Welcome Message Gallery

In a quick (unscientific) review of clients I’ve worked with, the average welcome series generated 6 times the revenue per email sent when compared to the rest of their email program. The worst performing welcome message had over twice the revenue per email sent compared to the total program.

This post is a companion post to my ClickZ article on Welcome Messages.

I’ve collected a sample of 30 different companies. The top 20 Internet Retailers plus another 10 top internet apparel retailers. For each I collected:
- Email signup pages
- Welcome messages
o Images on
o Images off
o iPhone message
o iphone inbox

You can view the full gallery here.

You can view the different categories by clicking on the tags on the left of your screen. The most general tags are
- Email-Signup. Home page plus other email signup pages.
- Welcome-Email. Welcome email as displayed in gmail.
- Welcome-Email-iPhone. Welcome email as displayed on iPhone.
- Welcome-Inbox-iPhone. Welcome email preview as displayed in iPhone preview within inbox.

You can also search for company name or any other text you’d like to find. The text in the image screen shots are searchable.

A few observations beyond my ClickZ article:

American Eagle & J.C. Penney still use plain text messages.

Abercrombie and J. Crew still use the “One Big Image” version of an email.


Click the “800 Number” tag to see the few who use phone numbers in their emails. This works great for mobile.

-Zappos and L.L. Bean have clickable links to phone numbers.
-Circuit City, HP, and Office Max have 800 numbers but as images, so they do nothing to help out the most obvious need for an 800 number – the mobile customer.


Nordstrom and Wal-Mart have trouble using text nav bar in the mobile client.

Better Pre-Headers - Follow Victoria's Secret

Victoria's Secret was a client of mine in the late 90's. They were an innovator then, and are still one of the most innovative internet retailers. Of the top 20 internet retailers, they are one of only two companies that have more than one million fans on Facebook (FanPage Stats).

So how do they do a preheader? The first sentence in the inbox preheader is SELLING.

I can't stand the "problems viewing" pre-headers that dominate the marketplace today (like the one below from Costco).




Once you open the message on the iPhone, that pre-header is a clickable link. And that link takes you to a landing page that while not optimized for mobile, is actually pretty good.




Here's the landing page for the preheader link.






Now check the Costco message.




The landing page for the main offer, is a landing page optimized by internal search.

If you view on a mobile, you really should have bigger images. And also, think about formating so that you take the up the full screen and not waste space on the right, like the Costco landing page below.

Share with Twitter Facebook and Email

Website Magazine has a nice concise way to ask people to share any way they like

{Click to view full image}



Email Insider uses some nice concise buttons as well.

MySpace directing to Facebook & Twitter to promote Bruno

Gotta love that even though the Bruno ad site is hosted on MySpace, it links off to Facebook and Twitter.

http://www.meinspace.com/bruno



Appearance on the Tonight Show was hilarious, and definitely post-Leno era.

Facebook for the Internet Retailer

This is a companion supplement to my June 26, 2009 ClickZ article

To-Do List for Facebook and E-Mail Integration

Recently, Facebook began to give individuals the ability to replace their regular Facebook URLs, which show a user number instead of a name, with a "vanity" URL of their choosing. (For example, I changed my URL on Facebook to http://www.facebook.com/ed.henrich .)

Few of the Internet's leading retailers have taken advantage this opportunity. In this post, I'll cover a quick survey of the top 20 Internet retailers Facebook presence and websites.

Of the top 20, I found that 17 had a presence on Facebook, but only 8 have adopted the new vanity URLs that make it easier for customers to find these pages.

Most of these "microsites" are still small. Only Apple and Victoria's Secret have attracted over one million fans.

Home Page	Vanity URL	Facebook Landing Page	# of Fans
Amazon		Wall	58
Staples	www.facebook.com/Staples	Application	7,943
Dell	www.facebook.com/Dell	Wall	31,587
OfficeDepot		Wall	96
Apple		Wall	1,361,913
OfficeMax
Sears	www.facebook.com/Sears	Boxes	24,643
CDW		Wall	554
Newegg		Wall	2,056
BestBuy	www.facebook.com/BestBuy	Wall	20,163
QVC		Wall	15,596
SonyStyle
Walmart		Wall	677
Costco		Wall	52,480
JCPenney	www.facebook.com/JCPenney	Application	11,940
HPshopping.com
CircuitCity		Wall	4,559
Netflix	www.facebook.com/Netflix	Boxes	36,765
Victoria's Secret	www.facebook.com/VictoriasSecret	Application	1,428,143
Target	www.facebook.com/Target	Wall	451,528

If you'd like to compare the Facebook pages to the Home Pages of the top internet retailers check out these two albums.

Facebook Fan Pages - Top Internet Retailers



Home Pages - Top Internet Retailers


Email Signups on Facebook

The top ad on the Sears Facebook landing page says “Become a fan today. Click here to get your free $10 Sears coupon now.” Clicking on this add leads you to another page where they collect email address.

{Click on any screen shot or slide show to enlarge.}





Lenovo has email address integrated into their Facebook landing page.

Here's a demo for how to create an Opt-In form for Facebook.


Links to Facebook Pages on Home Pages
Of the 20 sites I checked, only two had links to their Facebook pages on their website home page.

• J.C. Penny in top nav
• Circuit City bottom right
  

Circuit City also uses their email to send consumers to their Facebook page.



SWYN - Share With Your Network

Within the top 20, only J. C. Penney and HP asked consumers to share the email with their network. (J. C. Penney coded directly, HP used 3rd party Share This), which allows the company to reach out to all of the customer’s Facebook “friends”. This reaches a much larger group than the usual “share with a friend” button.

Thank you Chad White and the Retail Email blog for sharing several emails.



J. C. Penney



HP



I've included several additional examples in this Picasa album.

Barack Obama knows the value of a Quick Signup - Do You?

Lots of marketers struggle with getting home page real estate for their email sign ups.

Follow our President's lead. Put a prominent quick sign up at the top right of your website home page.

Don't be lame. Links to forms are so last year & last President.

Barack Obama's Home Page
Click Image to View Full Screen





George Bush's Home Page
Click Image to View Full Screen



George Bush's Subscription Page
Click Image to View Full Screen




Some Like Macy's Don't Collect Email on Home Page
Click Image to View Full Screen


Wal-Mart Does a Quick Signup, but on Footer
Click Image to View Full Screen

Circuit City RIP

Circuit City closed the last of its stores this Sunday.

Here's a look back at their website for the last year and a half (starting January 2008).

View the slide show or click to go to Picasa album which will provide more viewing options.