holiday inspirations from the email swipe file

2013

Holiday Inspirations

from the Email Swipe File

2 | 2013 Holiday Inspirations from the Email Swipe File 2013 Holiday Inspirations from the Email Swipe File | 3exacttarget.com exacttarget.com

A swipe file is a record of your top-performing campaigns that you return to for learnings and ideas. It was this concept that inspired us to create the Email Swipe File on Pinterest, where we share the emails and landing pages that excite and impress us. In this report, we highlight 20 examples from the pinboard that illustrate 14 important holiday email design tactics.

Holiday Inspirationsfrom the Email Swipe File

Kristina HuffmanDesign Practice LeadExactTarget@etdesign

Holiday Email Tactics:

Trumpet the Start of the Season

Be Festive

Bring Seasonal Flair to Triggered Emails

Accommodate Santa’s Fat Fingers

Incorporate Learnings from Other Seasons

Remember Christmas Past

Help with Gift-Finding

Encourage Wish-Sharing

Get Progressively Better

Create Urgency

Be of Service

Provide the Perfect Last-Minute Gift

Delight Spirits

Don’t Stop on December 25th

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http://pinterest.com/exacttarget/email-swipe-file/pins/


Neiman MarcusType: Promotional email

Send Date: October 9, 2012

Subject Line: The Christmas Book has arrived!

With 178 layers, the animated GIF in this email announcing the launch of Neiman Marcus’s Christmas Book makes a huge impression! Plus, the first animation frame is solid in case the animation is blocked by Outlook 2007-13.– Kristina Huffman, Design Practice Lead

View the Neiman Marcus email on Pinterest →

More inspiration:

The holiday season is one of the most anticipated times of the year. Clearly mark the transition with some fanfare, a holiday-themed re-skin of your email template, or some holiday expectation-setting.


Neiman Marcus →



http://pinterest.com/pin/38210296811925820/





ZapposType: Promotional email

Send Date: November 11, 2011

Subject Line: Just a little holiday heads up...

Expectation-setting can be critical to subscriber satisfaction. In this email, Zappos gives their subscribers a heads-up that they’ll be increasing their email frequency during the holiday season. It’s also a timely cue to subscribers to start their holiday shopping.– Andrea Smith, Design Lead, Content Marketing & Research

View the Zappos email on Pinterest →






Bed Bath & BeyondType: Headers

Send Date: November 2012

Holiday headers are a great way to inject some seasonal flair into your email template. Rather than a single holiday header, Bed Bath & Beyond created four and rotated them throughout the holiday season.– Chad White, Principal of Marketing Research

View the Bed Bath & Beyond headers on Pinterest →

Retailers hang garlands, decorate Christmas trees, and splash red and green all over their stores for one reason: It sends a clear signal to shoppers that it’s time to start buying gifts. You should apply this same principle to your email designs.

Be Festive





Pre-season footer

Seasonal footer

Urban OutfittersType: Gift services footer and social media bar


While getting holiday motifs and links above the fold is critical, don’t neglect the rest of your template. In this email, Urban Outfitters added some seasonal links to their footer and turned all their social media buttons into ornaments, which was really clever and fun.– Chad White, Principal of Marketing Research

View the Urban Outfitters footer on Pinterest →

Be Festive





Triggered emails are not “set it and forget it.” Make your transactional, welcome, cart abandonment and other triggered emails seasonally relevant by adding seasonal imagery, promotions, and service content.

WalmartType: Welcome email


Subject Line: Welcome to Walmart! Tis’ the season for special savings on great gifts.

During the holiday season, Walmart made their welcome email seasonally relevant by adding holiday messaging to the subject line, using their holiday email template, and packing the email with gift promotions.– Jay Miller, Senior Marketing Consultant

View the Walmart email on Pinterest →







Williams-SonomaType: Back-in-stock email

Send Date: December 2012

Subject Line: Now Back In Stock

While some back-in-stock emails are sent by request, Williams-Sonoma sent this one to subscribers who browsed this product and abandoned their site because it was out of stock. They wisely add seasonal secondary messaging to better speak to holiday shoppers.– Tana Babcock, Design Consultant

View the Williams-Sonoma email on Pinterest →





This will be the first holiday season with responsive email design, a tactic that will really shine on high-mobility days like Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Christmas. But simple mobile-aware design tactics like using larger text, images, and buttons will also bring holiday success to retailers.

