This is the fourth edition of my Daily Golden Nugget series of holiday email reviews. In the previous reviews I showed you emails from early November, then a few emails from Black Friday, last week I explained a few Cyber Monday email campaigns.Today I'll detail the email approach that Jewelry.com has been using this season.
I first signed up for their emails on November 2, 2013 and immediately received this welcome message:
Notice that in their first email, they are already offering me a 20% off coupon just for signing up for their email list. This is a common way of thanking someone for giving you their email address and their willingness to accept your emails. When I first signed up, I didn't actually read the fine print where it says "Daily Deals." Indeed, so far, every day since November 14, 2013, I've received at least 1 email from them.
A few days after my initial signup, I then received this email:
This type of email is a really good touch. They are not trying to sell anything; instead they are re-introducing themselves to me just in case I forgot who they were. They're also inviting me to connect socially with them. I really liked this email until I clicked their social links and found out that they are not quite social. In fact, as of this writing they were not even update their accounts consistently enough.
Here are their accounts:
https://www.facebook.com/JewelryCom
https://twitter.com/jewelrycom
http://www.pinterest.com/jewelrycom
http://instagram.com/jewelrycom
A few days later, I received the 3rd in their series of introduction emails. I don't specifically recall ever seeing an email like the one below. I have subscriptions to hundreds of email lists now, mostly retail jewelers all over the world. And to stay on top of more active email trends I'm also subscribed to large companies like Toys R Us, Sears, Macy's, GAP, JC Penny, and dozens more. With all that experience this one surprised me...
Perhaps it was specifically the message "What you can expect fromJewelry.com." Again, no direct selling in that email, and within 6 days their 3-email approach acclimated me to their regular emails. They didn't push products at all.
They certainly did ease me into the "Daily Email" idea without realizing it. Since November 14, 2013 I've been getting their emails every day. This is the email from December 10, 2013:
Notice the format of the email. The photography matches the season; it has clear photographs of items, written sales copy, and many large red buttons.
When I clicked on the red button under "Day #4 12 New Deals," I was brought to the landing page below. Notice the "12 Days of Deals: Day #4" header which ties directly to the email. More importantly, notice the first product in the top left of the web page. It matches the email.
The next red button wasn't as well coordinated as the first. I expected to see more details of those tanzanite earrings, but I saw the following page header instead. Notice how the header says "Cyber Deals Revisited," which clearly says I'm in the right place. But those earrings are missing.
I eventually found those tanzanite earrings, but they were all the way at the bottom of an extremely long page. I've miniaturized the page so you could see it here:
The 3rd red Shop Now button brought me to the page below. Once again they've included the item from the email among the top row of products, creating that immediate connection.
Here are a few good takeaways from how Jewelry.com uses email:
1. Soften the sales approach during the first few emails you send to new subscribers. Don't sell them right away; give them a chance to learn about you first.
2. Take complete ownership of your identity and don't try to turn yourself into something you're not. They said they would send daily deals every day, and they have. Their emails have clear photos with simple descriptions without trying to use overly creative sales copy.
3. The links from their emails each go to different landing pages. The email shown above has 8 red buttons in it. That's 8 landing pages, with 8 different checkout coupon codes. That's a lot of work! It takes a webmaster at least 2 hours to make sure the landing pages are built correctly. Those coupon codes would have to be arranged by the e-commerce manager, and all the details of the codes and landing pages needed to be given to the person who created that email. Sounds like about 7 days of planning to me!
One final observation... Even though I get their daily emails, their activity on social networks is infrequent. They probably found that email is a much bigger driver of return visitors to their website than social media.
