Recently I received an interesting email from a flower shop named Rose Red & Lavender in Brooklyn, NY, that included a 20 percent off coupon which uses both a link and a QR code to whisk readers to the shop’s website. I love the simplicity of this email campaign, as well as the use of new technology that provides the reader multiple ways to take advantage of the coupon.

This retailer used their email service provider, Mail Chimp, to generate the QR code used in their email. Your email service provider may have a similar tool. However, there are also multiple, free QR code generators (like Kaywa).

A couple of months ago I received the email below from Pottery Barn, which was sent to customers located in the areas devastated by the recent hurricanes (and tornadoes). I thought it was such a considerate gesture — and it's something I've never seen before from a major retailer. This type of soft-sell is a great way to garner customer and community goodwill and win the loyalty of your customers while attracting new ones.

I’m hoping this campaign will inspire you to think about what's happening in your local community this holiday season. Perhaps it may provide an opportunity for you to reach out in a new and creative way.

Recently I received this email blast from White House Black Market and loved it – it's a great example of a successful email marketing campaign.

Here are a few points that I loved most that may inspire your next email campaign:

Great subject line – “15% off for teachers. Tell every teacher you know!”
The subject line says it all, very succinctly. It gives you the purpose of the email, spells out how this offer is different (for teachers) and gives a call to action for all recipients, teachers and non-teachers.

Creative promotion
Even though this retailer may not be thought of as “Back to School Headquarters,” they came up with this creative promotion to boost sales during what may have otherwise been a slower time for sales.

Spurs action
Whether the recipient is a teacher or not, this email – like any successful advertisement – encourages action by asking the reader to forward to every teacher you know whether via email, social media or word of mouth. Brilliant!

Creates goodwill
Just about everyone likes to help out teachers and this piece inadvertently creates goodwill for the retailer, and it engages the reader to be a part of the good deed by “telling every teacher you know."

Before you know it the holiday season will be upon us, and now is the perfect time to begin planning your holiday email marketing. Recently I read a great post by Chad White, the writer of the Retail Email Blog, about email marketing for this year’s holiday season.

Here are my takeaways:

1. Email marketing will be a more important aspect of a retailer's marketing plan than ever before. Seize the opportunity now to make sure you have a plan, make sure your database is in good shape and make sure your email can be read across numerous screens, such as tablets and smartphones.
2. This year the experts expect "Black Friday" to expand and become "Black November." Be prepared to launch holiday promotions and deals earlier in the month to grab those early season shoppers and avoid being out-marketed by your competitors.
3. “Cyber Monday” is expected to be the largest online shopping day of the year, so if you offer online shopping, make sure you have a Cyber Monday email campaign planned. 77 percent of online retailers are expected to use email marketing to promote their Cyber Monday deals.

Read Chad's post and download his “Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season 2011” report for free.

Would you like to increase the effectiveness of your email marketing? Of course you would! We all would, and here are a few tips to make your email more personal, more effective and more likely to result in new sales.

Change up your language. Rather than being too newsy or formal, try changing up how you speak to your readers. Take a more informal, friendly tone – as if you’re writing an email to a friend you’d like to get together with soon. Use technology (included in most email services) to start the email with the reader’s first name.

Segmentation is key. In order to create effective, personalized emails you need to have a segmented database. For example, segment customers by the date of their last purchase and if it’s been awhile since they’ve been in the store, send them a friendly “we miss you” email. Think about your customer base and products to determine the most useful segmentation strategy for you. For example, you can segment by age, gender, geographic location, purchase history, etc.

Reach out to individuals. Once you have a well segmented list you can easily personalize key emails. For example, when you know you’re writing to just the women in your database, it’s much easier to write an email using fun, exciting, informal language when writing about a new shoe or accessory line. Let your personality shine through and give your readers the flavor of your brand and why customers love your store.

Your email marketing tip of the day from SPREE

When I presented my email marketing seminar on Wednesday at SPREE, I was thrilled that our seminar room was packed to the doors. I believe email marketing is crucial to the success of a business, and based on attendance, I believe they agreed. As promised, I’m including some of my tips here so you don’t feel left out.

The next time you sit down to create an email marketing blast, keep in mind these five stages of email viewing (the order in which most people read their emails) in order to improve your readership.

Stage 1 – From line
We all know that when we flip through our email, whether on our smartphone or a laptop, we usually quickly scan who emails are from. Make sure you're using a name (your company name or your name) that will be recognizable to your recipients, otherwise they’re more likely to delete your email before viewing it.

Stage 2 – Subject line
Create a compelling subject line that is both creative and informative. Ask a question such as, “Did you know Mother’s Day is around the corner?” A salesy or boring subject line may land your email in the trash bin. And bear in mind, what you put in the subject line could land you in the spam filter so avoid subjects with a heavy sales pitch.

