Vaccination cards are put on display and people get off right in time for summer! After a full year in sweatpants at home, people are ready to update their spring and summer wardrobes and the perfect time for fashion brands to look big in customer inboxes.
Fashion is the most obvious outward reflection of a person’s style. It’s visual and personal, which makes for incredible email marketing opportunities.
But even if you’re not in the fashion business, there is still a lot you can learn from what brands do and how they appeal to their audiences. That’s why we’ve rounded up some of our favorite fashion brands that are winning the email marketing game, along with key lessons any brand can use in their email strategy. Let’s dive in.
1. ASOS knows how to create incentives
ASOS is fun, fresh, and quirky – and their emails reflect that about their brand. One of ASOS ‘most successful email strategies is the use of incentives. They offer you sales, birthday promotions, festive offers, and more. E-mail is their way of communicating offers earlier than anyone else and with more context.
For example, look at this email. Not only do they have an attractive offer of up to 70%, but they’ve broken it down further into items under £ 15, £ 20, £ 25 and £ 30 – which gives subscribers an even more enticing incentive to click through.
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Another clever move is mentioning popular brands that are on sale. Their best bait, however, is the ASOS VIP list. Not every subscriber is added to their VIP email list, but doing so gives them first and early access to sales. This is a great way to reward active subscribers while encouraging others to be more engaged with their email.
2. Nordstrom offers customer service
“Customers first” is at the heart of Nordstrom’s overall marketing and sales plan, and this is incorporated into their email strategy.
What sets Nordstrom apart from the crowd is the use of routine customer service emails to connect with its buyers. Every bit of communication is an opportunity to reach subscribers, and Nordstrom does it skillfully without looking like an annoying salesman.
Your product recommendations are personalized and appropriate. Even if a customer returns an item, Nordstrom’s return confirmation email includes suggestions for similar products at similar prices. Genius!
Your abandoned shopping cart email contains not only the items that the customer has already placed in their shopping cart, but also others that may be of interest to them. Good idea, Nordstrom.
3. Net-A-Porter integrates content marketing
Fashion opens up so many ways to use content in email marketing, and Net-A-Porter uses this in the best possible way.
Many people who shop in fashion retail want to know about seasonal trends and celebrity styles. You strive to replicate catwalk trends and take inspiration from fashion magazines. Net-A-Porter identifies this segment as its primary target group and designs its brand experience according to these expectations. In addition to regular offers, sales, and product launch emails, Net-A-Porter sends out a newsletter called The Edit (a tricky thing, but they did it), which looks like a fashion magazine. The hook? The reader becomes part of the world of editorial fashion through their inbox.
There are many luxury fashion brands in the ocean, but which one of them focused on a single insight and turned it into a complete, successful marketing strategy? Net-A-Porter’s insight is that people who buy luxury fashion are inspired by catwalks – they want to be part of the seemingly ethereal world of high fashion.
Of course, any kind of marketing is ultimately aimed at increasing sales, so they subtly add their products to their editorials.
The result:
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4. Zara leads in style
One of the most important realizations in fashion retail relates to personal style. People connect with people who have similar tastes – and expressions of style make people feel like they belong to a tribe or community of like-minded people.
Zara was excellent at consistently following a distinctive style. Minimalist layouts with bold fashion. This is a brand that relies heavily on email and social marketing rather than expensive billboards.
You can look at an email from a mile away and find it is Zara – that’s how strong their brand is. And if a fashion brand isn’t about style, what is it about?
These are some lovely emails, works of art in themselves. The clear layouts make your products stand out. Tell us you are not impressed by their refined taste:
Email Marketing Tips To Keep In Mind
The tips above are great for incorporating into your own email strategies, but there are a few persistent tactics that you should always think about.
- The most effective emails are personalized and carefully segmented.
- It’s not just about selling – it’s about building a tribe. Content marketing plays a huge role, and e-commerce isn’t the only focus of the email marketing strategies of the brands mentioned above.
- These strategies work because they touch every point of the customer journey – from signing up to after-sales service and remarketing to inactive subscribers.
These brands all have one thing in common, and they got it right: A good email strategy doesn’t start with business. It doesn’t even start with the customer. Brands with effective email campaigns are consistent, courageous, and geared towards creating a community of loyal customers and fans – and that starts with that one thing that sets their customers apart.
