Hyde Park Jewelry can add sparkle to just about any special occasion but Valentine’s Day may be one of our favorites. We’re in love with how their Valentine’s Day series turned out. We talked to our client Molly Wojcik, Interactive Marketing Director, about Hyde Park’s recent Valentine’s series and the thought process behind her email marketing strategy.
“We take a multi-tiered approach when planning for campaigns leading up to Hallmark holidays,” says Molly. “Our audience is our number one priority, so we strive to keep them top of mind when planning frequency and content.”
Valentine’s Campaign
Valentine’s Day tends to have a much shorter lead-time in terms of messaging (as opposed to Christmas, which builds up for a month or more), so Hyde Park typically begins messaging about 2 weeks out, and tries not to exceed 3 emails per week. “The immediacy and precise timing of email makes it the perfect tool for the gift-giving messaging that we are pushing,” says Molly.
“We take a lot of inspiration from other marketers out there as well, both within and outside our industry. For instance, during the December holiday season, we noticed a trend of category-based emails, so we decided to try this for a Valentine’s Day campaign, focusing on earrings,” says Molly. Using the subject line, “Make Her Smile from Ear to Ear,” the ad focused on one category and helped take some of the guess work out of gift-giving. Hyde Park saw an immediate reaction after the email send, selling one of the pairs of earrings over the phone within an hour of deployment.
Design
Design of the emails is a collaborative effort. Working with RootedELM, Molly likes to keep the design of the emails clean and simple. “We are a luxury brand, so we never want to compromise our reputation as a fashion-forward, high-end retailer,” she says. “At the same time, we like to add some playful elements into our design concepts, whether it be through the use of clever copywriting, animation techniques or creative use of some of our jewelry imagery (i.e. heart shape using jewelry images).”
 |
|  |
Sweet Success
Success of the campaign is measured in conversions, including opens, clicks, phone calls and store visits. “Since we have a high entry price-point, many of our clients prefer to shop in-store or over the phone with one of their sales associates that they have worked with in the past – they like the personal contact,” explains Molly. “It’s not an exact science, but just like in the story of the customer calling and ordering the earrings after seeing the email, it’s always a great feeling to see a campaign work – from concept to transaction.”
Molly credits the collaboration with RootedELM for the success of her latest campaigns, which feature design consistency across messaging and implementing best practices for placement of design elements. “We are light years ahead of where we were last year in terms of our email marketing,” she says. “This year, our campaigns have been well-thought out with a purpose in mind, and I believe the execution has been fantastic! I’m thrilled with how far we’ve come in such a short time and I’m excited to keep growing in this area!”