can make the simplest messages satisfying for the subscriber.

Baby One More Time: Subheadlines

• Barneys New York’s subheadline, “You really need to read today’s barneys babble,” sounds like an urging from a friend. The subscriber feels like she’d be missing out if she didn’t check it out.

• J.Crew gets a third shout-out for their subheadline from a while back. It reaches subscribers right where they are—on their computers, presumably working on something—and invites them to take a quick shopping break.

Twist and Shout: Body Copy

• Land of Nod has some of the most consistently strong copy in the industry. The body copy in this email reaches out to its audience of mamas by making it clear that Land of Nod really understands what it’s like to have a newborn. “We know it’ll be hard to put the baby to sleep”, they’re saying, “but at least you’ll have this cute bedding to look at.”

• Sephora's body copy in their main message and submessages often appeals to the senses, enticing subscribers with quick snippets.

Jack and Diane: Personalization

• Virgin America (whose copy always rocks!) took a fun approach to personalization in this message. Saying “Hey Darrah,” instead of “Hi,” or “Hello,” is conversational enough to immediately engage the subscriber in a dialogue. While “Hey,” doesn’t fit the voice of every brand, it’s worth considering the perfect form of personalization for your subscriber base.

Where Are You Going: CTA

• Piperlime: Piperlime shows some sweet spring sandals and then calls subscribers to “Find Yours”. The CTA make sense coming off the body copy. We feel like the perfect sandals are awaiting us if we just click.

• Anthropologie's “See for Yourself” CTA fits nicely into the theme of this email, which introduces some loud and unusual prints and challenges potentially-skeptical subscribers to see how good they’ll look.

• Backcountry uses the straightforward-and-proven “SHOP NOW” CTA in their primary message area, but they get creative in their secondary messages with “Get Layered”, “Skin Up” and “Little Stuff.” A nitpicky point is that the third CTA would have been stronger as a verb phrase for the sake of consistency, but we’ll let it go since all three links are so fun and inviting.

Bye, Bye Baby: Conclusion
All brand “artists” mentioned above have consistently on-brand, unique and compelling copy. If you aren’t already on their subscriber lists, you might consider signing up for some new ideas. The most important consideration, of course, is the harmony between the design and the copy, so get collaborating and see what jives.

Dance party, anyone?

Feeling the Beat,

Alex Madison and Lisa Harmon, Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and brands are already using email to ask us to be their Valentines. As you receive more Valentine’s Day-themed email creatives and possibly work at adding Valentine touches to your own, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at the ways that retailers handled the holiday of hearts in 2008.

• Creative Approaches: to pink or not to pink
Valentine’s Day-themed email creatives can come off as fun or overwhelming depending on your subscriber’s moods and attitudes. We get pink and red and lace and a whole lot of hearts! Last year Costco sent out an email with their usual template, but used fun, bright pink as well as Valentine’s Day-themed copy.

In contrast, this Dean & Deluca message isn’t dressed up with any pink or hearts, but it carries its Valentine’s Day theme in its copy and the products it promotes ingredients for a special dinner for two, right down to L-O-V-E plates. Lacoste’s mellow 2008 creative was somewhat refreshing in the sea of pink hearts flooding the inbox. The copy calls out Valentine’s Day, but the red is made subtle with the blue background and the red and white striped shirt.

• The traditional, the expected, the tasty and pretty
Last year, as every year, many brands used Valentine’s Day to feature sweets and jewelry. See Williams Sonoma’s cute cookies and Saks Fifth Avenue’s deadline on chocolate shipping, as well as Barney's New York subtle creative featuring their Corazon Necklace.

• Thinking outside the chocolate box
A few of last year’s Valentine’s Day marketing ideas stuck out amongst the traditions. Circuit City “deals of the day” built anticipation in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day and engaged subscribers who might not otherwise think of Circuit City as a go-to brand for the holiday.

Red Envelope sent a special email promoting jewelry for her and for him, which was
interesting—we don’t usually see “Shop Men’s Jewelry” as a CTA! This was an unexpected spin on the classic marketing of women’s-only jewelry.

• Shipping offers (and gentle prodding for procrastinators)
As the larger burden of Valentine’s Day gifting traditionally falls upon men, the gift-buying game also becomes stereotypically (and statistically) a game played by procrastinators. Most of last year’s Valentine’s Day emails called out shipping deadlines and special offers. The emails became increasingly urgent as the holiday approached, as exemplified by this bright pink last-chance Dean & Deluca email and this Red Envelope one-day offer on the shipping cut-off date.

• Be Your Own Valentine
Some clothing retailers understood that their offerings weren’t likely to be selected for gift-giving but still targeted their subscribers’ love-leaning interests by encouraging self-gifting. Arden B’s email played off Valentine’s Day by reminding subscribers how much they love denim, and Seven for all Mankind encouraged subscribers to treat themselves in honor of Valentine’s Day. Road Runner Sports invited their subscribers to use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to display their love for running.

On Feb 14, Hollister sent out an email marketing boys’ clothes with a typical creative, but with the subject line “She won’t be able to keep her hands off you,” adding an on-brand touch of Valentine’s Day.

