With 2020 in the rearview mirror, it’s time to start planning your 2021 ecommerce email marketing program. What are your goals for this year? No matter what you want to accomplish, MailCharts has the freshest data, curated email examples, triggered journeys and industry insights you need to map out your plan for success.
Keep reading to see our newest brands, journey emails and a collection of shareworthy email examples. We’re also sharing insights into our Gifts industry group, made up of 50 notable brands, to learn what to expect from these in-demand brands.
What’s new in the MailCharts Index
Every day brings new email brands, new and updated email journeys and emails. Here’s a look at some of the most notable new entries.
New Brands
No time to keep tabs on great brands? No problem! MailCharts monitors the ecommerce world continually to find and track new brands doing noteworthy things in email. Here are five worth your attention:
- City Mattress (Home)
- Good Chemistry (Fragrance)
- Songmics (Home)
- Omsom (Food & Drink)
- Drinkghia (Food & Drink)
New Journeys
These four journeys cover key points on the customer journey. We just unlocked them so you can see how these brands use email to greet, engage and retain customers.
Welcome and onboarding
Moda Operandi‘s 5-email welcome and onboarding series, sent over 5 days, gives new customers and email subscribers more than just a warm welcome! Each email has a purpose, first to welcome newcomers, then to remind them about the brand’s value proposition and finally to deliver an incentive to push customers to the website to buy. (See more welcome email examples in the next section.)
Booking abandonment
Omni Hotels and Resorts sends a two-email triggered series to prospective guests who browse its booking pages but don’t reserve. The first email, sent less than 4 hours after abandonment, reminds visitors about its low-rate guarantee. A follow-up email sent 3 days later, adds a 25% discount as an incentive.
Cart abandonment
A cart-abandonment email journey gives you multiple chances to fix problems and bring customers back to finish checking out. Marc Jacobs takes the cart abandonment journey by investing its 3-email series with top-quality, on-brand photography and copy.
Loyalty and rewards clubs
Your onboarding series is an excellent place to promote your loyalty club or reward program. The second email in GODIVA‘s 6-message welcome/onboarding series uses a list of freebies and incentives (free chocolate!) to entice customers into joining its Chocolate Rewards Club.
Recently Curated Email Examples
Need a quick shot of inspiration. Check out these four collections of emails to plan your next campaigns or refresh some key email journeys:
- Valentine’s Day: Sweet, sassy or something in between? Whatever your brand’s take is on this holiday, you’ll find an email to match.
- Welcome: See how brands use everything from captivating copy to animation to help subscribers feel welcome.
- Product promotion: When your email’s one job is to persuade customers to buy a product, this collection shows you how it’s done.
- Subscription canceled: The emails in this collection show how to say “farewell” but also leave the door open to stay in touch.
Industry Highlight: Gifts Industry Group
Overview
Christmas is over, but the gift-giving season is gearing up for its next great push: Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14, in case you need to be reminded). MailCharts’ Gifts industry group represents florists, paper goods and photo/greeting cards, gift and food basket services, accessories and others associated with year-round gift giving. The 50 brands curated for the group include ProFlowers, Etsy and American Greetings, along with Snapfish, like Not on the High Street (UK) and Vermont Teddy Bear.
MailCharts Gift Industry Data
Short but intense messaging period: Valentine’s Day email frequency usually begins to ramp up during the third and fourth weeks of January and peaks in the two weeks leading up to and including Valentine’s Day. Messaging in 2020, which generally preceded shopper concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, stayed true to this pattern, which also includes post-holiday messaging focusing on clearance of holiday-themed merchandise and belated gift-giving.
Valentine’s Day second only to Christmas/holiday: Ecommerce email marketers don’t get much rest between their two peak seasons: Christmas/holiday messaging and Valentine’s Day. In 2020, Feb. 3-10 was the peak week for gift-brand messaging, during which time marketers sent an average of 6.05 emails a week. That compares with the year-long average, which includes Mother’s Day, Easter, Graduation and Halloween, of 4 emails per week. In contract, the peak Christmas/holiday sending week was Nov. 30-Dec. 7, when gift brands sent an average of 7.23 emails. The third-busiest week for gift brands? The week leading up to Mother’s Day (average 4.85 emails sent).
Run for the roses: Tracking the words or phrases in subject lines that are both most popular (most frequently used) and most significant (interesting or unusual combinations) shows us the terms that dominate in an industry group’s subject line. In the Gifts industry group, “Roses” was, by far, the most popular and most significant term in subject lines for brands in 2020.
What’s coming next in the MailCharts Index
We are constantly updating our MailCharts Index with fresh data. We’ll be back in early 2021 with more insights based on the top email brands in our MailCharts Index. Look for new content in these and other areas:
- New triggered journeys: We’re busy triggering and classifying new journey emails every day. We’ll share our best new examples in the next update.
- Curated lists with new email examples: We update our curated email lists every day to keep the messages and data you see there fresh and relevant. Add our examples to your custom lists of tracked brands, industry groups and email lists — one of the many perks of being a MailCharts subscriber!
What can we track for you?
Got a new brand or triggered journey you’d like us to track? Just drop us a note. We’d love to hear from you!
