Camping World's email template before the redesign.

Recently, Experian CheetahMail’s Creative Services team worked with Camping World in a multi-variant creative test of its monthly product email template. Our main challenge was to deliver 3 finished designs that adhered to creative best practices and incorporated learnings from historical campaign data, and then test these three designs against a control version over the course of two campaigns.

As with all redesign projects, our first step was to analyze historical performance data to identify any  strengths and weaknesses pertaining to the existing navigation and content layout. We then generated several wireframes to clearly map out the navigation, content organization, and product area layout options that the new designs would encompass.

One of the key areas of Camping World’s email template targeted for improvement was the main product section. Traditionally, this section loosely grouped items in a grid-like structure without considering product type or cost. We also found that the feature section took up too much vertical space within the template, pushing the main product section down below-the-fold.

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Today I thought I’d call attention to a cool little creative trick I’ve seen Brooks Brothers do for a while now. As you can see from the image below, they insert a “headline” text link (“Father’s Day Gift Guide – Shop Now”) in the header of each email that summarizes the main offer from the body of the message.

This technique accomplishes a few important things worth highlighting.

First of all, by summarizing the main offer in the form of a text link in the header, Brooks Brothers gets their most important call to action above-the-fold where it is easily found in the preview pane. This is a fundamental issue for any email campaign, regardless of industry or the type of message.

Secondly, the text link in the header is a great way to grab the attention of text-only viewers, many of whom tend to be mobile users. Think about it: if you were Brooks Brothers, a retailer held in high regard by the business set, why not make your email campaigns as Blackberry-friendly as possible? I’d be willing to bet that an above average portion of Brooks Brothers subscribers view their messages on handheld devices due to the nature of their business.

When it comes to email creative, you can never be too attentive to the needs of your customers. Email header testing is a worthwhile investment, and I would recommend testing similar techniques to see what works best with your customers.