Enabler provide best practice advice covering all B2B and B2C email marketing communications, email software and email consultancy.

Posts

Email marketing in the age of perpetual promotions

,

Since email began, the retail industry has been constantly changing. Gone are the days when one had to physically enter a shop and interact with another human in order to receive a discount. Now all you need is internet access and a bank card. With this change, online shopping has become huge. According to the Financial Times, consumers in the UK are spending five times more online than offline. This makes ecommerce more of an opportunity than ever.

Along with this has come a change in the frequency of online promotional sales, making the way in which we communicate them to consumers especially important. When online sales made their first appearances, it was easy to make your email stand out among others because your brand was doing something that others weren’t, and the chances you’d both be running an email sale offer at the same time as a competitor was slim. Now, every brand is taking advantage of promoting their sales online, and this makes email marketing an even greater challenge for marketers.

The January sales are an especially important time to be promoting sales – everyone is broke from spending huge amounts around Christmas, so encouraging them to buy your products is a harder sell. Add to this the culture change (the fact that sales happen all year round) and you’ve got a marketing challenge on your hands. As a colleague of mine said: ‘DFS have had a sale on since I was born’.

So how can you adapt your emails to have maximum impact during the January sales period?

 

Keep to the point

Don’t throw everything you have on offer into the email. Focus on one thing you know will interest your customers. If you have data rich enough, segment your email, and make use of dynamic content to ensure you’re sending customers content that is relevant to them. If your data isn’t up to scratch, here are some work-arounds you can capitalise on.

The New Year has just arrived, which means resolutions, resolutions, resolutions. Focus on your products which will interest people who might have made resolutions to get healthy, do something new, save money, travel, be less stressed. TIME magazine made a useful list of the top 10 most commonly broken new year’s resolutions – a great insight into areas your customers may be focusing their attentions on in January.

One company that used this tactic really well was Pen Heaven (below), who capitalised on

the start of a new year by promoting diaries and planners. Who doesn’t need a new diary at the start of the year?! Their subject line, ‘25% off 2016 Diaries + Limited Stock Left on Seasonal Offers’ was clever for several reasons:

1. They clearly pushed the discount.
2. They made reference to the relevance of the New Year.
3. They mentioned what the product was to get customers interested.
4. They instilled a sense of urgency; suggesting the diaries were in short supply.
5. The email was clean, clear, aesthetically pleasing and offered a discount code.

 

 

Have a strategy

Don’t just send one email and then tick the ‘January Sales’ box on your ‘things-to-accomplish-in-January’ list. According to the Office for National Statistics, online sales in January 2015 increased by 12% compared with January 2014. January Sales are a whole month of opportunity, and not a month to miss out on.

Sainsburys

One company who had a brilliant strategy this year were Sainsbury’s. Their subject line was ‘Anna, up to £58 off to kick-start your New Year’. They also had a great pre-header; ‘Healthy savings for a happier New Year’. By doing this, they specified the discount available, made reference to the event and also triggered the ‘new year-new me’ health response in their customers. A powerful trio, carefully constructed to gain their target’s attention. Within the email, they also had a clever double offer: ‘£18 off your first shop’ and ‘£10 off your next four orders’. This is really smart of them – not only are they capitalising on the January Sales period but they’re also improving customer retention while they do it.

Sainsbury’s went a step further by making the process easier for their customers (right). The email contained a section which actually looked like the sort of voucher you’d print off and use in store. They clearly outlined the steps for voucher redemption and gave a clear deadline. Another gem from this email was the part just under the voucher which encouraged people to sign up to more Sainsbury’s communications using the incentive of helpful voucher reminder emails.

This is a great strategy; people have busy lives and don’t always remember they have a voucher sitting in an old email somewhere in their inbox. Sainsbury’s are making sure that those customers are continuing to shop with them and not another provider. This is exceptionally smart, as internet shoppers tend to be more loyal than in-store buyers – take Tesco as an example, where online shoppers spend 46% of their total grocery budget with the retailer while the average offline Tesco shopper spends only 29%.

