Love was definitely in the air these past few weeks — or at least in my email. Valentine’s Day is one of the biggest gift-giving holidays of the year ($18.6 billion1 in expected revenue), and there was no shortage of brands trying to get my attention within my inbox. There were pink emails, red emails, purple emails, emails with hearts, subject lines with hearts in them and much more. This left me thinking that there are a few tips that can help revamp your holiday email messaging and leave consumers asking you to “Be Mine.”
- Be Relevant – A fellow Engauger, Alec Young, wrote about relevancy in a previous blog post a few weeks ago, and holiday emails are one such case where this is applicable. Just because a holiday is on the calendar doesn’t mean that there should be an email sent about it — especially a dedicated one. There were so many brands that sent emails about Valentine’s Day that it left me scratching my head as to why the email was relevant to me. Remember that all holidays come once a year, so please don’t let an irrelevant email be the occasion that causes your subscriber to press the unsubscribe button.
- Be Creative – Holidays bring an extra amount of emails in the inbox, and getting noticed is key. Creativity is not exclusive to the design; it also matters in other areas, i.e., your subject line, preview text, your offer (if you have one) and, more importantly, the experience. Get out of the status quo and do something daring and exciting (within reason and brand guidelines, of course). It could be the difference between someone pressing delete or engaging with you. One great example of this was the Fandango email. Their “guide” to the Perfect Valentine’s Day Night was unlike their normal template email, but the creative and story worked for their purpose.
Fandango
Subject Line: Your Guide to a Perfect Valentine’s Day
- 3. Be “E-mocial-nal”: We’ve already talked about email; however, pairing this with a great mobile and social experience is another opportunity to get consumers to interact with your brand.
- a. Mobile: According to the National Retail Federation, “four in 10 (40.7%) smartphone owners will use their handhelds to shop for gifts, and 46.9 percent of tablet owners will use their devices to purchase items, research gift ideas and more.”1 And this was only for Valentine’s Day — so ensuring that the emails along with subsequent landing pages are mobile optimized is vital to those who want to interact/purchase with you on the go.
- b. Social: Your social experience can go beyond just adding icons in your email. You can create an overall experience that ties into your email experience. Rent The Runway used an interesting collage banner in their email to lead consumers to their Facebook page and engage in a contest to share photos on Twitter and Instagram using #BeMineRTR.
Rent the Runway – Email Callout
Rent The Runway – Facebook App
Now that Valentine’s Day is over, I’m interested to see the different ways in which brands will start to think about how they approach their holiday email campaigns. I’d like to hear about any interesting campaigns that you have seen. What made them different? What made them stand out? What made them engaging?
