Best email subject line of the week: of beer and dresses

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 6:16 pm by Anita Ashland

My favorite catalog, J. Peterman, is famous for their catalog copy and justifiably so. It’s lifestyle copy at its finest. Whenever an issue arrives I block out time that same day to sit on the couch and read it cover to cover.

Today I’m going to focus on their email copy instead. Their “Up to 63% off everything Beer-esque” was the best email subject line of the week to hit my inbox.

I like that they used a specific percentage – 63% – instead of something more normal, like 50%. In looking over their subject lines for the past year, I see they’ve used the following percentages: 81, 41, 47, 46, 52, 79.

I also like this subject line from last November: “10 items under $71.” They are running a 59% off sale on their website right now (these model roadsters are tempting, are they not?). So J. Peterman likes using those odd numbers and obviously those numbers work for them, so take note.

I’m not a beer drinker but even though this HTML email had pictures of beer and steins I clicked on it anyway, in the desperate hope that their Cortina Turtleneck Dress would be among the beer-esque items for sale.

Hey, that dress would look great with the beer-esque metal Prague chair and the bistro table, so you can’t blame me for trying.

I bought their Italian Riviera dress as a result of their Mother’s Day email last May (a present for myself, cough, cough). The percentage used in the subject line for that email was 20 percent. By the way, I’m wearing that dress in the photo over there in the right sidebar.

Each catalog always has a few dresses that I like so I always, always, pay careful attention to their emails to see if one of my favorite dresses (or the Mrs. Peel leather jacket) are on sale.

It doesn’t matter what their subject line is, I always open their emails, which, as a marketer, is exactly what you want your customers to do.

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