 

 

Have an attention grabbing subject line

With the amount of emails flooding into people’s inboxes it’s imperative that yours stands out. A few things you can focus on are:

How much is the discount you’re offering?
There is a science behind the wording used to communicate the discount in your subject line. If you’re offering anything over a £100 discount, use a pound sign – if you’re offering anything below, use a percentage. For example, if you’ve got a pair of trousers and you’re offering 30% off, it sounds a lot better to say 30% off than it does to say £4 off. Equally, if you’re selling a high price item, saying £1,000 off sounds a lot better than 10% off.

Have you made what’s on sale obvious?
Getting people to open your email can be tricky, make sure whatever you’re putting in your subject line is going to interest them enough to open the email. A great way to do this is to use your data – putting a piece of dynamic content into your subject line is every bit as useful as in the email itself. If Joe likes suits and Sunil likes t-shirts, there’s no point putting an offer for t-shirts into both their subject lines. Dynamic fields can help you with this problem. Send Joe a subject line with suits, Sunil one with t-shirts and everyone is happy.

Be a little quirky
There’s nothing wrong with doing something different. One really fun subject line I’ve seen this January was from Very; ‘It’s SALE time… Ready, Set, SHOP!’ This grabbed my eye and I even opened the email. Why not try something of your own?

Make it fun
This should go for any email you send but applies to a greater extent during busy sales periods. Whether it’s an eye-catching gif, a game or a super quirky way to present your content within the email, make sure it’s engaging and entertaining. One brand that did something slightly different with their campaign was Lowbrow Customs (right) who used the following subject line:

Save up to 80% with our year end 🔥 Sale!! Bring it on 2016! 🎉

While those emoticons will not show up on all email clients (we can just hope they segmented their data based on email client before sending) they did get my attention and it added something different to their email that not many other companies used. I particularly enjoyed that they used the fire emoticon to replace the word fire. It’s the little things in life!

Good luck with the rest of your January Sales emails campaigns – we’ll see you soon!

/by

Are you ready for Christmas?

The Christmas email campaigns have been in full swing since November. Fran, one of our email campaign managers, gives us her analysis of the festive emails.

I’ve been berating the early arrival of ‘Christmas’ into our lives for a while now. Not in an Ebenezer Scrooge-esque, bah humbug way but in a ‘this is ludicrously early’ way.

It seems that Halloween is barely over before the Christmas references start creeping into marketing messages. Plus, email – my joie de vivre – has been filling my inbox with uninterestingly designed, completely impersonal content and, most importantly, subject lines that aren’t even a little bit enticing for the festive season. Here are a few of the different areas that demonstrate how people are overthinking the minor details but not engaging the necessary focus – especially when it comes to content.

So, Halloween is over, the fireworks have finished, and now as the days get darker and begin disappearing rapidly without warning, we seem to be propelling ourselves head first into winter. That being said, it would seem that this year it’s beginning to go a little too far, just about everyone and everything has become about Christmas – even the toilet bleach:

Yet, although the decks have been ready for purchase as early as July this year (thanks Selfridge’s), it’s not hard to get confused with the recent mild weather that it might still be September – but alas the shops, the background noise, the lights, and – dare I say it – our email inboxes are a daily reminder that we are getting closer to the big festive day.

Can we honestly say that the world of email is hitting the nail on the head and drawing in those festive consumers? Taking evidence from my own inbox – I think not!

Let’s take a look at two of the key areas that campaigns are still struggling with this year, and a few handy tips for fabulously festive emails that perform.

Most unenticing subject line:

‘Francesca, it’s the season for 25% off 6 bottles of wine’

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love wine. It’s a staple in my fridge so they’ve got my attention. However, ‘season’? Does this rather large high street supermarket chain realise that there are four of them? In my humble opinion, every day (let alone season) should have 25% off 6 bottles of wine.

As an email professional, I highlight this key point for increasing user engagement: your subject line should be the prime area of focus in any campaign, at any time of the year.

As a rule of thumb you shouldn’t use any sales based words such as, ‘offer’, ‘free’, ‘sale’, ‘deals’ or icons like !, ?, £, or % in your subject line, as spam filters are highly likely to pick them up and throw the mail straight into the junk folder (hence I found the above one in my spam folder).

