“Psst…” Email marketing works for Kate Spade!

Laura: I am not a huge purchaser of luxury goods, but I do love Kate Spade handbags. They are well made, classic designs that never go out of style. I’ll also admit to loving the fact that they don’t SCREAM Kate Spade – the logo is always small and inconspicuous. Plus, they are large enough to hold both my Kindle and iPad!

Earlier this week, I received an email from Kate Spade advising me of a post-holiday sale:

It was a simple, colorful, well-branded email telling me about the sale. I clicked through to the website and browsed for a few minutes, eventually adding a handbag to the shopping cart. Then, as often happens, I got distracted by work, a client call, a meeting, Peyton telling me about the movie he saw, (pick one!) and promptly forgot about it.

Then today, two and a half days later, I got another email from Kate Spade:

The subject line? “Pssst…”

The marketing folks at Kate Spade GET IT.

I did 90 percent of my holiday shopping online this year – and I would guesstimate that I abandoned at least a dozen shopping carts in much the same way as I just described. Started to shop, got distracted, and forgot about it. Maybe I came back to it later in the day/week, maybe not. In some cases, when looking for a very specific gift, “came back to it later” involved starting at the point of my initial Google search.

But not ONE of those online stores – and we’re talking some major national players here – sent me a follow up email like Kate Spade did this morning. Not one.

Many of them continue to bombard me with emails – bordering on spam – with new sale information, etc. Three of them I took the trouble to unsubscribe from – so annoying was their post-holiday bombardment. Not one ever referenced my abandoned cart.

But Kate Spade – with whom I could loosely be considered a good customer (I buy, on average, one handbag a year from them) sent me a cute follow up that will likely end with my making a purchase.

They have found an easy, non-intrusive, FUN way to get folks like me back to our abandoned carts. Well done.

Take notice other retailers. Or as the folks at Kate Spade said to me this morning… “Pssst…”