Every day I get about 8-15 retail emails from various e-tailers. Yesterday (US Election Day) it dipped to about 6, but 5 of those 6 referred to the election in their headlines:
Which One Will YOU Choose at Comp-U-Plus?
Fat Brain Toys Projects a Winner!
Happy Pre-Holiday Savings – Plus, Elect Free Shipping
Election Day Specials: Free Shipping Deals…
You Voted! Shop Our Best Sellers + Free Shipping
As you’d expect, fewer retailers sent emails on Election Day – voters were busy enough at the polls and glued to the news. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with having an Election Day sale, but I don’t see anything special about it either. What’s interesting is none of these campaigns segmented me out as a Canadian.
Kudos to Fat Brain Toys for actually holding an election – for the 2008 Fat Brain Toys Award.
Delia’s subject line including “You Voted!” sounds like they had a customer vote also, but it just links to the best sellers category. A real vote would have been more fun.
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What’s funny is the U.S. is the only country where the whole world knows who is running for office. Ask somebody in America who your leaders are and watch them draw a blank. Does anyone open shopping e-mails anymore?
Linda,
Among the retailers that I track, Election Day was actually quite busy, with 38% sending at least one email. It was the busiest Tuesday in three weeks. Some people had off for the day (retailers love days off) and plenty of people were online looking for news and probably checking their email along the way. I don’t know how they fared, but retailers certainly didn’t let up.
I’m not a huge believer of that type of email timing. If the consensus is that people should not be sending emails on election day, then it creates an opportunity to send more since there is less noise. Election day isn’t that special, IMHO.