Well, that month got away from me… So here we are at the end of September reviewing the best emails from August. I have had these pulled for a while but after my initial draft failed to save… here we are.

Some revisits to categories I have noted in previous blog posts and a few new areas which caught me attention. Now off to the pretty, pretty emails.

One of the mixed blessings of doing this later than normal was checking out the “fail modes” of expired offers and sales. Quite a few brands are now redirecting images so that if viewed after the sale it tells you so. The landing pages also redirect to the homepage or to the more current offer. Here are some of the examples I liked this month. I especially liked Hubspot’s countdown because it is still useful after as a link to the webinar recording. Forever 21 linked to a calendar event download to remind the user when the next sale was.

Hubspot

Torrid

Forever 21

Olive Garden

Always love Modcloth’s email designs. I am definitely their target audience. This month I was really interested in this campaign for Woman’s Equality Day, it used the same art over the course of a few days without getting stale and boring.

I have been seeing this email trend for a while but wasn’t sure what to call it. In some iterations, it basically came off as a Microsoft-word-style page border. But in more elegant forms it presents as a box on background, calling attention to the text but somewhat breaking the standard promotional email template. This is especially true when the box is a little bit transparent and the background can be seen through it. 

Look at these odd little attention getters! Blurb used subtle hand-drawn lines to make some friendly backgrounds for a flash sale reminder. Envato market and Candy Club animated some more representational doodles but I still qualify them as confetti.

envato market

Candy Club

Last Month’s Favorite Promo Emails