• Prediction for Valentine’s Day 2009: Love 2.0
Since last February, Marketers have gained a much firmer grasp on web 2.0 tactics like videos and microsites, and we expect to see some fun stuff emerge from these developments this year. For example, 1-800-Flowers included video proposals in last year’s Valentine’s Day emails, which may make a reappearance, and we may also see new versions of ideas that launched during the earlier winter holiday season, such as JC Penney’s Beware of the Doghouse microsite.

For even more reflection on Valentines past, take a look at our old loves from 2007. Chad White’s Season Finale: Valentine’s Day 2008 on the Retail Email Blog also offers more insight into overall trends of Valentine’s Day 2008 and shows some unique approaches taken by specific brands. We expect even more and better love to be spread throughout Valentine’s Day 2009, so stay tuned to your inboxes.

XOXO,
Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

They say that no two snowflakes look alike. Does the same hold true for any two holiday email campaigns? With so many brands celebrating the season via email, it’s been interesting to watch unique ideas emerge within the creative snowflake flurry!

This year’s snowstorm…

• REI created a distinctively modern and stylized snowflake for the holiday season. They also lightened up their color palette and introduced bright pink so that their messages have a more festive feel that stands out from those using more traditional holiday colors.

•Staples’ snowflakes are whimsical, playful and convey a hand-made feeling, which is an interesting choice for an office supply store. If we want to get really interpretive, we could say that these delicate and individual snowflakes imply a personalized attitude towards each subscriber. Or maybe it’s just that they’re cute.

•Lands’ End went with really simple snowflakes—they almost look like a child could have cut them out of paper. The animated banner really conveys COLD as the problem, and the answer is, of course, FLEECE!

•Dickies roughed out the edges of their email, managing to give snowflakes a gritty, edgy look that appeals to their masculine audience. Hey, guys get cold too!

•Circuit City's itty-bitty snowflakes can also be seen as twinkles, making the product seem bright, shiny and special.

•Nine West’s subtle snowflakes are unlike anything we’ve seen before. They incorporated the number 9 to create their flakes. This design has a nice, subtle nod to the holidays, but ultimately most people shop at Nine West for themselves... We’re fans of the light blue/dark red color palette for the holiday, too. It’s unexpected and can make a brand stand out, yet it still feels festive!

•Cusp has edgy, modern snowflakes in their header and their background. Somehow these snowflakes seem fashionable or even trendy, which makes sense for Cusp.

•LL Bean chose an ornate snowflake that fits in with the fun, intricate patterns on their holiday sweaters. Especially with the Nordic-inspired sweater in their secondary message, this snowflake seems nice and appropriate.

When snowflakes collide…

With so many brands and so many snowflakes, it’s only a matter of time before some unwanted creative overlap occurs. This winter Nike committed early to using a bright blue striped background. In each email they changed the color that they paired with blue, which usually looked nice. But when they chose to pair their blue with orange, the resulting email looked uncomfortably similar to what their competitor, Lucy, developed for their holiday creative, especially since both Lucy and Nike used small, subdued sparkly-snowflakes that melted into their backgrounds.

Hey, those aren’t snowflakes!

While there has been heavy snowfall in the inboxes, there are, of course, other ways that brands have been festive without literally saying “Christmas” or even “holiday.” Here are a few others that we liked:

•Ann Taylor’s sale email calls out gifting but not holiday, and sticks to shades of red and pink. Without mentioning the holidays, it still looks like a wrapped present or a deconstructed candy cane.

•Lucy’s sale email uses a bow to add a little festive gifting flavor, but it doesn’t
deviate from Lucy’s trademark orange.

•Sephora’s cute bell and use of gold is a subtle and classy-looking holiday approach.

Weigh in and let us know what you’ve seen and liked this season, with snowflakes or something else. Looking ahead to next holiday, what other design approaches might bands try in order to stay festive without being overwhelmingly holiday- or Christmas-oriented? Let us know what you think!

Happy Holidays!
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison, Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

More marketers have been including games in their email this season, trying to distract us into playing when we all need to be in Q4 work-mode. The game-playing happens, truth be told, and it can be a good thing. With so many retailers trying to reach shoppers through the same marketing channels daily, the games “pop,” functioning as fun ways to inspire clickthroughs.

While I appreciate the festivity, there’s a danger that games might draw subscribers in just enough to play and then let them slip away without further engagement. A lack of clear call-to-action and a weak connection between the games and the brands could end up offering subscribers an enjoyable activity without yielding benefits for marketers.

“Gaming” marketers might consider these five ideas for optimizing the play:

1) Include a strong call-to-action. Make sure that the marketing purpose of your game isn’t lost; prominently feature a CTA (or multiple CTAs) to get game players back into shopping. Make sure it’s simultaneously integrated with the game experience and attention-grabbing.

2) Plan a series of games. Consider creating a multi-part game that is marketed through a series of emails, keeping subscribers engaged and anticipating next steps.