Keep it punchy, make it unique and create intrigue. When writing subject lines, consider the recipient – will it entice them? If there’s any doubt, then you need to rewrite it. Finally, if you’re going for a theme then go all in. The email feels half-hearted when you do it half hearted, and I don’t think you can ever over eggnog the Christmas pudding (sorry – had to).

Here are a few more subject lines that have found their way into my inbox/spam box that are lacking a little bit of get up and go:

  • ‘Shh…Keep this to yourself…’
     

  • ‘Make Christmas Your Own: Personalised Christmas Story Book £2, Santa Cutlery Holder
     

  • Sets, Luxury Santa Sack, LED Candles and More’
     

  • ‘Alert! 3 For £18 Christmas Gifts [3 Hours Only]’
     

  • ‘Is your home ready for the holidays?’ (Received the beginning of November… bit early?!)

Content that’s stuck in the dark ages (and also has no tact):

I don’t even think I need to explain why this spa wins the least personalised, most unresponsive template award and – more importantly – most contradictory Christmas theme of any winter themed email I’ve ever read.  This seems to be more the sort of email you might expect when detox season kicks off in January.

This brings me to my next point: if you manage to entice a reader to click into your email then you need attractive, interesting and relevant email content that’s going to get them reading, clicking through and opening up again next time. In my opinion, there are three main areas:

Personalisation: whether this is personal details or content based on consumer analysis (see Sophie’s blog the other week for hints and tips).
Short copy: less is always more when it comes to words in emails. Short is good.

Beautiful visuals: images should relate to the copy and be high-quality and eye-catching.
Email marketing is still one of the most successful ways to reach your audience, with evidence showing it’s the number one way to reach millennials.

To be successful you need to make sure your campaigns are carefully considered and relevant. There are so many different and wonderful things you can do with content now, yet I regularly receive emails that are stuck in the dark ages.

​​A festive email campaign that really caught my eye this year came from Watergate Bay Hotel, a spa hotel in Cornwall. Their festive email campaign had a simple concept, on-point branding, and excellent integration. They used wintery graphics and a snowshaker concept to create a daily competition with cleverly chosen prizes from local or partnership brands that fit with their brand.

The competition runs through the whole of December with a different prize each day and three chances to win. If you’re not successful after ‘shaking’ the snowglobe three times, you receive a discount code to use in their online shop. This is a nice touch that will encourage users to purchase Christmas gifts from their online store.

Sign up is required to enter the competition, a great method for data capture and for driving users back with follow-up emails (particularly as the prizes change every day, maintaining interest). Watergate Bay also reinforce their brand and persona through the choice of graphics and the companies they have partnered with to offer prizes.

The entire effect gives you a sense of what the hotel is about, it’s festive without being cheesy and also places the hotel in their potential customer’s minds at the right time to be considered for their 2016 holiday.

Watergate Bay hotel have nailed the three areas we highlighted earlier: personalisation, short copy and beautiful visuals – plus they continued their theme throughout every element, from the original email to the landing page.

So, when it comes to creating email campaigns – think outside the box. Don’t just stick to the norm or the drab, do something that will get you noticed. All this takes is having the baubles to commit to the theme and be creative!

Top tips for email campaign success

1.    Commit to your design. If you’re using a theme – use it, don’t only use a tiny bit of it.

2.    Limit content headers/links. That way you shouldn’t have an email that means lots of scrolling – especially on a mobile device.

3.    Have clear calls to action.

4.    Make sure you’re using a mobile responsive template.

5.    Try not to repeat a story/product/event etc, try something new.

6.    Use behavioural data – you have access to all of the data you could ever want. Data analysis is key to creating the most engaging content for your audience.

7.    Testing – always test different things in your emails. Subject lines. Content copy. Images. CTAs. Design… you should never stop testing. There are always new things to try and with it consumer behavioural data to be analysed.

8.    Use beautiful, engaging and relevant images, or create simple and effective infographics.

9.    Be personal.

10.    Make sure you’re branded correctly, effectively and in a memorable way – no matter what you do.

/by

Black Friday: email marketing round-up

,

Special occasions are a fantastic opportunity for keeping your customers engaged. They’re one of the most important times to ensure you have a strong online presence and, although I might be biased, what better way to do that than with email?

