Last week, I signed up for the Kohls.com email list. Sure enough, as I (and any good email snob should) expected, I got the first email within minutes of hitting the submit key. Here’s what I got:
Let’s go analyze what’s good and bad about the message. First, what’s good.
What’s good about this welcome email:
- Timeliness – this message arrived within minutes of completing the form. Certainly hits when I’m most in the mode to receive it. Kudos.
- Whitelisting request at the top.
- A simple welcome message and incentives to open subsequent messages. Very nice use of incentives IMHO.
- Sets up expectations extremely well with what you’ll receive in these sales alerts.
- The subject line is great. “Your First Kohls.com Sale Alert” gives me a sense of urgency, as well as matches the expectations of signing up for the email list.
- Good highlights of what Kohls.com has to offer.
What’s not so good about this message:
- I understand it’s technically a transactional email, but really? Plain text? I even checked to see if it was an images-off version with alt-text (which if it was, that would mean AWESOME use)… but not so much. I’d expect a major retailer like Kohls to use images.
- The From line shows up in Gmail as myaccount.help. Who? Exactly. (To be fair, subsequent emails have come from Kohls.com, but this is your first contact, so change it up!)
- At the bottom, it says “This mailbox is unattended, so please do not reply to this message.” WOW. That’s one way to sort of hide a Do-Not-Reply, but seriously, reply handling can be done with almost any ESP.What’s even crazier is that later it says “for other inquiries, email us at myaccount.help@kohls.com.”–Which, if you’re paying attention, is the FROM line of this message! So first you’re saying don’t reply, but I can send a message to the email box that this message comes from, even though you claim earlier it’s unattended? Are you confused? Good, I’m not the only one.
All in all, despite my distaste for the use of plain text in a first message of this sort, a solid effort put forth by Kohls. If they add images and fix the from-line/do-not-reply issues, they’d be even better.
Not bad, Kohls. Not bad.
Scott,
I am going to disagree with you here. With the size of Kohls and the sophistication behind emails today, welcome emails should be standard to come in HTML.
To me, the welcome email is your first engagement into their program and they should make it as nice as possible. Sure the language is fine, but what good is a great filet when its served this way.
Let me equate it to a party. You were invited to the Kohls party. You rang the doorbell….you gave them your coat..and they managed to greet you by taking you to a room which is gray, dingy and physically unattractive. Heck..there could be a heck of a buffet of food in there..but you cant get over how dingy the room looks. Not a good first impression of a party huh?
HTML welcome emails should be standard. They should be great. They should be appealing. Plain text emails serve a purpose, but not on the first date.
This of course is my opinion and I am welcome (no pun intended) to hear others chime in.
Andrew,
Very true. Perhaps my “solid effort” is a bit strong. I think it could have been much worse. Maybe it’s that they were going for best practices in terms of preheader, whitelisting, etc., and just got too busy for images?
I can’t really suspect what’s going on. But I agree with you in that there’s an expectation for HTML these days, especially among the major retailers.
But content-wise, it is a solid effort IMHO.
Agree with Andrew that HTML should be standard. I would venture a guess that this was triggered from their database and created by IT, which could care less about beautifying and optimizing emails.
I find the incentives the most compelling part, because as you said, I’m much more likely to open subsequent emails if I’m expecting a coupon code. With that said, however, I believe the welcome message should provide some incentive to go back and shop NOW. I have no action to take on this email. To nitpick, the subject line, while great, is misleading because there is no “sale alert” enclosed.
-Kelly Lorenz
For what it’s worth, saying HTML is/should be “the standard” goes way too far in my book. There are tons of companies, particularly small businesses, for whom plain text, or (to offer a compromise) a “texty-looking” uber-basic HTML email, is perfectly fine and perhaps even preferable.
That said, I agree that as a specific example, Kohl’s should be sending their welcome email in HTML.
A plain text email from Kohl’s feels… unauthentic.
Not that there would ever likely be a phishing email from someone imitating Kohl’s, but getting a plain text email from a brand of that size/strength just seems inherently suspicious to me.
That was my first reaction upon seeing this email, anyway.
@Kelly, I agree with you on the idea that this is likely an IT-driven message, not a marketing-driven message. Feels very much that way. And you can nitpick the headline, but I feel even though it doesn’t offer the sales alert right away, it does match the sign-up form in terms of what the customer will receive. (Definitely a good candidate for testing, would you agree?)
@Justin, I think you’re right in that saying HTML should be the standard may be going too far. IMO, if you’re going for the retail feel, HTML should be the way to go. If you’re trying to establish one-to-one communication between a representative of the company and the customer, plain text may seem more authentic in that it looks like a message written by said rep.
I think we can all agree in the case of Kohls, HTML is the way to go. All clothing/department stores are built on an image, and throwing plain text out there is antithetical to that image.
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