Download this 7.500+ word guide now, to read later \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n This guide starts with campaigns not to miss in your marketing plan<\/strong>. Along with every example, you get details on what you need from your ESP to make them a success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then we shift gears into strategy mode<\/strong>, with the outline for a successful email strategy<\/strong>. But first, let’s dive into Fashion Marketing and the Customer Experience benchmark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chapters:<\/b> Fashion marketing is inspiring customers to buy your fashion products. Brands use marketing to get their pieces in front of their target audience in an attractive way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We need to stay in tune with our audience<\/strong> and build our brand<\/strong>. While keeping an eye on the business side of fashion: the retail math<\/strong> of sales and profits<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ask a consumer “What is fashion marketing?” and most will answer: (luxury) fashion, haute-couture, and big brand retailers. Of course, the industry is much bigger. With niche audiences, lifestyle brands, sportswear. Sales channels<\/strong> reach far beyond brick-and-mortar and eCommerce. Think about marketplaces, pop-up concepts, in-app purchases, social shopping, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fashion marketing is unique because of the fast pace and cyclic nature<\/strong> of the fashion industry. You can’t run the same campaigns for multiple years like in other industries, so fashion marketers need to keep up with the latest trends and find creative ways to advertise their newest products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a>\n\n\n\n This year, brands go into full “delight-mode” to bring a delicious online Customer EXperience (CEX). Wouldn’t it be great to benchmark yourself to the competition, learn from the winners? A 5 to 10 point improvement per year is a healthy ambition. Both for brands that are digital natives, or are now bricks and clicks. There are surely enough quick wins laying around. At its core, fashion marketing is tied to merchandising and product. With each promotion there are following dials to turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What you’ll find is that some advanced tactics are easier to implement than basics. These are the quick-wins and tech assisted opportunities, where you can quickly leap ahead. The average 38:1 ROI of email marketing is hard to beat. The beauty of email is that it works across all stages of the customer lifecycle. We’ll run through amazing fashion and apparel email examples to include in your fashion marketing plan. You probably already have a welcome email, but let’s be honest – for most brands, it’s more of a “welcome placeholder”. With a lot of opportunity for improvement in those crucial first 2 weeks. Time for a make-over!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Benchmarks show that 90% have a welcome mail, but only 29% of brands even try to gather data in their welcome program (let alone optimize their flow). <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What does a perfect welcome email flow look like?<\/strong> As the welcome campaign is completely automated, most of the work is done after a one-time setup. After that, it is mostly testing and fine-tuning to optimize it even more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the first rule: Don\u2019t jam everything into a single welcome email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your welcome program goals:<\/strong><\/strong> This can be anything from:<\/strong> Personalize your welcome design and content<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A great example of a welcome campaign comes from this Jones Bootmaker case study<\/a>. They trigger a campaign to stimulate in-store shoppers to go purchase online at 30 days post in-store signup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The email has 2 segments for gender and a personalised hero image with customer\u2019s name inside the shoe for added attention. This drives home the \u2018Exclusive offer for you\u2019 offer. <\/p>\n\n\n With personal recommendations and imagery an additional 1 in 60 customers bought online from just this email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Add your own charm<\/strong> Here is a fun first email to welcome you to the club by Tottenham Hotspur<\/a>. It uses dynamic images to show a personalized shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What you need from your email marketing software for a great welcome series:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You might remember the now-iconic 2004 campaign of H&M + Karl Lagerfelt<\/a>. A unique collaboration and an exciting brand moment. People were lining up around the corner to get designer items for crazy prices. So how can a fashion and apparel brand do a pre-order campaign? It is actually not that complex. There is no need for much hype or big campaigns to pull it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Exclusive product drops<\/strong> And, just listen how great this sounds: “Pre-shop the drop” on the sunday before bigger sales of the year. Let’s clear up any confusion. <\/strong>Newsletters are NOT about news unless you choose them to be. Newsletter is just the name we give to the email we regularly send – no news required. Newsletters are the ideal place for fashion brands to show off their new season styles. This email is an example using new technology called AMP for email<\/strong>. It allows subscribers to select and browse different categories all from within<\/strong> the email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A newsletter lets you create an experience around your brand and add value to people’s lives that goes beyond buying a piece of clothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An example of