Is Your Brand’s Email Marketing Effective?

 

Do you know what today is? On this date, I’m celebrating COFFEE DAY with an analysis of email marketing, but first, some history about the beginning of instant coffee and its branding.

According to TodayIFoundOut.com:

“Although instant coffee had been around before this date, the instant coffee we know and love was introduced on July 24, 1938. The Nescafe (a combination of the words “Nestles” and “café”) brand was the result of a more sophisticated coffee refining process than earlier versions of the product. The instant coffee odyssey began in 1901 with Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato, who introduced his version at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. It was received well enough that in 1903, he formed the Kato Coffee Company. In 1906, an English chemist, George Constant Washington, created what he dubbed “a refined soluble coffee,” and began selling it under the name Red E Coffee.

By 1930, the Brazilian Coffee Institute asked Nestle to consider entering the instant coffee market but with a better tasting product than anything that was available. Brazil allegedly believed that an instant coffee that tested better with consumers would increase coffee sales. By 1937, a scientist, Max Mortgenthaler, had perfected a method of spray drying the coffee and adding carbohydrates as a stabilizer. These techniques led to an improvement in the taste of instant coffee.”

Recently, I received an email with the subject line as follows: Let’s Grab a Coffee. Once opened, the email read as follows: What to wear where, coffee date, grab a latte with the girls in effortless light layers you love.” Then there was a button to click: SHOP NOW.

However, that was it. This was a wonderful opportunity for brand-building around the color of coffee, perhaps, by showcasing clothing in different coffee shades. This was a missed opportunity to partner with Pantone, the color brand. This was also a wonderful opportunity to promote the concept of meeting for coffee, whether for groups of friends or family or for reading groups, sports groups, travel groups, etc. This was also an opportunity to partner and/or co-partner with coffee brands or coffee houses for the day. This was a missed opportunity to partner with Starbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Dunkin, etc. And lastly, this was an opportunity for the clothing brand to create brand ambassadors to promote clothing in coffee colors on their social media sites.

What other branding opportunities did this clothing brand miss with this brief email? Chime in after you’ve had your morning cup of joe.


Image Courtesy: Chico’s.