What's My Mystery Offer Worth?!

When we talk about email marketing, a popular thought is that this avenue is dead; however, I strongly believe that email marketing still is powerful, given it delivers a clear and relevant message to each individual. Meaning, the generic email blast may be dead, but email marketing as a whole is just evolving. With that in mind, I wanted to do a search of some of the best email campaigns.

The ROI Factor assembled a group of eight campaigns for their “Best of the Inbox Awards.” Each of the eight email campaigns was awarded specific recognition, i.e. the best user experience, best open rate, strongest message, and the humanitarian award, to name a few.

Napoleon Won "The Strong Message Award"

The campaign I connected with the most was Rent the Runway’s campaign, which won the award for “The Best Open Rate Ever.” The company sent an email promising a mystery offer of either 10%, 20%, or 30% off. In order to discover what your award was valued at, you had to click on the email. With this strategy, Rent the Runway was hoping to get a high open and click through rate (CTR), as well as many conversions.

I thought this was an excellent way to interact with customers, since from experience, I have followed the instructions for another company’s email in order to discover what my offer was worth. As a consumer, I was highly motivated to discover what my offer was. It prompted me to read the email and click on the link – which doesn't often happen. I also found out my offer and proceeded to browse their website for products. I can guarantee you that I would not have browsed the site that morning had I did not received the mystery offer email.

To me, this is an excellent lesson in email marketing. If we can entice our subscribers and offer them a reward for clicking through to our landing page, we may get the conversion we are hoping for! To truly be effective, this strategy must be used in conjunction with individualized emails as I mentioned above.