Email Applied: Promotional Planning Ideas That Will Make Your Life Easier
How tightly do you plan the upcoming schedule for your email campaigns? Marketers who view email as an important sales and acquisition channel are likely to have a detailed plan for what their email content will include in the next 90 days. They also have a skeleton outline for email offers over the following 90 days. Yes, successful email marketers are actively planning the next six months of activity.
It’s helpful to develop a promotional planning calendar months in advance. We’re all aware of the major gift buying opportunities that are coming up — such as Father’s Day, June graduations, July 4th and more. You certainly want to capitalize on these, but if you’re smart you want to look for other opportunities that tie in with your business, help you stand out in the inbox and resonate with consumers.
Here are some examples that aren’t obvious but should get you thinking:
- Despair.com puts a reverse spin on motivational posters and products. In keeping with its irreverent style, the company’s email program is called “The Wailing List.” Despair.com took advantage of the Charlie Sheen controversy to introduce a special T-shirt with the subject line: The Wailing List — Two and a Half Minds.
- The change to daylight savings time was the perfect opportunity for Brookstone to promote its automatically programmable clocks. The subject line was appropriate: Never worry about Daylight Savings Time again! The email promoted the clocks, but the company was clever and included additional information near the bottom of the email. “Don’t forget to change the batteries in your smoke detectors.” Brookstone explained many fire departments encourage people to change batteries at this time to avoid problems.
- Disney also used the same theme to promote a recent sale. Its subject line read, “Don’t Be Late! Daylight Savings up to 30%.” The email had an Alice in Wonderland theme and included Alice and the March Hare holding a clock. The email’s promo code was “Daylight.”
- For this year’s Oscar Awards, high-fashion e-tailer Vivre promoted another Oscar in its emails — Oscar de la Renta clothes.