3) Send follow-up messages. After playtime is over, send a follow-up email that reminds subscribers of the fun they had and that invites them to play again, and/or announces the game winner.

4) Incentivize the playing. Offering a discount or free gift to people who play the games will encourage them to shop and take advantage of their reward.

5) Incorporate product into the games. Design games that complement your brand in an obvious way so that there is a smooth transition between playing the game and moving toward shopping.

Let’s take a look at how some retailers “game” this holiday:

• TopShop invites subscribers to play in a Christmas fairytale land, where a few easy clicks and drags can spin a carousel until it transforms into a beautiful girl. Players in Australia and some European countries can win prizes, but all subscribers can play. While the game is fun and engaging, I’m concerned that its calls-to-actions are too weak to be effective: only small text links along the bottom of the page ask players to forward the game to a friend and to shop at TopShop.com. Subscribers from eligible countries are enticed into shopping with a discount offer, but subscribers from other places aren’t drawn to TopShop.com as strongly as they could be.

• ElfYourself by OfficeMax is back again this year—elfier than ever, as the email says. (I just got “Elfed” by my dad this morning!) This popular holiday game lets subscribers upload photos and see themselves virtually transformed into dancing elves, which can be forwarded far and wide—kind of like spreading holiday cheer—to friends who can then “Elf” themselves, too. Widely popular, OfficeMax’s sponsorship of the game must reap some holiday rewards for them, but subscribers are brought back to the OfficeMax site only if they click on the “Brought to you by: OfficeMax” sign. Those who do are rewarded by an “Elfed” OfficeMax landing page, which allows subscribers to shop around in an elfy environs.

• Sephora wins the relevance award this season for its own ElfYourself-inspired game called the Sephora Mistletoe Makeover. Players can upload photos and see themselves dolled up in four fabulously festive looks—Smokey Sugar Plum, Merry Berry, Santa’s Little Temptress and O, Tannen-Babe—and then send out emails of their holiday selves to friends.

The whole experience engages customers in a way that’s clearly connected to the brand, incorporating Sephora’s product offering (makeup) into the fun. When a subscriber creates a card to send to a friend, she or he is offered free eyelashes or mini-lipstick with a purchase: a “wink” or a “kiss.” After the transformation, the player can click on a link to “Get this look,” and Sephora shows just the makeup needed for a real-life mistletoe makeover. The game further entices players to go back into shopping with a free-gift offer and an immediate reminder email about the offer. Try it out—the link to the game is at the bottom of the email.

We all love a good game. (When was the last time you played “Monopoly”? We brought it out recently and had a blast.) Subscribers’ positive experiences with games should effectively strengthen their relationships with the brands that send them. The best games provide a smooth and compelling transition from playtime into shoptime; shoppers feel even more jazzed for holiday gift shopping after being playfully put into the spirit of the season.

Have fun!
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

With pink emails filling our inboxes throughout Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the merits of cause-related marketing have come more prominently onto the Smith-Harmon radar. We wondered how well it really works, and MediaPost came through for us by publishing an article on this very topic. MediaPost reports that cause-related marketing can generate double-digit sales gains for brands—woah! No wonder so many companies jump on the pinkwagon in October. Not only do the companies get the satisfaction of contributing to important research; their customers also get to feel good about shopping.

Not surprisingly, there are complicating factors to consider. Paul Jones, president of Alden Keene & Associates, explores such factors on his blog about cause-related marketing. On the issue of transparency, Jones argues that “cause-related marketing trades on trust.” Customers are more likely to trust in the sincerity of brands that are upfront about where money goes and how much money is going there.

An article by Steven Van Yoder also makes the point that the marketing focus should never be lost in the cause. Cause-related marketing is sustainable only if it yields mutual benefits for the charitable organization and the brand supporting it.

We looked at examples of how brands have used email to approach cause-related marketing for several important issues. Here’s what we found:

● Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Judging by this month’s inbox, pink is the new black. Among many others, Lucy encouraged subscribers to “Shop for a Cause,” White House Black Market invited subscribers to “Give Hope,” and Sephora asked subscribers to “get gorgeous while giving back.” In each of these cases, the brands advertised products and donated a portion of their proceeds or advertised a window of time during which they would donate a portion of total sales.

Betty Crocker’s message was a bit different, encouraging subscribers to celebrate women’s health by making pink (Betty Crocker) cake and announcing General Mills’ donation, which was not tied to sales of certain items. They also invited dialogue on PinkTogether.com, where cancer survivors can share stories.

● Women’s Cancer Research: Saks Fifth Avenue also supported women’s cancer research, but they stepped away from all of the pink of the month and partnered with Key to the Cure to donate funds to the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s Women’s Cancer Research Fund. At first this struck me as a little odd (was it just so that they could feature stars like Gwenyth Paltrow in their ads?), but with deeper thought it’s clear how Saks’ approach was on-brand, speaking to their audience of high-end fashion connoisseurs. Oscar de la Renta designed the pricey Key to the Cure t-shirt this year, and Mercedes Benz partners with the organization as well.