Accommodate Santa’s Fat Fingers

JCPenneyType: Gift services footer

Send Date: December 2, 2012

Subject Line: Everything On Their List At Great Prices Everyday

JCPenney was ahead of the curve with this touch-friendly gift services footer. Mobile-friendly is now an imperative.– Chad White, Principal of Marketing Research

View the JCPenney footer on Pinterest →





Incorporate Learnings from Other Seasons

Ice.comType: Promotional email


Subject Line: The Reindeer Game! Play to Win up to 30% off...

Ice.com leveraged the success of a Halloween jack-o’-lantern game email by re-skinning it with delightful reindeer for the holiday season. That’s a smart way of extending your winning campaigns.– Susan Prater, Senior Marketing Consultant

View the Ice.com emails on Pinterest →

When it comes to seasons, the holidays are a completely different animal. But that doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate tactics that worked for you in earlier months.





Remember Christmas Past

Norm ThompsonType: Promotional email

Send Dates: 12/10/07, 12/8/08, 12/16/09, 12/7/10, 12/9/11, and 12/11/12

2012 Subject Line: 30% OFF ends today. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

These emails from Norm Thompson best exemplify what having your own personal swipe file is all about. They identified a top-performing email years ago and have brought it back year after year with incremental improvements.– Chad White, Principal of Marketing Research

View the Norm Thompson emails on Pinterest →

Every holiday season is slightly different, but how subscribers responded to your messages last year is still your best guide forward. Take your winning campaigns from Christmas past and improve or reimagine them for your Christmas present.

2007 2008 2009

2010 2011 2012





Help with Gift-Finding

J&RType: Promotional email


Subject Line: Introducing Our 2012 Holiday Gift Guides

J&R’s holiday emails featured their gift guides extensively. They debuted them in this email, promoted them in a banner at the bottom of subsequent emails, and dedicated several emails entirely to some of the gift guide personas.– Anna Meier, Design Consultant

View the J&R email on Pinterest →

More inspiration:

A good deal is no good if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Help your subscribers find gifts at different price points, in different categories, and for different people in their lives.

Uncommon Goods →CB2 →

Gift guide email Gift guide banner

Email dedicated to “geek” persona












ShopNBCType: Promotional email


Subject Line: Win a spending spree!

Pinterest gives retailers a very public and share-spurring platform for wish lists. ShopNBC uses a sweepstakes to encourage subscribers to set up a wish list on Pinterest in this email, which includes the 4-point instructions right in the email. – Kristina Huffman, Design Practice Lead

View the ShopNBC email on Pinterest →

Help your subscribers do your marketing for you by making it easy and fun to share their holiday wishes—and dangling the chance for a Christmas miracle doesn’t hurt either.





Landing page

Email

Tiffany & Co. Type: Promotional email


Subject Line: Drop A Hint (or Two)

Forward-to-a-friend (FTAF) has been largely supplanted by share-with-your-network (SWYN), but Tiffany’s “Drop A Hint” feature gives it new life. The preview of this fun, well-branded message shows you exactly how the information you provide will be used.– Amanda Monroe, Design Consultant

View the Tiffany & Co. email on Pinterest →






Get Progressively Better

NeweggType: Promotional email


Subject Line: Hands Down, Our Best HDTV Deal of the Season! $499.99 42” LCD HDTV and more

What if you could send your subscribers the perfect Black Friday offer? Newegg tried to do that with this progressive profiling email, whose landing page form let subscribers select from 8 product categories and 7 prices ranges—for 56 different combinations. That’s hefty segmentation!– Chad White, Principal of Marketing Research

View the Newegg email on Pinterest →

Because many subscribers are making once-a-year gift purchases, segmenting emails during the holidays based on past behavior can be very hit and miss. Do progressive profiling to determine their short-term interests.

