Coming up with an original idea, delivering a message and being readable at the same time. It’s an art that email marketers all like to get a hang of.
The example of today comes from a fashion company that you may have come across in this blog before. This fashion company has endless ways to draw the attention of the customer. If you apply the same philosophy repeatedly, you will give the reader an extra motivation to go further than the subject line and to actually read the message. Arguments such as “what have they come up with today” may not always be by the book, but they work. Let’s call it meeting the intrinsic motivation of the reader.
1 The idea and the elaboration of the email message might as insane as you want, one still sticks consequently to the classic reader. The sober logo comes first in the middle. Next comes the menu, in the same way as it occurred in the digital web shop. Keep in mind that a reader can be sceptic, so you need to look after the recognisability. Which has been taken into account here, as well as in the other messages. You can surprise a customer, but you shouldn’t scare him off.
2 We start off cautiously. At first sight, the normal routine is continued. A scarf is being depicted with chocolate letters. The price is quite special. That is why it has been written by hand. You should admit that it is an remarkable situation. If you quickly go over the overall message, then the price €59,95 is the first place that catches your eye. Have you noticed the playful element nearby the call-to-action [shop now]? That is the holy trinity of email marketing: a nice offer, a sharp price and a call-to-action.
3 Here the layout gets friskier. As if the pictures have been cut from a fashion magazine, they have been glued on the screen. As if you are looking at your own tailor-made mood book. The text seems to be handwritten. And the content doesn’t seem to be a sales pitch at all. Rather a little explanation why you need this fashion stuff. The drawn airplane and the parasol are as nonchalant, but this works as well. Who among us didn’t quickly think of a holiday? The body of this email message continues that way. Each time a frame of images is shown with comments, alternating with a clear call-to-action. Slowly but steadily the email message evolves to the classic format again with the straight figures and the text frame with straight letters. That way the body that is slightly different, draws the attention even more. An email format to consider well.
A little warning though. When text is being displayed on the images, you can never be sure that a spam filter will not cause trouble. And unfortunately there still are email clients that have turned off the visualisation of the images automatically. Not only the alt tag is very important, the reader can also decide to load the images. But then the magic of the nonchalant look has disappeared. Such a waste!