The latest opportunity to tap into a theme is Black Friday. Somewhat controversial since Black Friday is traditionally an American concept, tied in to Thanksgiving in the same way we have Boxing Day.

Black Friday has been embraced by UK retailers in recent years and merges with Cyber Monday to offer brands a chance to entice customers with special deals and discounts – read more about this here.

This year, it looks like every brand under the sun has taken the initiative and come up with their own way to engage customers on what is now one of the busiest online shopping days of the year. As Enabler’s in-house email expert, I’ve collated some of the top tips to take away from this year’s Black Friday email marketing.

 

Key to email marketing on this busy day, is of course how to stand out from the competition. Customer’s inboxes are flooded all weekend with deals, so how do you make yours effective?

1.    Try something different

Some companies have realised that it’s not enough to just send an email with an offer in the subject line. VoucherCodes decided to go down the route of emoticons in their emails.

‘★ Dom’s Black Friday Special ★ John Lewis | Argos | Amazon | Selfridges | Debenhams’

While this looked fantastic on my Hotmail account, sadly these pretty stars did not grab my attention in a positive way on Gmail as they were blocked. They did make a clever move by naming some big brands, in the hope of encouraging users to open the email to find out what the offers are.

Tastecard also tried something different – their subject line was:

‘BLACK FRIDAY is here’. 

The risk with this is that your email might be flagged as shady and end up trapped in your customers’ spam filters.

 

2.    Target your emails

This should be something you’re doing anyway but it’s especially important on Black Friday. Why would a customer open an email if it doesn’t contain offers for products they’re interested in? Make sure the offers in your email are customer specific. If they’ve bought tech products before, you know they might be interested in more tech products so don’t send them gardening supplies.

 

3.    Personalise your subject line

eBay had a great personalised subject line on Black Friday.

‘Gregory, stop everything! Black Friday deals you can’t resist.’

Who wouldn’t open that?! It’s incredibly eye catching, and really convinces you to open the email. eBay had also combined tactic two and three of this list, as the content in their email was targeted based on what Gregory had left in his basket recently and previous purchases. Great job eBay!

 

4.    Cross sell

Use a time you know your customers are likely to interact with your emails to cross sell a product. Amazon did this brilliantly this year with this subject line:

‘Black Friday is here: Up to 50% off, plus £10 off for new Prime Now customers’. 

This is very clever wording as it makes you interested in the Black Friday offer as well as curious about what Prime Now is. They have left enough ambiguity about the product, while enticing customers with money off their purchase.

 

5.    Remember the loyal folk

It’s not all about trying to get first time buyers to buy. Showing a bit of love for your existing frequent-buyers can also help to boost your Black Friday sales. Debenhams nailed it this year. Their subject line was:

‘EXTRA 10% OFF for Cardholders this Black Friday’

As an existing card holder, I’d have been all over that. Giving existing customers a boost during the busy times can remind them that you care and help develop the relationship between your customer and your brand. It might even encourage them to buy more out of the busy periods.

 

6.    Get clever with your language

Everyone wants to feel like they’re receiving something tailored to them. This goes beyond sending specific content and instead focuses on how you make your customer feel from the minute your email appears in their inbox. A way to achieve this, even if you don’t have the greatest data in the world, is through the language you use. One example of a brand that did this beautifully this year was LoveLula, with the subject line:

Let’s get this Black Friday week started | See inside for your code!

As someone who received this email, my initial thoughts were ‘MY CODE!’ Sure, the code inside might be a generic code generated for anyone to use within the time frame – but that doesn’t actually matter. What does matter is your customer’s reaction to that wording. It makes it sound like a personally generated offer just for them… thus making them more likely to interact with your email and – more importantly – your discount code!

 

7.    Give it some urgency

For times where your offer is only on for a short period of time, your aim is to convert the highest amount of your click throughs to purchases. One way to do this is by instilling a sense of urgency in your customers. Reminding them how little time they have left to secure items at a cheaper price is a fantastic way of doing this. Several brands picked up on this idea on Black Friday. The first was Photobox, whose subject line was:

‘Black Friday Deals – 1 day only!’

