Email marketing
In the past, we’ve posted baffling tweets about pirate plasters, warehouse deliveries, what we’re having for tea and even an appraisal of Kate Moss’s bum.
Forget realising your 50,000 10% discount vouchers are each missing an o, nothing matches the horror of sending a personal tweet from the company account. It’s like calling an interviewer Mum when you’re live to the nation. You feel hot. You feel sick. Your heart immediately leaps into your mouth then makes a daredevil bid for your trousers. If you’ve never done it, don’t worry. One day you will. And once you’ve done it, you’ll have a newfound respect for anyone brave enough to work in social media.
How important is the email subject line at Firebox? Have you noticed any subject line trends? It’s really important, but because our customers expect different things from us at different times of the year, sticking to one style just doesn’t work. In October and November, for example, our customers are mostly thinking about Christmas shopping and entertaining over the holidays. They want to know when items are in stock and they want savings, so our newsletter titles reflect that. In the spring and summer months, however, people want to be entertained and they’re looking forward to holidays, hot weather and time off work. They shift from buying gifts to buying for themselves. So we ease off on the big sell and take the time to have more fun with them. Then, when Christmas comes around again, we hope they’ll think of us.
What’s the best piece of advice you can give to copywriters in the online retail sector? Be honest. Customers aren’t stupid, but they—and that includes me too—had become used to sales and advertising being a one-way conversation. Thanks to the internet that has all changed and customers are publicly, and quite rightly, calling retailers when they’re spouting rubbish. My advice would be to write for your customer as though he or she is right in front of you. If you can’t look them in the eye and read to them what you’ve just written, you and your company are about to get left behind.
Whose copywriting do you admire? We have to give a nod to ThinkGeek across the pond. Despite being a completely separate company, they could possibly be our soul mate, and one day we might meet and marry them and form a family band. We might not have told them that before. This is awkward. While on the subject of the States: Threadless, Dollar Shave Club and VAT19 continue to blow our minds.
Closer to home: Pedlars, Innocent, Hoxton Street Monster Supplies and the Daily Mash (What? They sell T-shirts...) are also wonderfully creative, engaging and entertaining. If they called in, they’d definitely get the good mugs.
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Firebox’s Ben Moran
That
campaign is in the Junk folder again!?
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| Catalogue e-business | Direct Commerce
FEATURE
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