Don’t Confuse Your Customers
Several months back I signed up to receive email communications from Eyes Lips Face (E.L.F). Not being a big makeup wearing person, I never paid much attention to their emails but always like to see what brands are up to being an email marketer. When I started noticing the poor subject lines I began to pay more attention however it was to their overall email marketing campaigns opposed to what they were trying to sell within the emails.
The main subject lines that caught my attention were subject lines with the words ‘OOPs’ or ‘We’re Sorry’ in them. There’s something about those emails that makes me want to immediately open them to see what they did wrong and how they apologized to their customers. However this time, it wasn’t a mistake, that was the subject line followed by something like ‘Sorry Loreal, e.l.f.‘s got you covered’ which still doesn’t make much sense to me but I get it - e.l.f. can offer the same products but less cost than what Loreal can.
I received another email today with ‘We Are Sorry’. I opened it expecting it to be about a competitor but found out this time, they actually did make a mistake. However I don’t know what mistake they are referring to because their explanation does not support any previous email I got from them. Subscribers like to have their expectations set, how often they are going to be communicated with, what type of content they can expect and so forth. To e.l.f, if you are going to use ‘we’re sorry’ and ‘oops’ as part of your overall campaign messages and do end up making a mistake later on down the road, consider using a new subject line that does not include those words or adding a keyword to the email subject line that you goofed up on such as ‘We’re Sorry: Update’.
Posted by MindComet on Mar. 31, 2009
Comments
I am so glad someone else has pointed out e.l.f. emails. I receive an e.l.f. email every day, and subject lines are extremely misleading. I’ve even received “Hurry- one hour sale” only to open the email and read absolutely nothing about a one hour sale. As an email marketer who spends a lot of time and money on making my messages targeted and relevant, it annoys me.
Posted by Krystina on 04/14/2009 12:11 PM
They’re really not planning for the long term. You can only burn your customers so many times. Sounds like they’re in it for the short game, but unfortunately, sometimes all that seems to matter are those goals.<BR><BR>It is a bit spammy, but the unfortunate fact is that SPAM is still around because people still open it. I know it’s hard to fathom, but I used to speak to these people daily at the tech support desk. Sometimes we forget what the other 50% are like. :(
Posted by Art Wilbur on 04/01/2009 10:31 AM