Highs and Lows From a Few Days’ Worth of Email
Posted by Dave McCue on August 25th, 2009
In my quest to max out the storage space of my Hotmail account, I have hundreds of targeted email marketing messages saved from a variety of different sources. With so much email coming in all the time, I thought it might make for a fun exercise to look back over the last few days’ worth of email and point out some highs and lows…
Witty vs Effective:
Nike probably doesn’t need my help when it comes to marketing themselves, but a recent email had the following subject line: “Actually, It Is Rocket Science.”
When it comes to writing subject lines, the temptation to be fun or witty can lead to trouble. In this case, Nike was promoting a new running shoe called the LunarGlide+, but I would have never known it based on the subject line. As always, when it comes to subject lines, remember that you are writing for the recipients, not yourself or others within your company. Of course you’d open that email; doesn’t mean your subscribers would.
Timely:
On a Thursday, Sirius | XM emailed me to let me know there would be a special, three-day channel dedicated to Woodstock over that weekend. Why is this timely? Because it was close enough to the weekend that it will still be fresh in recipients’ minds when they hit the road over the weekend. In November, this wouldn’t be nearly as effective, but during summer weekend road trip season, I really like the timing on this one.
You shouldn’t have:
My wife and I bought furniture from The RoomPlace last year, and for some reason they personalize messages by recipients’ last names rather than first names. My friends and my old football coach can call me by my last name, but it seems odd coming from a marketing message. Oh yeah, the last name they use is my wife’s maiden name—just to make it clear that I’m a valued subscriber.
Localized:
Apple sent me an email promoting a Grand Opening of a new Apple Store in my area. Complete with directions and a t-shirt giveaway, this was a great example of targeting subscribers based on geography to ensure relevance as well as sparing non-local subscribers news that wouldn’t hold much value for them.
Questionable relevance:
If Barnes & Noble has a preference center, there is no way to get there from their emails. This would really come in handy, as just this week I was sent a promotion about lower prices on text books and 10% off their selection of children’s books. Considering I’m neither a student nor a father, I wish there was a way I could choose which promotions I would like to receive.
Notice that I didn’t entirely discount the merits of any of these messages? Even those with flaws contained elements that the consumer in me could appreciate (i.e. Nike’s emails just look cool). In fact, it’s not often I come across a message that doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. The challenge email marketers face is typically not a full-scale overhaul of their messages, but the more difficult fine-tuning that will address deficiencies. As they say, the devil is in the details.