● St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: The Williams-Sonoma Inc. brands included banners in their emails last holiday season advertising their fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and they then sent out a thank-you e-card announcing the results of the fundraiser. Gymboree also supports St. Jude, but the link to the fundraiser in their email is tiny and very subtle. I wonder how results differ between this understated approach and the more prominent Williams-Sonoma Inc. treatment.

● The Global Fund (to help women and children with AIDS in Africa): This Gap email is almost wholly devoted to the Gap(Product)Red effort to benefit the Global Fund, featuring a special limited time promotion. The subject line: “Can the Shirt off Your Back change the world?” speaks to the headline: “This One Can.” This message barely mentions regular Gap items, but because Gap has established (Product)Red as such a prominent element of the brand, the focused approach doesn’t seem to detract from Gap marketing, and even solidifies Gap’s charitable image.

● Musicians on Call: Boomingdale’s “Charity is Chic” message looks pretty much like any other sale email. The headline is cause-oriented but vague, and only in fairly small print does the copy inform the subscriber of where their money is going. I wonder whether it’s effective for Bloomingdale’s to downplay the charity in their creative.

With the high sales increases reported from cause-related marketing, it’s worth considering what could happen if brands began using it more frequently—monthly or quarterly, maybe, instead of at just one or two key points throughout the year. In addition to driving huge sales, brands could all do a lot of good. We’re interested to hear what others have tried and discovered in cause-related marketing.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

We all know that America’s economy is hurting and that a lot of people (even those who aren’t personally feeling the crunch) are worried enough to slow down their virtual and in-store shopping trips. Retailers aren’t lying down and waiting for the storm to pass, though. Let’s take a look at some of the interesting marketing emails that have been delivered by retailers working to push through the slump.

Creative Sales. Many retailers have responded to slow spending by getting more inventive with their sale techniques and infusing great deals with a sense of urgency.

● Old Navy’s “Early Columbus Day Sale,” with its 1,492 items priced at $14.92 or less, takes the cake for creativity in the sale category. Who would think that Columbus Day could feel like cause for retail excitement? It’s early and limited-time, so it feels urgent, too.

● Threadless also has a sweet deal with a deadline, selling Girl’s Tees (usually $18) starting at just $12 until Oct 12. The urgency and the significant savings strengthen the sale.

● Moosejaw’s sale email generates extra excitement with its exclusivity, sending each subscriber their very own secret code that yields one of (what we must assume is) a selection of discount offers.

● J. Crew and Horchow are just two of many retailers who have been pushing limited-time free shipping messages over the past couple weeks. J. Crew’s include the cute seasonal touch of asking subscribers to enter code “ACORN” at checkout, and both Horchow and J. Crew have sent multiple reminder count-down emails.

Straight Talk. Some have opted to confront the economic downturn head-on by mentioning it and even joking about it.

● Restoration Hardware sent a one-day-only “spend $400, save $100” voucher with a bailout theme on October 2. They may have missed the mark—as a joke, it’s a bit off-color and politically-slanted. They were using current events creatively, which can be clever, but they probably should have played with something less controversial and stressful for many subscribers.

● Overstock.com launched a new Real Estate service on October 2, which they introduced in a letter at the bottom of this email beforehand. In the introductory letter, they remind subscribers that Overstock.com is committed to helping subscribers save money, and the letter makes their new service seem on-brand and sincerely subscriber-focused.

● Splendora also takes a branded attitude towards the economic crisis that is gutsy and dismissive, urging subscribers to check out the upcoming trends that they’ll be able to shop after this “little rough patch.”

Spend and Save. In line with Restoration Hardware’s discount approach (but without the bailout theme), Bloomingdales, Boden and Neiman Marcus, among others, offered limited-time, “Buy More, Save More,” offers (as Bloomie’s called theirs). These not only encourage higher spending; they also encourage spending NOW, before the offer expires. The messages warn subscribers that their offer isn’t waiting for Wall Street to stop reeling, and neither should you.

Many retailers are feeling the squeeze, and we’re sure to see more and more unique approaches to email as the situations unfold.

Still spending,
Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

From Sept. 5-15, top designers swarmed New York to exhibit their 2009 spring styles. The models walked the runways in Bryant Park, but that wasn’t the only place where the fashion was happening—email inboxes around the world were also getting some Fashion Week action. Here’s how retailers promoted spring-facing fashions through email, via NYC:

Running Reports:
Berdorf Goodman stirred up excitement by running reports on “The Latest From the New York Spring Fashion Shows” in a siderail adjacent to their standard messaging, also linking to a couple of “featured designers” in each message. Their senior women’s fashion director, Roopal Patel, made the rounds and reported her impressions. BG’s fashion show focus alongside their usual ads sent a smart, strong message: “Read about what’s hot, and get it here.”

Fresh from the Runways:
BG went further than fashion week updates, pulling looks straight off the runway and emailing them out. They featured the usual designer imagery but with some extra backing: we KNOW this is hot right now...it just walked down a runway.

