Lookfantastic
Lookfantastic is one of the leading luxury hair and beauty e-commerce websites. It carries high-end, professional salon brands and provides professional advice and information on hair and skin care.
This email was a targeted campaign promoting the fact the limited edition ‘Tigi Tweens’ hair products were back in stock.
The aim was to get sales as quickly as possible on these products. It was only sent to those people who had previously bought Tigi Tweens.
The open rate was 46%, the click-through rate was 60%. However Lookfantastic was concerned that the email didn’t reflect their vast product offering.
Analysis
- While the email looks great – important for an email about beauty products – and the promoted products are clearly displayed with bright, exciting colours and bold headlines, Lookfantastic's concern was that it didn't communicate the wide range of other products they offer.
- There is a lot of unclear information in the navigation at the top of the email – ‘home | new products | special offers | march offers’. You are unlikely to click on ‘new products’ if you don’t know what products they sell (other than Tigi Tweens). You might wonder what the difference between ‘special offers’ and ‘march offers’ is.
- While this email was only sent to people who purchased previously, this information hasn't been used for any element of personalisation. The recipient won't know that this is why they've been sent the email, which won't help increase response.
- If the recipient is ready to buy a product it is difficult to see where to click – where are the calls to action, such as a 'buy now' button'?
- Recipients scan emails very quickly – people on the web/email are notoriously impatient. It's important the words that jump out in the email, from the subject line of the email itself to the headlines or calls to action match with what people are looking for. Headlines such as 'G is for goddess' or 'F is for fashion' don't really communicate what the product is for or why a recipient might be interested.
- The email is made up entirely of images which, depending on the email client, may need downloading before the recipient sees the full email.
It's worth bearing in mind that Microsoft has released Outlook 2007, which accounts for a large proportion of recipients' email clients and has undergone changes in the way it renders emails for preview.
Rather than explain the ins and outs of changes in rendering engines here, Microsoft has provided a comprehensive list of rendering features and a CSS and HTML validator in order for you to thoroughly test emails prior to sending.
- The email doesn’t comply with new legislation governing email marketing and websites. From 1 January 2007 it became a legal requirement to display your full registered company name, country of registration and registered office address on all business emails including your email marketing.
Click 'Next' to see what changes Andrew recommends ...