Stage 3 – Preview pane
Put your call to action in the top left corner of your email, otherwise it may fall out of the preview pane and never be read by recipients. Create a call to action compelling enough to urge readers to further open your email, such as a special offer, coupon or an invitation to "click here."

Stage 4 – Opened email
Put your most important messaging “above the fold” of your email, meaning above where most readers’ computer screen naturally cuts off, causing them to scroll down. Having your most important message right up top so readers see it without scrolling will improve your email's success.

Stage 5 – Fully viewed email
We often start at this step when designing our email, just assuming that readers will receive our email and go right to step five, fully viewing every email we send them. In a perfect world, perhaps, but not in our frenzied reality!

So next time you design your email keep this list close and start from the top.

Yesterday I presented a seminar on email marketing at SPREE, our annual expo for specialty retail entrepreneurs. The seminar was quite popular, so I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite tips to inspire greater success and readership for your emails.

• Collect qualified email addresses – If you reward employees, clearly state the benefits for being on your list and offer a free gift for signing up. Your list will grow exponentially and quickly.
• Be creative and interesting with your content.
• Test messages – Take the time to send test messages, look for what works and go with it.
• Use reviews in every email – Readers will trust the opinions of others like them before they give credence to a “corporate” marketing message.
• Use strong design – Look at what works for others, both inside and outside your industry.
• Always include an opt-out link.
• Use creative calls to action such as “Get Lit” to buy a new lamp, instead of the standard “Buy Now” button.
• Tie your email design to the design of your website, so when readers click through they feel confident that they are in the right place.
• Use an email provider that has a “Spam Checker” tool that will scan your email before you send it out and tell you if your copy or design makes you more likely to end up in spam filters.
• Tie your email marketing to your social media networks with buttons and invitations to be your fan or follower, so they can interact with you online.

This week we converged upon Las Vegas for the Specialty Retail Entrepreneur Expo & Conference (SPREE). If you’ve been to the show before, you already know it’s a great place to find new products, meet fellow specialty retailers and learn how to grow your business with our seminars. (This year’s show is the largest one yet, and it's FREE for attendees, so if you are in the Las Vegas area, come on over to the Sands Expo Center at the Venetian and join us.)

For one of our seminars, I'm going to be speaking about how to get the most out of your email marketing. I’ll be presenting the benefits of email marketing and how to make it most effective, plus I’ll have tons of examples of winning email campaigns. And since summer is fast approaching, I'm going to be encouraging attendees to start planning summer email campaigns.

One tip… highlight products you carry that are great for summer activities, like floppy hats (great for working in the garden or lounging at the beach.) Leverage your social network by inviting shoppers to submit photos on Facebook of them sporting the floppy hat while enjoying their favorite summer activity. Go even further by having fans vote on their favorite photo and award the winner with a gift card. Zutano, a children's clothing company, is a fantastic example. Every month they do a different photo contest (they require your email address before you can submit an entry on Facebook) and reward the best photo with a gift card or basket.

I'll be sharing more tips from my seminar in the next couple of days, and if you happen to be out at the show this year, please come by our booth and say hello!

When I received this e-newsletter from Metro Home Style of Syracuse, NY, I was very impressed. Owner Linda O'Boyle is a persistent, effective marketer and this is just another example of her marketing muscle. Here’s what she did right with her email newsletter that you may want to incorporate into your own.

Lots to do – I love that there are so many fun calls-to-action for the reader in her email newsletter. It leads off with the store's new loyalty program, gives a step-by-step of how to bring the beauty of spring indoors and it invites the recipient to Customer Appreciation Day.

Tone – Many e-newsletters I receive are full of "we did this," "we have this," or "you should buy this." The tone of Linda’s e-newsletter is instead “what we are doing for you.” She writes about the store’s loyalty program and how easy it is to be a part of; she invites the reader to the Customer Appreciation party; and she invites the reader to visit the store’s Facebook page and the benefits of “Liking” Metro Home Style. Taking a tone of “how we’re serving you, our customers” will increase your readership and the effectiveness of your email.

Provide advice – A great way to soft-sell your products in your e-newsletter is to include tips on using them as a fun article. Metro Home Style’s e-newsletter includes a short, step-by-step article on how to clip and preserve flowering forsythia branches. If you don’t have the tall glass vase mentioned in the article, you can come to the store to buy one.

I got this great email promotion from Metro Home Style, a retailer in Syracuse, NY. I think it is such a creative promotion to have coffee and a chocolate sampling together. Plus it’s a great promotion to encourage Valentine’s Day sales over a period of weeks.

And Metro Home Style goes the extra mile with this promotion by offering free gift wrapping. Brilliant!