Video Archives:
Nordstrom ran similar reports, but also linked to a series of videos called “The Town Car Chronicles with Jeffrey Kalinsky.” Fashion guru Kalinsky’s enthusiastic commentary runs alongside clips of the runway shows, generating anticipation as he ponders what he’ll buy for the store. Nordstrom’s slick email companion to Fashion Week let subscribers feel like they were attending the events with an insider.

Watch it Live!:
Michael Kors invited his subscribers to tune into the Michael Kors website to watch a live broadcast of his runway show. Michael has become familiar and dear to many of us through his appearances on Project Runway. Fans of his collections felt excited and important to be members of his live audience.

Image Archives:
Michael also delivered an email linking to an online archive of photos from Fashion Week. What better way to prove that his styles are hot right now than to show them strutting the runways in all their glory?

Behind the Scenes:
Shopbop pulled their subscribers behind the scenes, presenting images and commentary from big names all around the event. Shopbop promised to deliver the scoop on the “trends and chicest styles,” rousing anticipation for spring pieces and convincingly portraying themselves as the go-to fashion authority.

The innovative inclusion of media, expert advice and informative articles made the Fashion Week emails an interesting study in fresh, exciting ways to deliver an exclusive experience to inboxes everywhere.

—Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Your call-to-action (CTA) tells your email recipients what you want them to do, and what they can expect from you when they do it. Subject lines get a lot of love, but once you get an open you need a click, so don’t forget to lavish some much-needed attention on your CTA.

FOUR GREAT WAYS TO MAKE YOUR CTA POP!:

1. Stay focused. Design the entire message to direct recipients towards the CTA. Don’t distract them with too many equally-weighted links and offers. Select imagery that draws the eye toward the point of conversion. Make the path appealing and clear, and make sure that it extends beyond the email itself to the landing experience.

Pottery Barn achieves serious CTA-focus with this summer sale message. The email is simple, text-based and entirely pointed toward sale shopping. The CTA whisks the recipient away to a coordinated landing page where a simple product grid offers customers the opportunity to dive into the shop category that interests them most.

2. Keep it direct and clear. It’s fun to write clever copy, but make sure that even the quirkiest wording is to the point. This Ann Taylor CTA, “Click and See,” feels pointedly enticing as does Piperlime’s “See for yourself”... I DO want to see!

This Anthropologie message is lovely, but lacks clarity. I’m not sure what the CTA is, or whether the message even has one. The sweater and all the buttons are beautiful...they make me want to do something, but I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do.

3. Make sure it’s above the fold. It doesn’t matter how adorable and endearing your email is—there will still be subscribers (many of them!) who will be too rushed to scroll down and get to the bottom of it. Keep the CTA above “the fold,” or in the part of the message that’s visible without any scrolling. While the fold location can be hard to predict with all the varying preview panes and computer monitors out there, put your CTA up top where it gets the attention it deserves.

I love this Giggle email, but the CTA is way down there. Keeping it above the fold doesn’t have to stifle creativity. This Banana Republic message has some fun with image layout while keeping what’s important up top.

4. Make it POP! Keeping it above the fold is a good start, but go further. Make your CTAs stand out visually. Try using HTML buttons as opposed to text links. You’ll grab more eyes that way and generate a higher CTR.

In this email, it almost seems like Free People is trying to hide their CTA. Why is it so tiny, tucked away in weeds? If it were right beneath the body copy, Free People would better serve their shoppers and increase sales without compromising their low-key approach.

While this Land of Nod CTA falls below the fold (gah!), the green button totally pops, and the very specific wording makes the destination absolutely clear. If you’re looking for copy inspiration in general, check out Land of Nod; they have tons of fun with CTAs and beyond.

For more on buttons, check out my article on “The Bulletproof Button”. Learn all about how to optimize your button design for maximum performance.

Which CTAs get you clicking? Please share your experiences with the eec community by posting a comment below.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Last week we talked about giving ourselves enough time to get creatively inspired for the holidays. Post-percolation, let’s get real. Let’s funnel our freshly-focused creative energies into constructing successful holiday email creative. The recipe for success: think like a shopper.

The holidays rouse as much stress as excitement, so accommodate busy bees by matching your approach to their frenzy. How do people shop during the holidays? How can you make their ever-expanding to-do list less cumbersome? Tweak your usual creative tactics to meet consumers where they are.

Each part of your email can serve a special role during the holiday season:

1. Navigation: Place everything your subscribers need at their fingertips by packing your nav with relevant messaging and links. Alert customers to shipping deadlines. Call out popular holiday items or shopping categories. Add just a touch of holiday with a graphic or a color change. Remind them what you’re there for.

2. Main Message: Know your customers and know how they shop. Sort items by categories. Gifts for girls, boys, men or women. Gifts for husbands, mothers, best friends or colleagues. Gifts by price range. Under $20, under $50, under $100. (I love that little bird on the branch, by the way.) Help customers out by breaking down their shopping lists, and they’ll feel it. Send a series of recipient-themed messages—like these bloke and baby mails from Barneys—or try a gridded approach to keep it all nice and neatly-packed...like a beautifully wrapped present.

