Email Content Cliches: Stop Doing What Everyone Else is Doing

Email Content Cliches:  
Stop Doing What
Everyone Else is Doing

@EmailSnarketing
Kristin Bond
• My job involves training a lot of people on email marketing in
a speciﬁc ESP, and optimizing marketing emails for Girl
Scouts at the national level. (And no, I can’t get you free
cookies. Buy them from a Girl Scout next January.)
• My other job involves teaching the basics of email marketing
to people who want to start their own companies.
• My non-job job involves writing a blog that mocks bad email
marketing, and tweeting about life as an email marketer.
Sr. Email Marketing Manager,  
Girl Scouts of the USA

For my blog, I subscribed to
a lot of emails. And I saw a
few very common themes…

@EmailSnarketing
Welcome Emails
the ﬁrst to know
you’re the ﬁrst to know
be the first to know
you’re the first to know

@EmailSnarketing
Welcome Emails
• Are your email subscribers really the ﬁrst to know?
• …ALL of them?

@EmailSnarketing
Why It’s Bad
• It’s not even true.
• Almost every single brand does it.
• Who cares? What’s the benefit of being “first to
know” for subscribers?
• Why are we even welcoming people to receive
advertisements from us in the first place?

@EmailSnarketing
Do this instead
• Thank them for subscribing.
• Introduce your brand.
• Give them something of value, whether it’s
a discount or great content (or both!).
• Ask new subscribers to update their
preferences or sign up to follow you on
social.
• Ditch the word “Welcome” completely.
• Ask them to update preferences

@EmailSnarketing
~Exclusive~ offers

@EmailSnarketing
Why it’s bad
• If your list or offer is exclusive, you will probably have terrible ROI.
• You know that thing where you see a word too many times and it begins to lose meaning? That’s
what’s happening with “Exclusive.”
• Why should anyone care that other people may or may not be getting this deal?

@EmailSnarketing
Do this instead
• Stop calling things exclusive.
• Get a thesaurus.
• Think about what’s compelling about your offer, and use
that to describe it.

@EmailSnarketing
And then there’s
“Exclusive’s” BFF…

@EmailSnarketing
Just for you
• I received an email about an upcoming
conference that has more than 120,000
attendees.
• The email had information about speakers and
sessions, and a countdown - the content was
actually pretty good.
• But the subject line was not. 
Subject: “Kristin— [Conference] News Just for
You!”
• This news was NOT just for me. It was for
119,999 other people too.
A conference
A conference logo
A conference
A conference
conference
A company

@EmailSnarketing
Why it’s bad
• Again, it’s usually not true.
• Your subscribers aren’t stupid. Don’t insult their intelligence.
• Who cares? For something like this, as an attendee, I would want
all the other people to know what’s going on.

@EmailSnarketing
Do this instead
• With personalization - show, don’t tell.
• Don’t fake personalization.
• Instead of blatantly saying how unique the
content is, just… have unique content that is
interesting and relevant to the subscriber. Let
them think you can read their minds.
• If you’re basing recommendations on previous
purchases or behavior - it’s okay to be upfront
about it. People prefer honesty over creepiness.

@EmailSnarketing
April Fools’ Day
Subject Line:  
Thanks For Your Order!
A furniture store

@EmailSnarketing
Why It’s Bad
• This one made a lot of people mad, especially if they had ever
experienced identity theft.
• It went viral. Not in a good way.
• This one wasn’t even funny. It was cheesy.

@EmailSnarketing
Do this instead
• Your April Fool’s marketing email should be a joke, not a prank.
• Ideal reaction: You want to make people do a double take, maybe fool
them for a moment, but not upset them.
• Be funny and clever.
• Do something similar enough to something that your brand would normally
do that it throws people off, but make it very clear that it’s not real.
• Involve cute animals in some way. It just works.

@EmailSnarketing
UberNYC Lions
• This was similar to other emails Uber had
sent, like Uber Kittens, so it had that “Are
they serious?!?” moment, but it was
obviously not a real thing.
• They had a social good element where they
donated money to National Geographic’s
Big Cats Initiative. They sent another email
later in the day talking about the initiative
and showing ways for people to donate.

@EmailSnarketing
Warby Parker’s “Warby Barker”
• This campaign was incredibly detailed:
It had a landing page with an FAQ
about dog prescriptions and a video
with the co-founders explaining the
collection of dog glasses.
• It had the same look and feel as the
brand’s other emails and website at
the time, right down to the dog head
turns on the product pages.
• It was cute, and funny.

@EmailSnarketing
Boden’s Dress Recall
• This email from Johnnie Boden, a British clothing
retailer, recalled a dress with a beach print that
had tiny people on it because, upon closer
inspection, there were naked people on the dress.
• The email was written as an apology, and
had instructions for returning it for a refund. If
people clicked on the link for more info, they were
let in on the joke.
• It featured a product that people could actually
buy, and people bought it. I bought the skirt in this
print because of this email.

Sending an April Fool’s email with
“NO JOKE!”
Seriously.
What’s worse than sending an
April Fool’s email with a bad joke?