value based email <\/strong>comes from JoJo Maman Bebe. Because of Covid they had to turn their potty training course into a virtual event, excellently promoted in their emails. The campaign<\/a> even won the Dotties award for ‘Best crisis-communication campaign’. Being there for customers when times are rough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What content to use? <\/strong> Publishers are also an amazing source of content inspiration. Their whole business is about strong fashion and lifestyle content. Insidehook does this very well. They send a content-driven newsletter with a commercial touch. Their topics are gear, style, home, news, and fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Name and Frame to add instant personality. <\/strong> Add context to your items<\/strong> Even a simple quote, tip or story added can make the difference. If you are already making great content for a blog, Youtube, or Insta – your newsletter can be the portal to it and drive additional visits. A flash sale is a short-term promotion. It’s here and gone in a flash. Fashion flash sales last between 22 – 72 hours, but it can be as short as 3 hours!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flash sales are great for a quick boost to your bottom line. That\u2019s why they\u2019re so popular with eCommerce stores. Just have a look at the most flashy, salesy, and profitable shopping day of the year: Black Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At goggles4U<\/a>, almost 40% of total revenue is attributed to email marketing. The end of the season is a natural time for Flash sales, with a bigger discount. But it doesn’t need to drain your margins, in this example, they are able to give big discounts – but only on part of their collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fitness brand GymShark got <\/a>650,000 orders in the first 5hrs of their BlackOut Flash Sale in 2019. In the first hour sales topped $400,000!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The goal of a flash sale is to stimulate impulse shopping. In fashion, you will see they are used to clean up inventory, but the influx of revenue doesn’t hurt either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Creating an engaging promotion, without repeating yourself isn’t easy. Urban Outfitters does a great job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘As Senior Digital Designer for Urban Outfitters Europe, me and my team are often challenged to deliver engaging promos that don’t feel too explicitly ‘Sale’.<\/em> Used throughout the year over the course of a week, our ‘Deal of the Day’ marketing messages give a feeling of urgency – wait and you’ll miss it!<\/em> Look at how UrbanOutfitters keeps the promotions design feeling consistent, while mixing up the type of promotion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I like especially is the community based “Molly’s deal of the day”. Include your customers or your employees. Get inspiration for your community email from these employee newsletter examples<\/a>. It builds a connection, focuses on the Urban Outfitters community, and brings social proof into it. Great detail is the promo code: Molly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Flash sales are past the stage where they were a “dumb” tactic to unload the out-of-season \u201cleftover\u201d inventory. It is a fine art, and you’ll see there are products made just for flash promotions. Luxury fashion retailers are in on the game and offer flash sales while keeping their brand image intact. How? – by inserting exclusivity and anticipation. Post-purchase emails are powerful for fashion and apparel brands. You just rounded off your purchase, now it is time to enjoy it. The combination of transactional, service, and marketing grabs attention with higher opens and clicks. It generates sensational results. Here is an example from the shoe brand Grenson. There is no hard sell in there, they choose to give product tips and ask for feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This post-purchase email example from Grenson shows exactly why post-purchase is so powerful. With an open rate of 70% of its after-sales email program, customers are clearly interested in tips on how to look after their new shoes. ThirdLove combines the post-purchase transactional emails with a fun on-brand style, prompt to browse more products, information to get the perfect fit and asking for a review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What you notice directly is that transactional emails have a different color scheme than the following mails. They ask especially about the fit, which is one of their brand promises. The review creates User Generated Content to show alongside the products (and help other shoppers). What you want from your marketing tools for automated post-purchase emails:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the apparel business, the timing of product, production, and marketing is critical. While basics have only one or two seasons a year. Fashion brands can have 4 – 6 selling seasons per year with five lines for each season. (Fast Fashion is of course a different story.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year was a “tiny bit” different with the pandemic. Big and small brands needed to adjust for unsold seasonal products. The trend is to shift to products that can carry over into the next season in a “three-season strategy”. Less prints and more apparel and basics make that the inventory has a longer life and less chance of excess inventory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A brand that nails the season is Protest sportswear. Their emails have a very clean look. Predefined email templates save them a lot of time and still manage to capture that “in the season” feeling. How do they do that?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The emails include recommended products based on individual preferences and some very cool animated imagery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What you want from your email and automation marketing tools for seasonal emails:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\n