3. Gift Services Footer: The Gift Services Footer (or, as I adoringly call it, the GSF keeps your holiday templates under control when you’re trying to squeeze in a couple extra submessages...or four! Layering gift card promotions, order-by dates, gift-wrapping offers, local retail store adjusted hours, and on and on, can get to be too much for one little email to handle. Cut down on overwhelming creative layer cakes by fitting an average of four messages into the space of one with the GSF.

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

The holiday season sends everyone into a flurry. It should be a fun flurry for email senders, giving us a chance to mix up our typical creative. But accompanying this potential for uniqueness and experimentation is the potential for the sort of holiday clichés that cause consumers to cringe. Bring freshness to your holiday approach this year by indulging in a percolation period before starting in on your design work.

Start now: Allow time to gather inspiration that embodies the holiday attitudes you want to convey. This first stage of the creative process can take the form of a physical bulletin board or a digital archive—anything that lets you store and revisit images and other touchstones. Whether you find yourself digging through old boxes at the back of the closet or clicking through internet collections of ads from years past, look for anything that might make your emails sparkle.

(1) Consider new ways to use traditional imagery: Look through old childhood holiday photos and stills from favorite movies. Sift through magazines and online ads. Seek fresh stylistic choices: unusual backgrounds, unique croppings, interesting camera angles.

(2) Envision inventive color palettes: Browse ads and emails from past years or try out combinations of wrapping paper scraps and ribbon. If you’re stuck, visit your local hardware store and peruse paint swatches, or browse the Adobe Kuler site to see what color palettes others have used.

(3) Focus on fonts: Consider the effects of different font treatments you come across in holiday cards or magazines and how they might fit into your creative scheme.

(4) Eat chocolate: Get in the holiday spirit with a piece of the good, dark bittersweet stuff! I have become no less than obsessed with Theo’s Madagascar Dark Chocolate Bar.

Looking around early with an eye to inspiration will give you a storehouse of options when it comes time to actually build your holiday email design library. By focusing on the creative process upfront, you discover the tone and style that dresses your brand in its own holiday best.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

Diving headlong into the world of email creative is tough if you don’t have all the lingo down. Here’s a handy cheat sheet for those who are still polishing their grasp on the glossaries, and a brush up on definitions and best practices for those who already know their stuff:

(1) The Preheader
These small and subdued text blurbs at the top of your emails are getting more play these days. Particularly as more folks browse their inboxes from mobile devices, this first glimpse of the main message becomes your crucial chance to grab their interest. A preheader informs a recipient of what the email is about, how to view it with images and/or from a mobile device, and how to ensure future delivery via content teaser snippet(s), the “view with images” prompt and/or the “add to address book” prompt. Think about what text snippet you want customers to see first. Probably something a little more engaging than “If you are having trouble viewing this email with images...”

(2) Header and Navigation
This often takes the form of a colored banner and encompasses anything that lies between your preheader and main message. It’s the space for your company logo, and—depending on the message content—it may also include menu items that link to other pages of your site, just in case the main message doesn’t quite strike the fancy of the viewer.

(3) Primary Message
Your email’s big push deserves a lot of attention from you since you’re looking to earn the attention of your subscribers. A harmonious balance of headline, body copy and supporting images delivers maximum impact. This should include a prominent primary call-to-action (ideally in the form of a big, beautiful, “bulletproof” button!) and a link to a landing page with a cohesive look and message that will maintain enough interest to turn that clickthrough into a conversion.

(4) Table of Contents
These come in handy for longer, newsletter-form emails that contain tons of content, allowing customers to skip right to what interests them rather than having to scroll all the way down. The TOC works most effectively as a bulleted list at the top of your email that is anchor tagged to hotlink directly to content. Fitting this into your preview pane, along with your primary message and call-to-actions, will also help it gain enough attention to earn its keep.

(5) Submessage(s)
Adding secondary and tertiary messages to your email gives you the opportunity to present another story or two. Just make sure you don't lose your viewers in a maze of information. Keep it clean with visual prompts like color, strong headlines, imagery and graphics. Submessages are usually organized in a siderail or layer-caked below the primary message.

(6) Recovery Module
This is your final outpost, your last chance to capture the clickthrough of anyone who may have sailed through your main message or submessages. The recovery module is often a bar at the bottom of the email that includes a list of links to your site, or potentially an incentive to grab your subscribers’ interest before they slip back to their inboxes.

(7) Footer
Using the same sort of subdued, “legalese” text that comprises the header, this is another place to include the essential nuts-and-bolts info. The unsubscribe link is tucked away here along with company contact details, “forward to friend” and customer service links. And of course, make sure it’s CAN-SPAM compliant!

Now that you know all the lingo, can you identify all seven message components across these two REI emails?
--> REI Triathalon
--> REI Paddling Newsletter

Talk the talk; walk the walk!

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

As we send more segmented, triggered and dynamically populated emails, it becomes necessary to approach email creative design in a new way. Rather than seeing each email design as a separate entity, we need to start thinking in terms of an email creative framework.

