The best email last week:

1. Clear call to action
2. Sleek design, nice design, excellent, …
3. Details: Phone #, link to shop now, offer at the top, free shipping,  promotional code,…

Here is another way to generate your email data base. Steps:

1. Buy a list of mail address of prospect
2. Mail a piece of direct mail and ask your prospect or client to sign up for your email club. Always give something back for free and of course the copy is very important .
3. Punn a new email subscriber!!!!

Here is a Kraft example:

(back)

Here are couple of options of how you can use the top portion of your email marketing campaign:

NordStrom uses two classics: Add NordStrom’s email to your adddress book and view in browser:

SmartBargains uses one main call to action (with the banner) and two other small offers:

The Scooter Store uses two calls to action, add to address book and view in bowser (maybe too much for my taste, but really powerful):

Victoria’s Secrets uses just the main call to action and view in browser: 

What is the best? Nordstorm is a classic, some cases The Scooter Store could be a good powerful one. And for other brands Victoria’s and SmartBargains will be a elegant solution.

I think that the economy is pushing Companies to make a great discounts and use their email marketing channel to let users know about great deals. Here is an example of the today’s JCPenney email:

Couple of days ago, we signed up for some restaurant email clubs. Here is an example of the rewards that we received (It is a pity that there is not one in San Antonio, no appetizer for me):

I like the incentive and it was a great experience signing up for the email club. I would like to recommend if they can add a button with the options to print this coupon. With a print options, we can add two good things:

1. People know what to do (the call to action is really clear) and second and

2. more important we can measure the ROI of the email campaign tracking how many emails are printed

This week Victoria’s Secret started a new SMS campaign. All the subscribers to the to the Pink Club received the email that you can see below with the option to sign up for the SMS Pink Club:

If you click on the link “US on your cell phone”, you will be redirected to the page below where you can sign up for text messages:

Another option to be part of this SMS blast is sending START to 26435 (ANGEL). Of course the subscribers may opt-out anytime replying STOP.

Here are my thoughts:

1. First of all, excellent idea!!

2. Give users more power to manage: what they want to receive, when and the frequency

3. Coupons, why not send coupons to cell phone (avoid printing paper coupons)

4. Add info about sign up in the stores. Banner in the store can improve campaign awareness (cheap!!)

5. Get cell phone number in the email newsletter sign up page (combine email + SMS marketing)

Here are 6 reasons why I love overstock popup:

1. The popup appears just for couple of seconds

2. It doesn’t take too much time to load (if we compare with browser popups)

3. It is not invasive

4. It will offer an opportunity to sign up the overstock newsletter/offers/coupons right when you open the website

5. Will increase overstock the chances of getting more subscribers

6. The popup uses javascript or some type of cookie because only show up once

Remember that the popup only appears once and in case you missed it, you can sign-up from the second section of the page:

Today I would like to share Bisquick email campaign: