1. Captivating Headlines
Captivating headlines draw people in, and video hosting platform Vimeo did just that in this marketing email. Here, Vimeo uses the acronym "NSFW" (or “not safe for work”) to catch readers’ attention. Instead, the company cleverly made up a new meaning for the acronym, the “New Standards For Work,” and created an interactive quiz for recipients to determine what type of hybrid worker they are. After receiving the survey results, users can learn more about the tools Vimeo offers to help businesses navigate the hybrid world.
Used sparingly and in good taste, a captivating headline can quickly generate interest around your product/service, leading to engagement or purchases.
Vimeo intentionally capitalizes on the fact that readers seeing the acronym “NSFW” associated with a major company is something so bizarre that they are almost forced to click through to see what it is. When they read through the email, readers will find that it’s Vimeo’s new personality quiz that matches you with its products.
2. Powerful Themes and Colors
In this beautifully designed email, consumer electronics retailer Withings introduces its new digital dive watches to its customers—which is proof why you shouldn’t underestimate the impact themes and colors can have. In fact, our research shows that 51% of global consumers said colors and layout somewhat or strongly influence how memorable they found an email. Withings captures this masterfully by inviting readers to imagine themselves diving in the ocean while wearing a Withings watch. This feeling can ultimately lead readers to want to live this experience firsthand and “take the plunge” to purchase the watch.
By expertly using themes and colors within your marketing emails, you can craft an immersive experience with your product or service that customers will want to emulate.
Best practice:
Have fun with your colors and branding in emails, but also make sure your recipients can easily tell that the message is from your brand, so it’s not ignored or marked as spam.
3. Popping Visuals
To highlight its Dreamforce event, customer relationship management software platform Salesforce created an eye-catching email that instantly captures readers’ attention. Captivating storybook-style graphics guide the reader through what to expect at the event, creatively highlighting the many reasons why guests should attend. The email also includes a list of sponsors to further appeal to readers and provide credibility for the event.
The email inbox is crowded and competitive, but having visual graphics that catch recipients’ eyes allows your organization to stand out. It can mean the difference between readers deleting the email or becoming a potential customer.
Best practice:
Sending exceptional emails doesn’t have to be hard. Our library of free and customizable email templates can help your business quickly and easily elevate your marketing messages. From event invites to monthly newsletters, our templates have all your email needs covered.4. Personalized Plaintext Emails
Research shows that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when provided personalized content, and music instrument retailer giant Sweetwater knows how to do just that. Purposely designed to look like a highly tailored email sent by the sales engineer, Sweetwater utilizes SendGrid to engage many of its customers every year with personalized marketing emails.
It’s easy to lose sight of the human aspect of customer relations when creating email marketing campaigns. However, Sweetwater shows us that simple email personalization is possible and highly effective in engaging and retaining customers.
Best practice:
Test all your emails before you hit Send. This way, you can ensure that the recipient’s name and other personal information populates correctly and doesn’t appear as First_Lastname or %CustomerID%.
SendGrid’s email testing offers robust email testing before you send, including in-app spam testing, inbox rendering previews, and link validation without leaving your workflow. Essentially, you get to preview how an email is likely to perform across a wide range of inbox providers, devices, and spam filters before sending.
5. Streamlined Aesthetics
Oftentimes, extravagant marketing emails filled with colors and graphics will sacrifice clarity for visuals. However, the best solution can just be to use a straightforward email design, like what the work management platform monday.com has done here, to share its new product updates and allow readers to understand what the update is and how to utilize it best. Plus, 2 very prominent Start My 7-Day Trial buttons invite readers to try these updates for themselves.
Streamlined and aesthetic marketing emails allow readers to easily digest and interact with the information.
6. Holiday Themes
Take a page from prescription glasses retailer Warby Parker, which celebrated the Summer Solstice by releasing a lighthearted, visual marketing email highlighting some interesting facts and features of its sunglasses. Humor helps this email leave its mark—in fact, 63% of global email recipients said catchy and fun content somewhat or strongly influences how memorable they find an email. Combined with fun cartoons and jokes mixed between, the long-email format (an homage to the longest day of the year) keeps readers scrolling for more as they continue to discover what makes Warby Parker sunglasses unique.
At the end of the day, email marketing should entertain your readers. Warby Parker expertly used the opportunity of a lesser-known holiday to create an engaging, eye-catching marketing email that speaks to the consumer.
7. Product and Customer Q&As
American electric vehicle (EV) company Lucid Motors goes back to a basic but effective email marketing strategy with its campaign for DreamDrive, an advanced driver-assistance system. Paired with futuristic, elegant photos of its cars, Lucid Motors simply provides 5 reasons why DreamDrive is superior to other EV car systems. The DreamDrive teaser also adds hype by answering top questions people have about the system. This basic structure draws in readers with the photos and then helps them understand very clearly why Lucid Motors is the better option.
While email marketing innovations have changed a great deal in recent years, going back and perfecting the basics can still prove extremely effective.
Best practice:
Get right to the point. Only include the most important information in your messages as 24% of global recipients mentioned their top email turnoff is irrelevant content.
8. Teasing to Build Interest
Harnessing the power of a good mystery, consumer electronics giant Apple released this teaser for its Peek Performance event. To build anticipation for the announcement of its new products, the teaser generates hype and excitement for readers to participate. How? By giving readers nothing more than an ambiguous title and a date/time, the email entices them to learn more by visiting the company’s website.
Simple, effective teaser messages help build excitement for upcoming events, product launches, and more. Not to mention, it helps push recipients to your website or landing page, so you can more accurately track interest and even score some registration sign-ups.
Best practice:
It’s important to A/B test every part of your marketing emails, from subject lines to calls to action (CTAs), as it’ll help you continuously iterate and improve your email program. Some tips to keep in mind when conducting A/B tests are:
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Test only a single element at a time (or your results will be inconclusive)
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Have a significant sample size to reduce error
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Move to the next test after you find the winning element
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Never stop testing since your content and recipients will always change
For a more in-depth look, check out our Guide to Email A/B Testing and Optimizing Your Call to Action.
9. Simplicity
Vulfpeck, an American funk band, uses email marketing campaigns as one way to promote its newly released vinyl album pressings. Focused on simplicity and a powerful CTA message, this email creates a sense of urgency for listeners to purchase the album before it runs out. As a result, this specific album achieved 286% of its original sales goal and raised $171,990 in revenue for the band.
Through clever but simple email marketing, Vulfpeck has sold out every single vinyl album within several weeks of release, slowly forging its way in the funk/pop space.
10. Exclusivity
People love the feeling of being the first or only ones to gain access to something brand new, and iOS product design company Play utilizes this concept to its fullest extent. The first thing readers see, and letting them know they’re a select few individuals lucky enough to receive an invite to the closed beta, is “You’ve been invited!” written in big, bold letters. From there, readers get more information about signing up, allowing them to begin using the app.
Marketing with exclusivity allows users to have an extremely positive firsthand experience while using a product or service and generates hype as more people want to become a part of it.
11. 2-in-1 New Product Release
With the world becoming increasingly remote, people want new ways to stay connected with friends and family. Streaming service Disney+ uses this opportunity, combined with the popularity of “The Mandalorian,” to introduce the new GroupWatch feature for its users. This email highlights the features and connectivity of GroupWatch while promoting the Disney show.
Instead of promoting just one product/feature in an email, Disney+ showcased two: GroupWatch and “The Mandalorian.” This brilliantly saved Disney time and money by not having to send separate marketing emails.
12. Interactivity
Most marketing emails are purely static, with some utilizing GIFs or animation to stand out from the rest. What’s rarely seen are fully interactive emails like what the television network BBC One did here. BBC One used a simple but technically complex click graphic that helped recipients learn more about each animal by clicking on it. By doing this, BBC One lets users fully interact with the email, spending more time exploring and developing interest.
By presenting a very unique and interactive graphic through email, as BBC One did, you offer a refreshing change in recipients’ inboxes.