\nFashion marketing for brands with ambition<\/a>
\nFashion marketing benchmark, how do you stack up?<\/a>
\nAnatomy of modern marketing campaigns<\/a>
\n1. The 9 best email campaigns not to miss in your strategy <\/a><\/b>
\n1. The perfect welcome email sequence<\/a><\/span>
\n2. Pre-order fashion email marketing campaign<\/a><\/span>
\n3. Newsletters and editorial content<\/a><\/span>
\n4. Flash sales and End of Season sales promotion<\/a><\/span>
\n5. Post-purchase and aftersales emails<\/a><\/span>
\n6. Seasonal promotions and new product introductions<\/a><\/span>
\n7. Special shopping days and events<\/a><\/span>
\n8. Next level Cart Abandonment emails<\/a><\/span>
\n9. Re-engagement & lost customer win back<\/a><\/span>
\n\n2. The 8 Success-factors for your Fashion Marketing Strategy<\/b><\/a>
\n1. Pick the right email marketing software<\/a><\/span>
\n2. Automate campaigns throughout the whole shopper customer lifecycle<\/a><\/span>
\n3. Actively grow your email list<\/a><\/span>
\n4. Segment shopper profiles and cluster persona’s<\/a><\/span>
\n5. Promote your products with dedicated sales mail<\/a><\/span>
\n6. Plan your merchandise & marketing calendar<\/a><\/span>
\n7. Automate Product recommendations<\/a><\/span>
\n8. Make Retail, eCommerce, and Marketing platform work together<\/a>
<\/span>\n\nConclusion: Fashion email marketing success <\/a>
\n\n\n\n<\/span>What is fashion marketing? A strategy for brands with ambition<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"brand](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/brand-personality-strategy.png\")
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And yes, Crocs are also a part of fashion and apparel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Fashion marketing benchmark, how do you stack up?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The yearly benchmark report from dotdigital, does exactly that. The scoreboard below shows how eCommerce and fashion brands score on email best practice, omnichannel adoption and user experience. Have a look at the scoreboard:<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/benchmark-best-practice-hittingthemark.jpg\")
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Get the full benchmark together with our guide here.<\/a>
A fashion marketing benchmark like this measures how well you are using all the options available – email experience, omnichannel experience and (overall) user experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Anatomy of modern marketing promotions<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"modern](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/modern-marketing-framework.jpg\")
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Email and marketing automation plays a big role here, because it is <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>The top 9 fashion emails not to miss in your strategy<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
You want to carry a customer from first interest to its first purchase, second purchase, and beyond. Inspiring shopper loyalty keeps your average acquisition cost down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>1. The perfect welcome email sequence <\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The perfect welcome email program takes the new subscriber through a 2-week email flow where the subscribers get a special set of mails. This is the first rule: Don\u2019t jam everything into a single welcome email. Of course you can fine-tune the number of mails and optimum time period once you get it going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/welcome-email-flow.jpg\")
Your welcome program is the only chance to make a first (inbox) impression. It can become a huge driver for email marketing success with those 3 B’s of Best Beginnings: Brand, Base, and (dollar) Bills. <\/strong>
1. Base: <\/strong>Ask, tease, and track readers so they share information about themselves and their preferences. This gives you extra insight to use and personalize your messages from the get-go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
* Filling in their preferences,
* Adding items to their wishlist
* A giveaway, contest, survey or coupon that gathers more customer info.
2. Brand:<\/strong> Introduce your brand, give customers insight into who you are, what you stand for, and your products. It\u2019s all about building a relationship, where they get to know you and what to expect. This will help readers better understand your business, get a first spark of your personality, and build an emotional connection.
3. Bills:<\/strong> Get a first conversion, or step towards that (viewing products, create a wish list, etc.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Outstanding inspirational fashion welcome campaigns<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"jones](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/jones-bootmaker-second-purchase-campaign.jpg\")
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The right mix of elements makes your welcome program shine. Your brand voice, personality, and marketing goals determine where you put your emphasis. Think about the mix of relationship, brand, or conversion you want to go for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tottenham-Hotspure-case-study-challenge-530x789-1.jpg\")
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<\/span>2. Pre-order fashion email marketing campaign <\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How can we generate that same feeling of excitement for our own campaigns? Customers should be shouting: “I Need to have it!” or even “I Need to have it before anyone else!” It’s called Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). FOMO for an exclusive or great deal can be triggered in the minds of your customers. And it is not that hard.