This subject line is to the point, and instils a sense of urgency to the customer.

Second was Great Little Trading Co, who used the subject line:

‘Flash Sale TODAY: up to 30% off‏’. 

This subject line definitely promotes urgency. What’s interesting about this one is that there’s no mention of Black Friday at all. This could be a tactical move on the company’s part. Are they acknowledging that the UK doesn’t actually have a Black Friday and sticking to their guns, yet tapping in to the publicity by having a sale too? Or are they attempting to differentiate themselves from all the other brands emailing by using different wording, and purposefully omitting the name of the sale? Either way, it creates standout.

Overall, brands certainly seemed to have put some thought into their Black Friday emails. Much of the content seemed relevant, on point and useful to their customers. With the Christmas holidays just around the corner, make sure you apply the same rules to your campaigns, and keep your customers engaged with fun, relevant, targeted content. Be clever with your data and Santa will put you on his nice list!

/by

Email personalisation: are you being clever or creepy?

Using email personalisation to be intuitive, not invasive.

When you think about personalising an email, what springs to mind? Maybe using a merge code to insert a customer’s name into a subject line. ‘Emily, have you seen our new discount?’, or starting an email with ‘Hi James!’ This isn’t the only way to personalise your emails and it often isn’t the best way.

Targeting your customers this way can lead to great results – increased open rates, higher levels of engagement and improvements on ROI, to name a few. However, personalisation only works if you use it in a way that is clever and not creepy.

Think about going into your favourite coffee shop. Let’s say you go in every day and order exactly the same drink, each time giving the barista your name. The next day you come in, and the barista smiles at you and says ‘Hi [your name] will it be a skinny decaf latte with caramel syrup?’ That’s great customer service. Now imagine you walk into a coffee shop you’ve never been into and a barista you’ve never spoken to before says the same thing… creepy.

It’s the same with email. If you’re emailing a customer for the first time and using their name in the communication, it can come across like you’re stalking them. As you can imagine, this isn’t great for customer relationships.

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind when you’re trying to personalise.

 

Have you contacted this person before?

If you have contacted a customer previously and asked for information about them, then using their details in an email should come as no surprise to them. Personalisation is all about building up a rapport with your customers. The more communication you’ve had with them, the more personalised content you can use.

If you’ve never contacted them before, why not ease them into the relationship using a ‘we’d like to get to know you better’ email. This will allow you to gain more insight into your customer, while at the same time making them feel at home with your communications.
Is your language mirroring the personalisation?

Personalisation is not just about writing customer’s names in an email or subject line. It’s also about how that personalisation is continued throughout the campaign. Using phrases like ‘you’ and ‘your’ can help continue the personalisation and show the customer how your product or message applies to them.

 

Is your data being used correctly?

You’d be shocked how many examples of badly used personalisation come into inboxes every day. What this demonstrates is that companies are sending emails without understanding their data, even at a basic level. You’ll be able to spot this by looking for the wrong information coming through in a merge code. One company recently pulled their customers last names through in the email rather than their first names.

The really awkward part of this was that the rest of the email was written in a very light hearted, familiar fashion. It was like reading an email about grabbing a drink after work… from your high school headmaster. ‘Hi Chaplin, have you seen these offers you’re going to love?’

Definitely creepy.

The other mistake companies often make with data is attention to detail. Check that the personalisation you’re using is going to work across the whole database. Sure, it’s great that Jamie, Akhil and Vanessa will get lovely personalised messages but what about Woody, whose first name you haven’t collected? Woody gets a ‘Hi __’.  Woody doesn’t deserve to be blanked. Worse, he might even get a ‘Hi First_Name’. He’ll notice your email for all the wrong reasons and either quickly unsubscribe or maybe even share it with his friends or online to point out your error. Help Woody out and protect your brand by checking your data. Double check it. Check it again.

 

Is the personalisation appropriate?

Are you getting in touch using a communication that is person specific? For example, birthday emails. There’s nothing less personal than getting a ‘Happy birthday Sir/Miss’ email. This is a perfect time to use that data you’ve been saving for a special occasion. Birthday emails are a fantastic excuse to show your customer how much you value them. It’s your chance to give them some added value – perhaps with a free offer or a discount code. For Retail companies, a chance to use the “Spoil yourself with a new…” sales approach.