Email

Landing page





Create Urgency

OfficeMaxType: Promotional email


Subject Line: HOURS LEFT to Shop Cyber Monday

Because they accurately show the time remaining for a sale or other event, countdown clocks powered by “live content”— like the one in this OfficeMax email—are becoming more common because of the urgency they create.– Hannah Kleyn, Design Consultant

View the OfficeMax email on Pinterest →

More inspiration:

The holiday season is a cascading waterfall of deadlines. Sales expire, items sell out, and shipping deadlines pass. Drive home the urgency of these deadlines to increase sales.

Timberland →








Create Urgency

Bass Pro Shops Type: Promotional email


Subject Line: Saturday Only Web Busters + Free Shipping

One of my favorite tactics for creating urgency is updating image files with “SOLD OUT” overlays, as Bass Pro Shops does here. It’s the equivalent of seeing empty shelves in a store, which makes you worry that items you might be interested in will be out of stock soon, too.– Chad White, Principal of Marketing Research

View the Bass Pro Shops email on Pinterest →

More inspiration: Home Depot →



http://pinterest.com/pin/38210296810904335





Be of Service

Lands’ EndType: Gift services footer

Send Date: November – December 2012

Gift services footers (GSFs) pull together many service-related links all in one handy package. A longtime user of GSFs, Lands’ End creating this jumbo-sized one speaks to the performance they’ve seen from them in the past.– Chad White, Principal of Marketing Research

View the Lands’ End footer on Pinterest →

More inspiration:

Your email subscribers represent your most loyal customers, and some of them will be turning to your emails as much for service information as for deals. So make sure that order-by deadlines, store hours, gift wrapping details, and other information are clear and easy to find.

Nordstrom →








Provide the Perfect Last-Minute Gift

SephoraType: Promotional email


Subject Line: Gift instantly

Sent on eGift Card Day, this Sephora email stood out for not only promoting the usual e-gift card and store combo for last-minute shopping, but then also promoting social gifts and Passbook.– Kristina Huffman, Design Practice Lead

View the Sephora email on Pinterest →

More inspiration:

The e-gift card has long been dubbed “the perfect last-minute gift,” but the rise of smartphones and tablets and the digital delivery of apps, games, books, and magazines mean brands have more options for procrastinators and forgetful Santas.

Barnes & Noble →








Delight Spirits

Lands’ EndType: Season’s greetings email


Subject Line: Merry Christmas

I love this Christmas send. The design is beautiful and striking, the copy is simple and impactful, and the secondary messaging is a nice, engaging social call-to-action.– Susan Prater, Senior Marketing Consultant

View the Lands’ End email on Pinterest →

More inspiration:

By the time Christmas arrives, some subscribers may be feeling shopped-out and overdrawn. It’s the perfect time for a season’s greetings email that demonstrates that you’re a brand with heart.

J.Jill →Sur La Table →











Delight SpiritsEmail after first open

Post-contest email

Email after several opens

Email after several opens

Style Campaign Type: Season’s greetings email


Subject Line: Xmas slots - refresh to play :)

Pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with an email, Style Campaign created a Christmas slots game that’s played by refreshing the email. Each time it’s opened, you get another spin and a new chance to win points. Those who opened it did so an average of 14.5 times, with one recipient opening it 980 times!– Chad White, Principal of Marketing Research

View the Style Campaign email on Pinterest →

More inspiration: Style Campaign →Walmart →











Don’t Stop on December 25th

Pinhole PressType: Post-holiday survey email

Send Date: January 8, 2013

Subject Line: We want to know what you think!

Christmas messaging doesn’t end on Dec. 25—or even in December. This post-holiday survey email is a great example of sending the right message at the right time with the right incentive.– Anna Meier, Design Consultant

View the Pinhole Press email on Pinterest →

The holiday season stretches into the New Year. In addition to after-Christmas sales, consider encouraging subscribers to redeem their gift cards, buy accessories for their new gadgets, send “Thank You” gifts and cards, and take other actions.




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