Insights / Marketing / Multichannel / Pureplay
Email Marketing for Fast Fashion
- 29th September
- Sue Cook 2
Email marketing is an indispensable tool in the fast-paced world of fashion retail. Sue Cook gives us the inside word on email marketing for fast fashion.
Email marketing programs are increasingly important to the Australian fashion industry. Regardless of a fashion brand’s DNA, target audience or competitive difference, a robust email marketing program is important for promotion and sales, both online and in-store. But how do you create a successful email marketing program?
I believe that two fundamentals hold the key to email success.
One: employing a solid email business process.
Two: the quality of your creative message and how it connects with the recipient.
Your email business process should be about combining your operational, marketing and technology process into your email marketing program.
Australian retailers are lucky! We have many credible email platforms to suit differing business objectives, sizes and budgets. Platforms such as MailChimp, Cheetahmail, Constant Contact and RedCurrent are all great examples of email marketing technology. However, it is important to remember that no matter how great your technology, it is what you do with it that determines the success of your marketing.
Here are some ‘quick win’ tips on improving your email business process.
Tip one: create a workflow that supports email templates and fire briefs.
In the world of fashion retail, it is not uncommon to launch last minute promotions to drive sales. The fashion industry is often faced with a series of retail challenges, such as battling a slump in mid-week trading figures, clearing old stock to make way for new lines, or a need to increase basket value. These retail challenges are perfect for email marketing. And better still, can easily be built into quick turnaround templates (email fire briefs).
I suggest working out a series of ‘quick action’ scenarios that apply to your fashion label and turn them into email templates. Create these templates and catalogue/promote these as a suite of ready-to-implement executions to other parts of the business.
With these in place you are ready for last minute marketing activity and are not burning resources and time by being reactive!
Tip two: Add email as its own line item in the marketing calendar.
Email marketing is its own discipline. This is why it is best to add your email marketing plan into your marketing calendar, so that it’s never forgotten. Including it will help train everyone about the possibilities of what you can do with email, as well as educate and organise areas of the business into what is required (and when) to deliver your campaign.
You can also photograph for your email marketing campaign during normal product shoots – this will help you showcase styling updates, outfit buys and multi-product offers. It is also wise to train senior management to use email to push slow trading periods and product clearances as well as promoting new ranges. Doing this will help you educate your staff about ‘how to solve the business problem’ using email.
Tip three: When dealing with third parties (either your email service provider ESP, or your email marketing agency) work off a rate card – do this for everything!
In our experience, working off a rate card helps maximise third party relationships, whilst minimising the costs associated with your email marketing. We recommend that wherever possible you should manage your functions (and therefore costs) through a rate card.
For example:
Developing template creative
Creating specific creative campaigns
Blocks for system maintenance
Email reporting and email analysis
Send fees
By simplifying the cost structure, it allows everyone to work on the process of delivering, rather than deciphering invoices and inaccurate budgeting. Importantly it also helps articulate the functions involved in email marketing and allows the business to see the cost associated with each function.
Tip four: Continually think about how you can put your database into ‘buckets’ of targeted information.
This is often the precursor to establishing data base segmenting and profiling and is important where ever you are at with email marketing. However small, start the capturing relevant business information about your email recipients.
For example by collecting postcodes in your database you might be able to conduct some local store marketing through email. Recording the date that someone joins your database and then reward them with a voucher for their loyalty on key dates.
Even if you are doing this fairly manually with excel spreadsheets and/or CSV files, you are still collating targeted groups that you can tailor email messages to. It is also a great initial introduction into trigger and event email marketing programs, remarketing and automated database management.
Tip five: Report and analyse! This is mandatory even if means just starting with the basics.
Technology is the accelerator, creativity is the engager, but it is important to remember that neither are stand-alone saviors. Your brand needs to understand your database and how it engages with your email marketing program. Evolving your ability to capture, report and analyse the information generated from your email program and database is a necessity, even this just extends to the basics.
Beyond the open rates and the click through rates, try to look at when your email was opened. This may help you identify the best time for sending emails. You should also be comparing your emails against each other. For example, did a percentage off deal draw a greater reaction from your database than a dollar-specific discount?
It is also useful to examine your bounce rates and try to identify any interesting patterns that might be related to your internet service provider. For instance, if you notice a lot of Gmail bounce backs, there might be an issue at an ISP level.
For the most part, all of these factors can be measured by using a good email platform and a solid email business process.
