Introduction
Do you remember the last time you checked your email? If you answered “today,” you’re not alone. In fact, more than 80% of Americans check their inbox daily, and 63% check it several times a day.
Despite its age, email hasn’t stopped growing. The number of email users worldwide has increased year over year since its inception and is expected to reach over 4.2 billion users by the end of 2022.
This is what makes a good email marketing campaign so important. Social media and paid ads are great ways to find new customers, but neither provides the level of control over the customer journey that comes with audience segmentation and a good email marketing campaign.
If you’re looking to create a successful email marketing campaign, you need to see what a good marketing email looks like. Here’s a list of some of our favorite email marketing examples from independent brands. Create standout emails in minutes with Shopify Email.
1. Poppy Barley
Brand: Poppy Barley is a retail company with stores in Calgary and Edmonton, specializing in leather shoes and accessories like backpacks, wallets, and bags. Poppy Barley shares a similar branding with many luxury retailers selling similar products, but with a crucial difference – its commitment to ethical business practices.
Poppy Barley aims to rethink the ethics of the fashion industry, from production to distribution. It uses only sustainable materials in its products and packaging. It works only with factories that meet certain standards for ethical production (which include human rights, gender equality standards, and workers’ rights to unionize).
Subject: Hello, New Friend!
Email Type: Welcome Email
Why It Works: In “Hello, New Friend!”, Poppy Barley doesn’t waste time distinguishing itself from the rest of the luxury goods sellers. The main image finishes “New York” and replaces it with “Edmonton” when naming the design location of the products. It swaps “Italy” for “Mexico” when listing where the products are made. In doing so, the email makes a direct comparison with its competitors – high-fashion companies that are typically based in major fashion cities like New York and Milan.
This sets the brand apart from the rest instantly. Good marketing is about telling consumers what makes you different, and Poppy Barley doesn’t waste time getting to that. The email lists what makes the company different and uses calls to action (CTAs) to direct customers to where they can find out more about what sets them apart.
Takeaway: Welcome emails are a perfect opportunity to tell audiences what makes your brand unique from its competitors.
2. Doomlings
Brand: Doomlings is a post-apocalyptic card game where players must survive the end of the world. In each round, a new catastrophe occurs that leads to the end of the world, and players draw cards that assign them certain “traits” they can use to defend against the disaster.
Doomlings is both a game and a hobby. In addition to selling the standard version of the game, the Doomlings eCommerce store also sells expansion packs and card bags that fans can add to their collection or trade with other players.
Subject: Welcome to the End of the World!
Email Type: Welcome Email
Why It Works: Even before the recipient opens the welcome email, Doomlings’ darkly humorous tone is immediately apparent, with a scary yet playful subject line that’s nearly impossible to ignore.
Once
Upon entry, a discount is offered for first-time purchases to encourage sales, further information about the game’s founders is provided, and convenient links to their product collections are displayed.
Moral: Know your target audience. Don’t be afraid to be bold in engaging an audience that responds to boldness.
3. Nonna Live
Brand: Every week, Nonna Nerina welcomes online audiences into her kitchen, located in a small village in Italy, for Nonna Live, a cooking lesson where viewers learn traditional Italian cooking from a seasoned cooking expert who has been making traditional Italian dishes for decades.
In addition to group lessons, Nonna Live offers private classes and sells her own brand of high-quality extra virgin olive oil, made from hand-harvested olives from the olive trees owned by her family.
Subject: Hurry! Get a 15% discount!
Email Type: Welcome Email
Why it Works: Nonna Live’s welcome email is perfect in its simplicity. By subscribing to the mailing list, customers have expressed their desire to participate in Nonna’s lessons; all they need is a little nudge.
The subject line directly addresses the topic – get a 15% discount – with the addition of the word “Hurry” to give the reader a sense of urgency. The email provides CTA links to book lessons, invites you to meet the team behind Nonna’s videos, and gives some basic information about Nonna herself and her olive oil.
Furthermore, Nonna Live’s email features social proof in the form of customer testimonials, leveraging the support of satisfied customers to help attract new customers.
Moral: Discounts are a great way to increase your open rates. More importantly, this fantastic email provides the reader an overview that covers all aspects of the brand while being concise enough to invite the reader to learn more.
4. Schoolhouse
Brand: Schoolhouse is a home decor company that sells lighting (such as chandeliers and pendant lights), along with a wide range of products and accessories, including artwork, prints, clocks, and bedding sets. As the name Schoolhouse suggests, the products draw inspiration from design essentials to create pieces that adapt to aesthetic changes. The products typically come in black, white, and gray, making them versatile aesthetically.
Subject: Welcome to Schoolhouse: Here’s a 10% discount on your first order
Email Type: Welcome Email
Why it Works: The CTA for Schoolhouse promises a 10% discount for users who subscribe to the newsletter. In this first email, Schoolhouse fulfills its promise with a simple subject line.
Rather than focusing on a specific product, Schoolhouse focuses on home from the outside. It’s an interesting strategy because what the company sells isn’t a specific product, but a lifestyle.
Moral: Selling a lifestyle rather than a specific product is a great tool for building brand loyalty and encouraging repeat purchases because it positions your brand as the “go-to place” for that lifestyle.
5. Sundays
Brand: Sunday is the day of rest – a time to relax and prepare for the coming week. This is the spirit that emanates from the furniture brand based in Toronto, Sundays. The furniture is designed with long-term ideas in mind. The pieces are simple and timeless stylistically, and structurally built to last. From a design standpoint, they are simple, allowing them to adapt to aesthetic changes. The products typically come in black, white, and gray, making them versatile aesthetically.