An email creative framework is like a set of LEGOs: It is a library of modular, flexible design elements from which we can build an exponential range of message configurations. Think of the components within each email you send—the header, the main message body, the submessages, the footer—as separate LEGO blocks that can be mixed, matched and stacked into different arrangements to build marketing and operational messages, skyscrapers and castles.

THREE STEPS TO BUILDING YOUR EMAIL CREATIVE FRAMEWORK:

(1) Get Serious: Audit all of your current and planned message types to get a clear sense for the kinds of content your creative framework needs to accommodate. Then consider the LEGOs you’ll need to support them. For instance, perhaps you send marketing and operational messages. The two different message types might share header, footer and submessage LEGO components, but have different LEGO block bodies. If you are a retailer, you might send product promotions featuring 4, 8 or 12 dynamically generated featured items, for which you would use a stackable 4-item LEGO block to accomodate all three configurations.

(2) Get Creative: Once you’ve identified which LEGO blocks you need, it’s time to have some fun with graphics, type and color. Email creative has always been about extending pre-existing brand attributes appropriately and effectively to the inbox. Now that we are building creative frameworks to accommodate a growing number of segmented, triggered and dynamically populated emails, we have to make our color, font and graphics choices even more carefully. In addition to being “on brand,” they have to be “evergreen,” working with different types and configurations of information. This might mean choosing lighter colors and graphics to create a more neutral shell, allowing content to pop with blue, burnt sienna or another eye-catching hue. And it defininitely means using more HTML as opposed to graphical text. While we already recommend using HTML text because it appears in images-disabled inbox environments, it becomes doubly important now since HTML text—unlike graphical text—can be auto-generated as dynamic content.

(3) Get Practical: After succesfully choosing your LEGO block types and colors, you can begin to create your content library—an archive of pre-built components you can reuse again and again. For instance, perhaps you have a 150x180 right rail LEGO block submessage module with a blue headline, grey body text and an orange call-to-action button. You can now create and cache multiple submessages built to these specs—perhaps a “free shipping” message, a “become a member” message and an “update your email profile” message—to include across multiple emails over time. As you add to it, the content library becomes more and more valuable. It’s like having a cache of special LEGO pieces—think traffic lights and pink ponies—on-hand to help you quickly and easily build a more dynamic email experience.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

My little brother got tinted windows and rims on his sage green Chevy Malibu. (Sweet!) Just as he tricked out his transportation, so must we trick out our transactional emails, leveraging the opportunity to move the meter on the messages that generally enjoy the highest open rates (excuse me—render rates!) of almost any we send. Let’s get to it with 10 top tips and several outstanding order confirmation examples.

10 WAYS TO TRICK OUT YOUR TRANSACTIONAL TOUCHPOINTS:

(1) Brand! Include your company logo and colors to make transactional communications feel consistent with your other marketing materials. Apple, Coach, Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma all do this. A metallic paint job and alloy rims produce a similar effect.

(2) Include navigation items relevant to the transaction, especially a link to the "Customer Service" section of your website, like Williams-Sonoma. (BTW— that is the best rice cooker ever. It plays an aweseome little song when your tasty rice is ready to eat.) This is the basic equivalent of vanity plates.

(3) Use text treatments, color and graphics to maximize usablity and legibility. This is just like hanging plush dice from the rearview.

(4) Add an upper-right “key details” module, making it easy to locate the most critical account and order details. Both Apple and Crate & Barrel pop the most relevant information up top, well within the preview pane. It’s like...the opposite of tinted windows.

(5) Include customer service contact information...and not just a URL, but a phone number with hours of availability, like Williams-Sonoma. This is not unlike the famous bumper sticker: “How’s my driving? Call 1-80…”

(6) Say “thank you.” Don’t forget your manners! Pay attention to tone and consider a letter format, which can feel more genuine and personal. Coach offers flowers with their thanks, which I find cute. They also get early-adapter points, as this particular order conirmation is from 2006. OMG...ancient! (Mariah Carey and I go way back.)

(7) Show product photography and link product names back to your website to reinforce excitement around the purchase. This is not unlike the sensation we experience when cranking up the bass on a souped-up sound system.

(8) Cross- and up-sell relevant products to already-engaged buyers. Apple does this brilliantly. (Not that I would ever listen to Bon Jovi! Must be a glitch in their recommendations engine, right? Ha ha ha...)

(9) Add valuable content and offers. Coach includes an option that allows belated gifters to send recipients an email announcing the soon-to-arrive prize. Just like triple tailpipes!

(10) Protect the primary purpose of the message—to communicate a transaction. Follow guidelines regarding transactional-to-promotional content ratios and offer placement. For instance, while Crate & Barrel does a lovely order confirmation, one wonders whether it isn’t light on the confirmation and heavy on the order. Melinda Kreuger, "The Email Diva", wrote an excellent article about transactional email guidelines just this past Tuesday.

Plus, Email Marketing Reports has culled an exceptional collection of resources and articles around tricking out your transactional email.

