Over a third of marketers send their customers between 2 and 3 emails every week. If you do this, your customers are going to be seeing a lot of emails, so you have to make sure that you are sending the best email campaigns. Do you know how to make sure you stand out from the crowd?

This article will run through some of the best marketing campaigns we have seen in the past year so that you can take them as inspiration. By the end of the article, you should have a good idea of some of the best design patterns you can make use of moving forward. So, read on and learn how to up your email game.

1. Buzzfeed

Much like the infamous headlines for the site’s articles, Buzzfeed packs their emails full of clickbait. Not only do they pull people into opening the email itself, but they also draw people one step further and encourage people to open the site itself.

Buzzfeed’s style of email marketing is not based on aiming at a target audience. Instead, it is often described as targeting a specific person.

Buzzfeed’s newsletter editor even often talks about wondering if their own mother would open the newsletter they send. In doing so, they use specific individuals as inspirational touchstones.

Another way that Buzzfeed’s emails work is by tapping into the correct cultural zeitgeist, as well as what is timeless. Memes, popular news, and new trends are all used in their emails to make sure they continue to be relevant at all times. One of their most popular emails for retention is “This Week in Cats”, sharing cat-related news to its readers.

2. Wool & The Gang

Using gifs, Wool & The Gang presents you with a fake instant messenger conversation. This discussion presents you with a fictional dialogue in which you or your friends discuss using one of their patterns.

The fictionalized discussion encourages the reader to spend their leisure time at home instead of in the company of others. As email marketing strategies go, it is very personalized and encourages a more sedate and calm life.

This helps the reader associate positive emotions, such as being at home and being calm, with knitting. The specific email can recommend targeted products. It can even present “how-to” videos and tutorials to those interested in buying the advertised product.

Selling items one uses on their own during a calm lifestyle conflicts with many other promotional emails. Most of them will tell you that you need to enjoy your life by doing more things. The Wool and the Gang email is unique in that it employs the concept of “JOMO”.

JOMO is the “Joy of Missing Out”, and encouraging someone to engage with your product by not socializing instead is a bold move.

3. Dropbox

Dropbox is not a small business but you can still learn a lot of email marketing tips from how they communicate with their customers.

Dropbox’s emails are about re-engagement. If one has signed up for the service, but not installed the application and logged in to it, you will get an email telling you how to do exactly that.

By not signing up for Dropbox’s paid data storage service, the company will sometimes send reminders of offers. These “limited period offers” appear regularly. Also, their suggestions of timed savings can encourage people to act sooner rather than later.

Finally, if people have not made use of Dropbox for a long period, they may receive a specific re-engagement email. This message not only reminds them of what Dropbox is for. It also offers a tour of its features to help people remember why they signed up in the first place and sell them on using the service again.

4. Taylor Stitch

Being a men’s fashion site, Taylor Stitch is unique in that it appeals to the market needs men make for themselves. This self-created male culture is so true that the subset of men they market to do not feel they need any fashion advice, and so it does not offer any.

The newsletter is not bright, it is not colorful. It shows dulled tones and does not engage in exciting wordplay. It presents utility information to an audience that wants the cold, hard facts about a situation. Even lucrative sales are not presented as exciting and instead presented very matter-of-fact.

5. Starbucks

Starbucks is unique in this list as it is not encouraging you to buy a service, clothes, or experiences online. It is pressing you to go to a physical location and purchase a food product.

The email makes use of tempting images and gives you information on upcoming promotional drinks. If you are one of the small businesses near a Starbucks shop, it may be hard to keep up with the level of professional quality in Starbucks’ email. The copy, photos, and design of the piece all present themselves in a way that is clean and welcoming.

They share information on discounts, as well as deals that encourage shared coffee experiences such as “Buy one, get one free”. This pushes the receiver to visit the coffee location with a friend. As such, it creates an emotional connection to the location by making it a social event.

The emails they use also make use of very strong brand colors too. This associates the email with their store and identity. By making use of green backgrounds and white text, they place the user in the mindset of dealing with Starbucks and Starbucks alone.

Are These the Best Email Campaigns?

These are the very best email campaigns we could find, but with so many emails sent in 2021, you might have a different opinion. If you want to chat with us and tell us what you think the best campaigns are, we can help you move forward with your own campaigns too. All you need to do is send us a message and we will get back to you, so jump onto our website and contact us today.

© 2022, Chris Duncan. All rights reserved.