Subject: Welcome to the dark side
Email Type: Welcome Email
Why it Works: “Welcome to the dark side” is an unusual subject line for a brand focused on comfort, but this is what effectively grabs the reader’s attention. Once opened, the aura of mystery in the subject line is cleared away by Sundays’ presentation of their latest collection of black oak furniture.
Content
The newsletter is a summary that showcases a few selected pieces from the collection and pairs them with other products. Since this email is a promotional email sent to previous buyers, it cleverly presents products that complement previous purchases rather than products that will replace them.
The lesson: A subject line that offers a bit of mystery can grab the user’s attention, even if it seems daunting. The mystery creates questions in the user’s mind that can only be answered by opening the email.
6. Brightland
Brand: Brightland is a California-based food company that sells premium extra virgin olive oils and vinegars, made without the addition of fillers or artificial preservatives. The products are made using naturally fermented fruits that grow in nutrient-rich soils.
Brightland uses bright shades of orange and yellow along with a clean white bottle to evoke the pure California sun, while also showcasing the fresh oranges used as an ingredient in many of its products. The dual nature of this imagery unifies two ideas into a cohesive brand.
Subject: Enzyme Obsessed
Email type: Welcome Email
Why it works: “Enzyme Obsessed” is a marketing email announcing the brand’s raw balsamic vinegar and raw champagne vinegar. Instead of focusing on taste, the subject line emphasizes the chemistry of the product, which sets the brand apart from other food companies.
It’s surprising to see an email announcing a food product, but once opened, the text becomes more indulgent, describing the fresh zest of the oranges, blackberries, and grapes used in the brand’s unique fermentation process.
Even Brightland features a section titled “Why We’re Different,” highlighting the fresh ingredients of the vinegar in an appetizing way. Oil and vinegar are high-demand products, meaning there are many indistinguishable brands. By explicitly focusing on what makes its product different, Brightland gives its customers a reason to choose its product over competitors.
The lesson: The audience can infer a lot about your brand from the colors, email layouts, and word choices you use. Even an email intended to promote a specific product offers a great opportunity to build your brand.
7. Melt Cosmetics
Brand: Melt Cosmetics is a bold, big makeup company specializing in high-pigment lip colors and other cosmetics. For Melt, makeup is not just skincare – it’s a complete art form.
With a focus on innovative products, Melt aims to push the boundaries of what cosmetics can be. The images are characterized by their close-up and high-detail shots, emphasizing not only the colors of the products but also their textures and designs.
Subject: Slick Waterline Pencils? 1.28.22 at 12 PM PST?
Email type: New Product Launch
Why it works: For this email, timing is everything. It was sent on the evening of January 27, likely to be read by most recipients just a few hours before the time and date mentioned in the subject line accompanied by a calendar icon and alarm bell.
The subject line names a new product, but it feels somewhat vague. Are these products being released at that time? Will they be available for purchase? Will they become unavailable? For the reader, one thing is clear: If you don’t open this email now, you’ll miss out – and that’s all the subject line needs to convey.
The lesson: Urgency can be a powerful incentive for sales, especially when coupled with fear of missing out. A good subject line doesn’t need to say much; it just needs to pose a question that can only be answered by opening the email.
8.
Vapor95
Brand: Vapor95 is a Los Angeles-based clothing company that features an eye-catching visual style based on vaporwave aesthetics, a genre of music and visual art that emerged in the early 2010s. The Vapor95 brand combines elements from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s to create a colorful sense of nostalgia for a time that didn’t really exist.
Subject: Don’t share this email! ? Exclusive discount just for you!
Email Type: Promotional (Subscriber-only discount)
Why it works: The subject line tempts email subscribers with the promise of a discount, but it also creates a sense of secrecy and exclusivity with the face emoji indicating not to share it. Upon opening the email, users are invited to vote for their favorite retro tech piece and enter a giveaway for a chance to win the chosen item.
With a creative twist, subscribers vote on their favorite piece by using the discount code that corresponds to their choice. It’s clever as it builds on the relationship with the brand, encourages them to engage with the brand, and increases sales – all without feeling like advertising.
Although Vapor95 sells clothing, you won’t see any of their products in this email. That’s because the aim of this type of email isn’t to sell a particular product but to build a relationship between the brand and its audience.
Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to have fun with your audience. Something as simple as a discount can be more appealing with a creative twist.
9. Who Gives a Crap
Brand: Who Gives a Crap is a tongue-in-cheek company that sells toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, and wipes, all made from recycled materials and sustainable bamboo.
It was launched after a wildly successful IndieGoGo campaign where founder Simon Griffiths sat on a toilet and refused to move until their funding goal was achieved. Who Gives a Crap donates 50% of its profits to build safe sanitation resources in countries that need it.
Who Gives a Crap is designed around toilet-related charity and humor. Its name is the perfect blend of the two things – it’s clearly funny, but it also raises the question for whom the answer is the company and its customers. Who cares about toilet paper? We care.
Subject: “Why let good things go to waste?”
Email Type: Promotional (Subscriber-only discount)
Why it works: In this email, the brand teamed up with Imperfect Foods, a grocery delivery service committed to reducing food waste by selling cosmetically imperfect fruits and vegetables that would otherwise be discarded.
By partnering with a brand that shares the same vision and offering an enticing $100 discount on groceries, Who Gives a Crap shows subscribers that its goals go beyond just making money. It wants to change the way business is done and invites its customers to join in on that.
Who Gives a Crap’s products are images, but the purpose is not to market a specific product or collection, but to invite the user
Source: https://www.shopify.com/blog/email-marketing-examples
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