Campaign success starts before the product is launched. Brands that understand the art of pre-order fashion campaigns<\/strong> know it’s an amazing email marketing tactic.
The biggest benefits of pre-order campaigns:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Take a look at the campaigns by Italian shoe retailer M.Gemi<\/a>. This classic mail campaign embodies the perfected pre-sales exclusivity. The sales campaigns are previewed only for email subscribers. Their running “Made for Mondays” Drop campaign means they offer limited edition shoe styles every Monday 10 AM (not kidding).<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/mgemi-mondaydrop-3emails.jpg\")
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High demand items can come back in limited numbers. Or you’ll have time to build up anticipation and quickly sell out. Similar to McDonalds bringing back the Mac-rib (so sorry to bring up McDonald, but it has similar campaign features).
What you want from your email marketing software:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>3. Newsletters and editorial content <\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Newsletters build that all-important share-of-mind and reinforce your brand. The best newsletters have you coming back to open it – every time. There are plenty of opportunities to add editorial content<\/strong> for an engaging mix.
Editorial content is a powerful way to: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Adidas Gameplan A<\/a> brings content into practice. High-performance gear – for the high performance lifestyle. Their topics are Mindset, Lifestyle, Ideas, Inspiration and Career. It is telling that the welcome email sends you a weekly success planner, now you know: Adidas and Gameplan A aren’t kidding.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"adidas](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/adidas-email-content-gameplan-a.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/insidehood-promotion-titles.jpg\")
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Insidehook labels their deal of the day “Kind of a big deal”. The product promotion at the bottom is called “Stuff we love”. By picking the right headlines, you can let your brand shine through. <\/strong>Instantly it becomes less sales-ey and more appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Content without context is just noise. We love this example from Nancy King from years ago of their recurring travel guide series. It brings the excitement of travel and destinations into the brand. It could have been a flat product promotion, but is “framed” so your readers will see it much more as an experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"fashion](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fashion-newsletter-example.jpg\")
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What the best Fashion email tools have:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>4. Flash sales and End of Season sales promotion<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"fashion](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fashion-email-marketing-goggles-for-you-promotion.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/span>How Urban Outfitters keeps the flash sales fresh<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Although used to drive excess stock, the creative is still designed in a way that makes the product feel desirable, and is in keeping with our brand DNA.’<\/em>
– Rachel Bedford, Senior Digital Designer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/urban-outfitters-email-marketing-deal-of-the-day.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Flash sales are also for Luxury fashion<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Think members-only, \u201cvelvet rope\u201d experiences. The short promo time – makes it extra effective. It is now… or never. Combo of price incentive, fear of missing out, and scarcity.
An effective flash sale promotion series has 2 to 4 emails<\/strong>. Starting with a (pre)sales announcement, the start\/launch email, a last day email, and a last call.
What the best fashion email tools have:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>5. Post-purchase and aftersales emails<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Use post-purchase emails to:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
![\"fashion](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fashion-apparel-email-marketing-grenson-case-study.jpg\")
Crafting an extended post purchase flow<\/strong>
Here we see an example from ThirdLove with a post purchase flow with 5 emails over 19 days. Obviously you need to have a bit of time to use the product before you can ask for the review.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"fashion](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/fashion-email-marketing-THIRDLOVE-post-purchase-example.png\")
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Full size version here at MailCharts<\/a>.
And ThirdLove does something smart in the Review mail as well. Showing the stars for voting inside the mail, will increase response.
“We\u2019ve purchased from over 1,000 brands and see there\u2019s no \u201cone-size-fits-all\u201d approach to post-purchase campaigns. Post-purchase flows are brands\u2019 opportunity for a deeper relationship with newly-earned customers. Take the time to focus on these sequences\u2014 use personalization, segmentation, or otherwise\u2014 it is a huge coup for growing customer value and earning advocates for life.” <\/em>\u2014 Nata\u0161a Jovanoska, MailCharts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>6. Seasonal promotions and new product introductions<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"seasonal](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/seasonal-marketing-planner-fashion-email-marketing.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/span>Seasonal promotions and themes<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"seasonal](\"https:\/\/www.emailvendorselection.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/seasonal-email-marketing-fashion-protec.png\")
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<\/span>7. Special shopping days and events<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n