@EmailSnarketing
Why It’s Bad
• You’re right - it’s not a joke. Jokes are funny.
• This is not funny.
• It’s not clever.
• It’s boring. Stop it.

@EmailSnarketing
Do this instead
• Send something truly clever and original.
• Or just send a normal email. Most people don’t celebrate
or recognize April Fool’s Day anyway.
• Or… don’t send an email at all. You don’t have to send
an email every day. It’s okay. You deserve a break. You
have enough other holidays to worry about.

@EmailSnarketing
Fake Holidays
WHAT?!
NO!!!
I DID NOT OPT IN TO THIS AS A MARKETER.
Uh, ok…
“ ”
OK NOPE NOPENOPE
XX X

We can’t seem to agree on
consistent, real timing for
these fake holidays.

@EmailSnarketing
Spring Black Friday
The blue
hardware store
The blue
hardware store
The orange
hardware store

@EmailSnarketing
Why It’s Bad
• The real versions of these “holidays” are bad enough.
• These are confusing at best.
• Customers see right through this.
• Don’t be the brand who cried “OMG Lowest prices of the
year!!!!” …every month.

@EmailSnarketing
Do this instead
• Just don’t. Don’t do this. Send emails about
literally anything else.

And while we’re on the
subject of holidays that
don’t make sense…

@EmailSnarketing
Cyber Monday
"The name Cyber Monday grew out of the
observation that millions of otherwise productive
working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving
weekend of window shopping, were returning to
high-speed Internet connections at work
Monday and buying what they liked.”
~The New York Times

@EmailSnarketing
Not exactly.
• At the time, the Monday after Thanksgiving was
nowhere NEAR the highest online sales day - it
was more like #12. December 12 was the highest
day for online sales in 2005, and December 13
was the highest in 2006. That pattern has
continued, more or less.
• Cyber Monday sales have increased over the
years, but it’s not the day that most people are
shopping.

And now we send Cyber Monday
emails as if we didn’t all have
devices with high speed internet in
our hands at all times.

@EmailSnarketing
The other problem with Cyber
Monday… it’s not just a day.

@EmailSnarketing
Do this instead 
#StopCyberMonday
• If we must do it - let’s pick ONE day, okay? Stop “extending” these
fake holidays.
• Can we at least change the name? “Cyber” is a weird and icky word.
• Or like, could we move it to Thanksgiving day so people can stay
home, and have retail stores go back to being closed on
Thanksgiving Day? Everyone wins there. We’re the marketers. We
control this. SOLIDARITY! #StopCyberMonday
Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday
Eat turkey. Be
with family.
Customers can
shop online at
night.
More online
sales. Or in
store, I guess,
but that can go
away too,
right?
Push in-store
sales
Push in-store
sales
Nothing

@EmailSnarketing
Award Show Emails

@EmailSnarketing
Award Shows
I received all of these in the span of a few hours on Oscar Night.

@EmailSnarketing
Why It’s Bad
• This is lazy marketing.
• These brands are just sending emails with the ﬁrst subject
line that pops into their heads for this occasion.
• Instead of sending something relevant to our products, we
just try to make our products relevant to whatever’s going
on, even if it doesn’t make sense.

@EmailSnarketing
• With award shows, and ANY other special
occasion: ﬁnd something that makes
sense for your brand, like Food52’s
#oscarnoms
• (This was on Twitter and was a last minute
thing, but something like this could be
promoted in email…)
Do this Instead

@EmailSnarketing
Kristin’s Final Thoughts

@EmailSnarketing
• Brainstorm the ﬁrst, most obvious things that come to mind with any given
occasion. Throw out that list and do something else.
• If you’ve done it before, don’t do it. Or at least, build on it.
• If other brands have done it before and you liked it, don’t do it.
• Think about what is special and unique about your brand. Highlight that in your
emails instead.
• If you don’t have enough original content to send emails every day, stop sending
emails every day.
• Email marketing isn’t just about selling things.
Kristin’s Final Thoughts

Do something interesting.
Like these brands…

@EmailSnarketing
BarkBox
• Sends newsletters with
excellent, very shareable dog
content
• Promotion of their actual
products is minimal and at the
bottom of the email, but since
the other content was so
shareable, other people likely
saw it.

@EmailSnarketing
Bonobos
• From Name: A Dress Shirt From Bonobos
• Subject: I’d like to add you to my professional
network
• Linked to a clever LinkedIn page where you
could connect with the shirt. The shirt had job
history, recommendations, and connections.

@EmailSnarketing
Poppin
• Beautiful photography
that tells a story with
color and showcases
what’s special about their
products
• Very clean layout, simple
CTAs, and no gaudy
promotional language

@EmailSnarketing
DonorsChoose
• Subject Line: Treat Ms. Bond's
classroom
• My last name is Bond, so of
course I opened this email
• Used data for personalization
in an interesting way, asking
people to donate to a teacher
who has the same last name
as them

@EmailSnarketing
These brands all found a way to stand
out by doing something completely
different, that made sense for their
brand. And we all can do that too.

@EmailSnarketing
Now go re-write your welcome email.

Email Content Cliches: Stop Doing What Everyone Else is Doing

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Email Content Cliches: Stop Doing What Everyone Else is Doing