The best example of these emails that I’ve seen is from Pizza Express who sent an email with the subject line ‘Happy Birthday *Name*’ Inside the email was an offer for a free bottle of prosecco with any main meal. They even included a lovely gif of the champagne being poured into the glass – and the little candle also flickered.

Another great time to use this is Christmas: ‘Kate, what do you want for Christmas’? It’s a fantastic time of year to make the jump from ‘brand that occasionally emails you’ to ‘brand who knows you’. Incidentally, it’s also a great time to get more intelligent with your data and find out more about the people you’re emailing. Why not use the sparkly magic of big annual events like Christmas, New year, January sales and Easter to squeeze out some more information and make your data richer for the next email campaign? Apply segmentation to entice them with something that’s relevant to your customer and their purchasing history.

 

Are you missing an opportunity?

Are you holding data about a customer’s purchase history? If you are, this is a great cross sell opportunity. If they’ve already bought something from you, they’ve already interacted with the brand – which gives you a way in. You can approach the cross sell in a friendly manner: ‘Hi Anni, we thought you might like these…” Provide some useful information, such as “these shoes go with this dress…” or “popular picks in knitwear…” and so on. People have busy lives – help them; provide tips they can use to make their lives better/easier/more productive. If you can be of use to your customers they’ll come to rely on you, which builds brand loyalty and keeps them coming back.

Once again, there’s a difference between being clever and creepy in these situations. While it’s okay to refer to an item you think your customer might like, it’s not okay to get too specific. Imagine opening an email to find ‘Hi Anni, we noticed you bought three red medium sized Christmas jumpers last Saturday at 3:30pm on your Android phone, and we thought you’d also like these things’. Creepy!

The best way to win in this situation is to be insightful but casual. ‘We thought you’d like this’ is always the safer option.

 

What do they want?

This is without a doubt the most important thing to remember. Sure, you’re emailing your customers for your benefit; maybe to sell to them, maybe to keep them engaged with your brand – whatever the reason, the number one point to remember is ‘what do they want?’
Preferences are the key. This can range from a simple gender split, to segmenting your data based on what types of communications your users are interested in. The best newsletters that arrive in your inbox are the ones which have content tailored to you. This not only makes the customer feel special but will also mean they’re more likely to interact with that communication.

One brand that does this particularly well is RSA Canada. Their monthly newsletter is segmented by what region their brokers are in, as well as by preference type – and they even have a translated version for their French speakers. This means that each month, each of their brokers receive a newsletter that is completely tailored to them. It’s no wonder that their last newsletter boasted a 28% click thru rate.

When you’re putting together your next email campaign, check your data, check the communication history, run through your personalisation checklist and make sure that you’re being clever and not creepy. If in doubt, apply the party rule. You would never walk up to someone at a party whose name you couldn’t remember and say ‘Hi…First Name’. No, you’d be subtle – you’d go and ask a friend or maybe work your way to that piece of information through another means.

The same applies to your data. If you don’t know their gender, don’t just assume they are a male just because most of your database is. A female colleague of mine recently received a beautiful email from a fashion brand – unfortunately they had sent her the menswear collection of jumpers.

One final tip is to always ask yourself the question; ‘if I applied this in a party or networking situation, would people be running in the opposite direction?’ If the answer is yes then re-think your strategy. Not creepy? Email to your heart’s content.

/2 Comments/by

Halloween email marketing – spooky sends

Targeting a database on a seasonal basis can be a brilliant way to engage with an audience. Quirks and eye-catchers can encourage users to interact with emails and even re-engage with a brand or product that may have been lost in the sea that is anyone’s inbox.

With the winter season in full swing, Enabler email executive Sophie has put together her Halloween pick of the ‘missed a tricks’ and the spooky treats…

Spooky Treats

New Look

New Look is a brand that always hit the mark with their emails, and their Halloween special is no exception. They’ve done a few things which will really make a difference to their customers:

  • Straight away, they try to lure their customers into buying a spooky outfit with a discount code that’s perfect for the occasion. This works especially well for them as Halloween is notorious for being one of the fancy dress events of the year and they’ve successfully capitalised on this – great strategy.

