If I were to say that fashion brands become successful only because of the quality of material and design, then I can be labeled as the most naïve person on the planet.
Fashion brands succeed because they are able to create an aspirational value through their marketing. In a crowd of other brands and ever-changing trends, they stay on top of the minds of their audience.
If you are a marketer for a clothing brand, then you have to stay on top of all the marketing channels. And I am glad you are considering email marketing to grow your business.
So to help you, we will explore 3 best practices you can follow & look at the types of emails you must send to succeed in fashion email marketing.
Fashion emails should help the subscriber visualize themselves looking great in your clothes, shoes, or other products. So shoot professional photographs that align with your brand identity. This warms up the reader for a purchase.
Categories your audience according to demographics, purchase behavior, or engagement level. This will help you send relevant emails to your audience. For example, you can send an email for a new women's collection launch to only women.
You can create by setting up quizzes when people sign up for your newsletter or you can do a survey. Segmentation based on engagement level or purchase behavior can be done through the data you get through your store or ESP.
SendX provides a simple way to segment your audience using tags. You can create as many tags as you need based on activity, event, or other attributes.
Basic personalization happens by using a subscriber’s name in the subject line or content. Some advanced tactics can include dynamic content - content that changes based on a subscriber’s gender, location, etc.
Offer something personalised. For example, this wallpaper in Burberry's email with your name initials printed on it.
Here are 6 types of emails a fashion brand should send their subscribers.
A welcome email is the first 1-1 interaction your brand will have with the customer. It's like a first impression. So make sure it's impactful, has a unique style, and not too pushy.
You surely don't meet someone for the first time and ask them to marry you, right? Same with emails.
Don't push for a sale in your first email.
Another reason welcome emails are important is that they receive the highest open rate, across industries. When people give you their email address and are ready to receive your newsletter, they are also intrigued by how it will look, or do you have any instructions or great offers for them in there. Hence, high open rates.
So leverage your welcome email to create an emotional connection with the reader. And then you can mention your store and show them around, of course, virtually.
Here are the things you can include in a welcome email:
One thing marketers forget while crafting email campaigns is that a subscriber will engage and open emails if there is something for them.
The easiest way to retain subscribers is by giving them useful content. Some of the content ideas for fashion brands are:
Engagement will help you increase open rate and click rates thus signaling to inbox service providers & spam filters that your emails are valuable. And because of that, your emails will have a low probability of landing in the spam folder.
Whenever you come up with new designs, more colors of the same products, or introduce a different category in your store, you should create a buzz about it to attract people to new products.
Some tips to craft your new collection launch email:
If you have a lot of inventory that you want to get rid of or want some quick influx of cash flow, sales promo emails are quite effective.
Whatever the offer is - 50% off, buy 1 get 1 free, free shipping, giveaways, etc you have to portray in an exciting way to convert people.
Here are some points to do the sales promo emails the right way:
This practice is called segmentation. It ensures that you send only relevant content to people so they don't feel you are crowding their inbox. Thus it reduces the unsubscribe rate.
Here is an example of a discount offer email
According to studies done by researchers, about 70-80 percent of people add items to the cart but don't complete the purchase.
That's a huge amount of high intent traffic not resulting in a sale at the endpoint. But the good news is, it's not all lost.
The researchers have also found that cart abandonment emails are able to recover 18-20 percent of this sale that was thought to be lost.
The reason for cart abandonment can be many such as getting interrupted by something, a failed transaction, an expired credit card, or just second thoughts.
Abandon cart emails, give people another nudge to buy the thing they like so much that it made it to the cart. So there is a high chance that they will convert.
This process can be automated if you are using an ESP that facilitates abandoned cart emails. But the responsibility of creating the structure for this email is on you. So let's see some of the crucial points to include in your abandoned cart emails:
These emails are sent within 1 day of the abandoned cart. You can test the number of emails you need to send people to convert. Usually, it should be about 2-4 emails.
The journey of a customer with you is not finished once they have bought the product. You can use the post-purchase phase to:
Thank them for their purchase and let them know that they can reach out to you if there are any issues, even after they have paid for the product.
Post-purchase emails enhance the customer experience and make it memorable so that they return to your brand the next time they have to buy something.
Fashion email marketing feels overwhelming with all the brands sending multiple emails every day. It takes time and effort to come up with new creatives, ideas, and offers every time. But it doesn't have to be. Use some of the best practices and ideas listed above.
A good email marketing strategy and proven tactics can make a lot of difference to your profitability. So I hope this helps your brand.
If you want to try implementing a few ideas and are looking for an easy-to-use email service provider I would invite you to try SendX. You won’t have to commit to anything as there is a 14-day free trial where you can experience all the features and send actual emails.