A bobble-headed hula dancer isn’t a bad idea, either.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

I was inspired by ExactTarget’s recently published whitepaper, Subscribers Rule. “Subscribers Rule” is—in ExactTarget’s words—“acknowledgement that we, as marketers, bear a responsibility to deploy one-to-one marketing technologies in ways that put subscriber needs first.”

I went for a jog yesterday in my “Subscribers Rule” t-shirt and contemplated great ways for marketers to begin empowering individual subscribers. My starting-point pick: the Communications Preferences Center. This is the landing page on your website that allows your subscribers to control what, when, and how you communicate with them.

FIVE WAYS TO MAKE YOUR COMMUNICATION PREFERENCE CENTER POP!:

(1) Let subscribers decide what information they want to offer.
Tommy Bahama asks only the most basic details upfront, then layers in the opportunity to identify optional detailed preferences. This allows subscribers to decide how much information they want to disclose—and how much time they want to invest in the sign-up process. Asking for too much upfront can result in a lost email address.

(2) Provide clear descriptions of your content options.
BabyCenter publishes a variety of personalized email newsletters. They make it easy for subscribers to choose which they’d like to recieve by posting descriptions and examples of each publication. Content selection happens at step three of their simple, three-step registration process. BabyCenter includes an explanation around each step to help subscribers understand how providing data is to their benefit.

(3) Allow subscribers to select their preferred message format.
As more subscribers view email on mobile devices, it becomes important to ask them how they prefer to receive their emails—in HTML or Text format. The New York Times follows a three-step registration process similar to BabyCenter’s; however, because they reach out to more business customers using mobile devices, they include a format preference option. I like that they include a “What’s this?” link to explain the difference between HTML and Text; it’s silly to assume that the general public understands the difference.

(4) Give subscribers control over frequency.
While your biggest fans might want to hear from you every day, your sunny-day subscribers might prefer to receive email from you only once a month. If you have the capability to deliver on the promise, offer frequency as an option on your communication preferences page… and, as a way to retain over-mailed subscribers, on your opt-down page, like in this Saks example.

(5) Make the experience pleasant and easy.
I like Louis Vuitton’s Communication Preferences Center for its transparency and conciseness. Options to subscibe, modify and unsubscribe appear within a left-land menu bar, and each page lives succinctly above the fold. As we’d hope for a luxury brand, the pages are well-produced and attractive; the newsletter sample screenshot is a nice touch.

Tommy Bahama also presents a well-branded experience, from the design to the copy. Rather than just picking up default verbiage, they make the text paradise-appropriate: “Tell us what inspires you, and we'll create an email experience that's as perfect as a well-planned vacation.”

Paradise delivered!

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

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.

For the past four years, male modeling has had a shadow cast over it by one man and five syllables: Der-ek Zoo-land-er. Similarly, one technology and three syllables loom large in the world of email: vid-e-o.

Although it’s still as good as technically impossible to embed actual videos into email messages with reliable success, linking out to hosted videos can have a positive impact on email performance. As a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, so must you become Derelicte! Just use these three hot tips:

(1) Reference Video in Your Subject Line.
Including the word “video” in your subject line can help inspire opens. Three examples:
● Saks Fifth Avenue, Feb. 4, 2008:
“Video Exclusive! Days 1 to 3 of Fashion Week”
● J.Crew, Feb. 13, 2008:
“The well-traveled tote (see video)”
● Ralph Lauren, Feb. 18, 2008:
“RLTV Presents: Cape Lodge, An RL Home Video”

(2) Use Strong Visual Cues to Indicate a Link to Video.
Recipients respond best to obvious treatments like play buttons, and frames that look like Windows Media or Quicktime video players. Of the group at right, the Williams-Sonoma Bananas Foster example is particularly strong, as it uses a combination of camera iconography, video player frame graphics and verbal indicators. (Don’t you just love Bananas Foster? I wonder if there’s a video on how to make an Orange Mocha Frappuccino®!?)

(3) Match Your Video Content to Your Message.
Yes, video’s hotter than Hansel—but hotness doesn’t hide irrelevance (at least not for long!) Video needs to support your ultimate goal, whether that’s to build your brand or inspire a direct response. Two ways I’ve seen it used effectively in email:

To Demonstrate or Instruct
● REI’s Winter Newsletter links to a series of Expert Advice videos on how to select ski and snowboard gear.
● Williams-Sonoma announced the launch of their new website (featuring video) with this email. The “Cooking Videos” callout links to a Bananas Foster recipe demonstration embedded within a French Skillet product page.

To Deliver a Cross-Channel Experience
● Saks recreates an in-store experience online with a holiday windows unveiling video.
● Free People brings us behind the scenes of their catalog shoot with this on-location video montage. Party at Hansel’s house!

As we roll more video into our email programs, let’s keep these wise words in mind:
“I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to video than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is.” —Derek Zoolander

Please share your findings with the eec community! Post your comments below.

As ever,
Lisa Harmon of Smith-Harmon

P.S. Catch a glint of Blue Steel in this Luis Vuitton email and associated video.

-->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

-->Read other Make it Pop! posts.

“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.