Vaccination cards are being flaunted, and people are stepping out again just in time for summer! After a whole year of lounging around at home in sweatpants, people are ready to update their spring and summer wardrobes, making it the perfect time for fashion brands to show up big in customers’ inboxes.

Fashion is the most obvious outward reflection of an individual’s style. It’s visual and personal, which makes for incredible email marketing opportunities.

But if you aren’t in the fashion business, there’s still tons you can learn from what brands are doing and how they’re appealing to their audiences. Which is 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 for their email strategy. Let’s dive in.

1. ASOS Knows How to Incentivize

ASOS is fun, fresh, and quirky — and their emails reflect this about their brand. One of ASOS’s most successful email strategies is the use of incentives. They give you clearance sales, birthday promos, festive offers, and more. Email is their way of communicating offers earlier than anyone else and with more context.

Check this email out, for instance. They not only have an attractive up to 70% off offer, but they’ve also segmented this further into items under GBP 15, 20, 25, and 30 — which gives subscribers an even more tempting incentive to click through to.

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Another clever move is the mention of popular brands that are included in the sale. However, their best bait is the ASOS VIP list. Not every subscriber gets into their VIP email list, but if they do, they have first and early access to sales. This is a great way of rewarding active subscribers while encouraging others to engage more with their emails.

2. Nordstrom Delivers on Customer Service

“Customers first” is at the heart of Nordstrom’s overall marketing and sales plan, and this percolates down into their email strategy as well.

What makes Nordstrom stand out from the crowd is its use of routine customer service emails to connect with its buyers. Every little bit of communication is an opportunity to reach out to subscribers, and Nordstrom does this cleverly without seeming like an annoying salesperson.

Their product recommendations are personalized and appropriate. Even if a customer returns an item, Nordstrom’s return confirmation email gives suggestions for similar products that are priced similarly. Genius!

Their abandoned cart email not only has the items the customer already added to their cart but also others they may be interested in. Good thinking, Nordstrom.

3. Net-A-Porter Incorporates Content Marketing

Fashion opens up so many opportunities for using content in email marketing, and Net-A-Porter capitalizes on this in the best way possible.

A lot of people who shop fashion retail want to be aware of seasonal trends and celeb styles. They aspire to recreate runway trends and look to fashion magazines for inspiration. Net-A-Porter identifies this segment as their primary target audience and creates their brand experience to fit these expectations. In addition to regular offers, sales, and product showcase emails, Net-A-Porter sends out a newsletter called The Edit (a tricky thing, but they’ve made it work) that looks like a fashion magazine. The hook? The reader gets to be a part of the world of editorial fashion through their inbox.

There are plenty of luxury fashion brands in the sea, but which of them has zeroed in on one singular insight and developed that into an entire, successful marketing strategy? The insight Net-A-Porter draws on is people who shop luxury fashion are inspired by runways — they want to be a part of the seemingly ethereal high-fashion world.

Of course, any kind of marketing ultimately aims to drive sales, so they subtly plug in their products with their editorials.

The result:

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4. Zara Leads with Style

One of the key insights in fashion retail relates to personal style. People connect with those who have similar tastes — and expressions of style make people feel like they belong to a tribe or community of like-minded people.

Zara has been excellent at consistently following a signature style. Minimalist layouts with bold fashion. This is a brand that relies heavily on email and social marketing and less on expensive billboards.

You can look at an email from a mile away and figure out it’s Zara’s — that’s how strong their brand is. And if a fashion brand isn’t about style — what is it about?

These are some beautiful emails, works of art in their own right. The clean layouts make their products pop. Tell us you aren’t impressed by their refined taste:

 

 

Email Marketing Tips to Keep in Mind

The tips mentioned above are great for incorporating into your own email strategies, but there are a few steadfast tactics you should always be thinking about.

  • The most effective emails are personalized and segmented thoughtfully.
  • It’s not only about selling — it’s about building a tribe. Content marketing plays a huge role, and eCommerce isn’t the only focus of the above brands’ email marketing strategies.
  • These strategies work because they touch on every point in the customer journey — from signing up to after-sales service and remarketing to inactive subscribers.

These brands have all got one thing in common, and they’ve gotten it right: good email strategy doesn’t begin with the business. It doesn’t even begin with the customer. Brands that have effective email campaigns are consistent, brave, and focused on creating a community of loyal patrons and fans — and it begins with the one specific thing that sets their customers apart from the rest.

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by Benchmark Team