  • The flicker in the background is a .gif image, giving the impression of lightning. Not only is it on theme with the email but it’s a fantastic attention grabber.

  • The email clearly has gender targeting as well as merge codes that pull in the user’s name.

  • Consistent messaging throughout the email reinforces the call to action and really makes you want to buy something.

  • I didn’t open the email first time round due to being away from the computer, and got another one a few days later. This means New Look are doing resends to everyone on their list who didn’t open the initial email. They’ve even updated the subject line to try and grab attention in a different way.

 

 

Sainsbury’s

Sainsbury’s was definitely top of the supermarket Halloween emailers this year. The theme of the email was well executed: ‘we can make your Halloween great’. They didn’t just rely on one pun for the email, they themed everything about the email around Halloween while still maintaining a strong brand message. Here are a few things that made this email so good:

Personalisation
​They got the user’s name in there without being creepy – this made the email personable and immediately got the user thinking about their Halloween plans.

Relevancy
Immediately after the short and sweet introduction, they threw in some alcohol and party food pictures to continue the ‘have a great night’ theme.

Attractive design
Eye catching, drop-down banner animation in the hero image promoted special offers – all Halloween and party themed, of course.

Responsive

The responsive design looks great on mobile. It’s clean, crisp, and they haven’t sacrificed the desktop design for it.

‘Missed a trick’

In our ‘missed a trick’ section, we have some classic examples of puns-gone-wrong. Quite a few brands took the popular ‘spooktacular’ pun and tried to shoehorn their offer into it. A well-known hotel booking site was one such example, promoting their “shockingly terrific” hotels and inviting the recipient to “view hotels if you dare.” This is a mismatch with their offering; unless you are selling nights in a haunted house, why would anyone choose to stay in a creepy hotel?

The main problem with these puns is that they are not relevant to the product. If you’re not emailing relevant content, you just should not be emailing. The subject line for the email had some cute emoticons in it but unfortunately as a Gmail user, these came up as tiny square blobs in my inbox. What they could have done here was split their send between Gmail and non-Gmail users, keeping the emoticons where users would be able to view them and removing for Gmail to avoid the embarrassing ‘no image display’ block for Gmail users.

A popular homeware brand were another case of a company who appear to have thought ‘Halloween is coming up… we have to do something’. They also pulled out the Halloween book of puns and came up with exactly the same idea as many other companies. Unlike some of the others in this article, however, they did not continue the theme throughout the email. Here are a few things they could have considered when planning this email campaign:

  • Embrace the theme and build it into every level of the content. If you’re going to get in the Halloween spirit, keep it consistent throughout the email.

  • More personalisation – they used the customer number at the top, which is a start, but having their name at the top next to it could work even better. The customer name was shown at the bottom of the email but with such a long email, it would take a really dedicated subscriber to scroll down that far without losing interest.

A national supermarket chain also used the same ‘spooktacular’ pun as the two previous companies. Unlike the homeware brand, they continued the theme throughout the email.  The overall email design wasn’t bad at all – responsive and worked well on mobile. The main issue (apart from the terrible pun) is that none of the links worked. Sadly, this was true throughout the email. Every link clicked through to an error page on their website.

Clearly, this is a problem. The main reason for this email campaign was to drive customers to the Aldi site to make purchases. If something in the email sparks a customer’s attention and they click through to an error page, they are unlikely to remain on the site or buy anything. The customer experience will have been frustrating and the error will reflect on the brand. Avoid this by thoroughly testing all your links and ensuring they are relevant.

Halloween is over for the year but Christmas is fast approaching. Don’t miss out on engaging with your audience and make sure you’re ready with any email communications in time for the busiest shopping time of the year.

If you’re going to theme your emails, think hard about how to make them relevant to both the theme AND the customer. Keep in mind the ‘missed a tricks’ and, more importantly, the treats from our selection above. Get creating and we’ll see you back here for our Christmas email special. And as always, if you want to talk to us about Enabler or our email campaign services give us a call on 020 7099 6370 or email enablermail@pancentric.com

/by