13. DIY Inspirations
Having a DIY element in your marketing emails can be very engaging for readers, giving them hands-on experience with your product. To do this, home goods retailer Snowe included a simple cocktail recipe in its email to promote its new bartending set. By creating excitement for the cocktail, Snowe made readers want to try making it—and hopefully, they’ll be inclined to purchase a bartending set from the company, too.
Following up with CTAs leading to its bartending landing page, Snowe provided readers with an interactive element that they can only do if they have access to a bartending set, which Snowe provides.
14. Customer Reviews
A 2022 report by BrightLocal found that 49% of consumers trust reviews from other consumers as much as recommendations from family and friends. This means that if you can provide evidence of good reviews for your products, almost half of all consumers will trust those reviews. Cookware retailer Our Place uses this strategy by implementing several positive user testimonials within its email to provide credibility for its products.
Having customer reviews is a great way to convince skeptical users to ultimately decide to make the purchase. Highlight these positive and unbiased testimonials to sell your products for you.
15. Humanizing Your Business
It’s hard to put a real, human face to a company, especially if the company runs as a digital-first business. However, guitar manufacturer Orangewood knows exactly how to overcome this modern issue by introducing its Guitar Specialists in emails. The email contains basic information about the specialist and a short Q&A about their experience with guitars, creating a more personal connection with the email recipient.
While this email not only allows Orangewood to build a more personal relationship with its customers, it also provides an opportunity to promote its company brand values and, of course, guitars.
16. Animations
Breaking up the monotony of Black Friday email promotions, workwear apparel company Carhartt decided to do something different by adding a novel animation to its email. The scrolling black curtain instantly captures the readers’ attention, revealing that the company’s Black Friday promotion “Starts Now” and inviting recipients to flock to the Carhartt website and shop.
A relatively simple GIF can be an effective method to engage customers and help you stand out from traditional holiday email campaigns.
17. Addressing Consumer Concerns
Especially during times of uncertainty, it’s confusing for consumers to navigate through changing landscapes without direction. However, companies can help mitigate this confusion by understanding consumer concerns and appropriately addressing them. In this example, Uber addresses COVID-19 concerns by outlining its new features aimed to protect the health and safety of drivers and passengers.
Proactiveness can help ease consumers’ concerns, giving them the peace of mind they need to feel comfortable continuing to use your product or service.
18. Discounts
Discounts can be a powerful tool to engage potential customers as 89% of millennials and 86% of Gen Xers reported that they would be inclined to try a new brand if offered a discount. Online learning platform Skillshare pairs 40% off annual subscription membership with positive customer reviews to encourage new customers to take advantage of this discounted rate and everything a Skillshare membership offers.
If you have the means, offering attractive discounts can be the final push recipients need to convert and try your business’ product or service.
19. Used-Based Recommendations
Few businesses have mastered personalization as well as video streaming giant Netflix. However, Netflix doesn’t leave its user-based recommendations on its platform—it also features them in its email marketing campaigns. In this example, after recognizing that its user just finished a show, Netflix sent an email highlighting some of the user’s past favorites to rewatch and new shows to try. These highly catered suggestions aim to entice the user back to continue using the Netflix platform.
Sending targeted emails at key points in the customer journey can help your business create seamless, personalized experiences for your customers and improve overall engagement. While that’s often easier said than done, partnering with a customer data platform, like Twilio Segment, makes it easy to gain a holistic view of your customer data. Not to mention, it empowers you to send real-time customer experiences based on user behavior.
20. Abandoned Cart Reminders
Across all industries, the average cart abandonment rate is 69.82%, meaning that most people will place items in their shopping cart but stop at the point of sale. Sending abandoned cart emails can recapture the attention of users and push them to check out. Take, for example, beauty cosmetic company EM Cosmetics, which offers a compelling abandoned cart email by including scarcity messaging (“Don’t let it end up with someone else!”), a CTA to resume their shopping trip, and a discount code for the user to apply to their order.
The act of abandoning a cart sends a powerful message to your brand: this individual is interested in your offerings, but something derailed their shopping trip. That something could be a simple distraction, higher-than-expected total costs, or even slow shipping. By implementing a simple re-engagement email, especially one that helps address these concerns, you can employ a friendly reminder and bring your user back to finish their purchase.
