Email Marketing: Knowledge, Best Practices & Tips: Time To Go Back-To-School...in Email

This week I am focusing on what is going on in back-to-school emails. There is still time if your organization has not yet sent a back-to-school email! But you will need to move fast. Classes start soon!

First of all, here is an interesting article from USA Today about a Britney Spears' back-to-school campaign for the retailer Candie's.

The first sighting of Britney Spears' new back-to-school commercial for Candie's wasn't on TV. Or in theaters. Or even on the website of the hip, tween-targeting seller of footwear and clothing.
Those venues would be so 2008.
The spot that shows a sultry Spears ogling a guy at a polo match had its premiere online Thursday on social-networking sites Facebook and BritneySpears.com and promoted by Spears via social network Twitter — where she had 2,536,459 "followers" as of midweek. Candie's purposefully launched the ad this way in hopes that millions of girls will send it back and forth to each other.

Here is another article. This one is from ClickZ. The title of this article is E-Mail Back-to-School Specials.

Over the past three years, the amount of e-mail sent with back-to-school savings has increased steadily. In 2007, I tracked 963 e-mail campaigns promoting back-to-school discounts sent between July and August. In 2008, I noted a 47 percent increase in back-to-school e-mails in July and August, totaling 1,810 e-mail campaigns tracked.

So far this year, there seems to be an overall drop in the number of back-to-school campaigns being sent compared with last year. It is hard to say if this is a direct result of the economy, as retailers deal with the marketing division layoffs that have been happening throughout the industry. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues as we head into the winter holiday season.

Secondly, here are a variety of Summer/Fall 2009 back-to-school subject lines and email creative examples that have graced my in-box. Many of these were sent early August - a few weeks to a month before most schools are back in session.

You will notice that the majority of the email creatives and subject lines have an offer. Be it free shipping, a percent off, or something else to entice the recipient to convert. I like how the Sports Authority emails (there are two of them) focuses on back to sports - this keeps with the back-to-school theme but focuses on school sports teams. I hope you enjoy these examples!

Have you seen other examples?
What are some of the best ways to convert back-to-school lookers to purchasers?

Here are some Statistics and Facts about the 25 Back-To-School Emails displayed below.

1 Back-To-School email used First Name personalization in the Subject Line. (4%)
3 mentioned the name of the sender in the Subject Line. (12%)
14 mentioned a specific offer in the Subject Line (15% Off, Free Shipping etc.) (56%)
4 mentioned a non-specific offer in the Subject Line (here is a welcome gift, special offer, special gift etc.) (16%)
The shortest Subject Line is Best Brands for Back to Sports This is from Sports Authority.
The longest Subject Line is 5 New Laptops Under $500: HP, Acer, Lenovo, Gateway...Hurry, Laptop Week is Almost Over This from TigerDirect.