Simple Beauty Email

• Objectives
• Solution
• Summary

Objectives

Sometimes you have to walk a very narrow line between what markets well and what the product owner, Cindy Crawford in this case, is willing to approve. Focused on editorial style creative, the campaigns for Meaningful Beauty™ had little in the way of the marketing mechanisms needed to drive conversion. The email campaigns specifically were suffering - so our first challenge was to revamp the Simple Beauty campaign.

Solution

As it often does, my design work started with a mind map. I began by placing the elements we had gleaned from our UX testing into a hierarchy of importance. I massaged the pieces around until they told the story I wanted and was able to being the headline copy writing phase. Going for a bit of a gamble, I threw out the headline, "Get Results in just 4 Weeks," and ran with it. Our previous headlines were sentence length - so I was betting that something punchier (and results driven) would win.

Using this UX blueprint, I was able to dive right into my high fidelity wireframes. I started blocking out my content using the "Z" pattern of eye flow as a base to guide my mind map. After this was approved, I started fleshing out the final email; going beyond simply "coloring in the lines." I wanted something that matched the current design trends (rather than the dated purple layouts that came before.) The final step was to dress the content up with the necessary bursts and CTAs. The final creative out preformed all the previous iterations and became the clear control for the Simple Beauty campaign.

A/B Testing

Iteration 1

As a requirement set forth by brand, the designers were told to focus on editorial content. This email (see Meaningful Beauty™ Simple Beauty Email, Iteration 1) set the basic typography and colors, but looks like something you would see in a blog post rather than a marketing email. Even so, its numbers warranted testing.

Iteration 2

In an effort to gently guide the product team towards something more marketing friendly, we started with one simple change rather than a full facelift. Since the product section really wasn't making much of a sell, I dropped its prominence in order to focus on Cindy's fantastic before and after photos for a decent increase in CTR's (see Meaningful Beauty™ Simple Beauty Email, Iteration 2 ).

Iteration 3

The product team requested a variant of Iteration 2 that told the story behind Meaningful Beauty™ since they were still convinced that editorial content was the way to go (see Meaningful Beauty™ Simple Beauty Email, Iteration 3). Since we had the luxury of such a large mailing list, it wasn't an issue to test. The results of this test made it clear that editorial content wasn't successful in this channel. In light of those results, the product team gave us the go ahead to do more marketing oriented creatives.

Iteration 4

This iteration (see Meaningful Beauty™ Simple Beauty Email, Iteration 4) was the full facelift we wanted to try back on Iteration 2. Branching out from the previous editorial content, we were able to include four popular marketing mechanisms: a model shot, before and afters, factoids, and guarantees. As expected, this combination saw a dramatic increase in CTR's.

Iteration 5

Taking the base from Iteration 4, we decided to try a more testimonial driven angle - so we could learn what sold best to our audience. This version (see Meaningful Beauty™ Simple Beauty Email, Iteration 5) dropped the before and afters and 60-day guarantee to make room for two customer quotes. As is often the case, part of testing is failure. This iteration saw a dramatic drop in CTR's - so now we knew how to angle our messaging.

Iteration 6

I pulled out all the stops for this variant (see Meaningful Beauty™ Simple Beauty Email, Final.) Leveraging in the findings from the previous iterations, I mixed in punchier copy with fresher graphics (no more blah purple backgrounds!) to create something radical, yet in line with brand standards. The success of this creative let us wrap up the Simple Beauty campaign and inspired redesigns our banners and carts.

Summary

• Constructed new, results driven copy rather than recycling from previous iterations since copy writing services were unavailable. Going this extra effort really fine-tuned the message and shaped the base for all of Meaningful Beauty's campaigns.
• Reimagined the Simple Beauty campaign with modern graphics and layouts in order to keep the brand relevant with a high end feel.
• Seamlessly incorporated marketing mechanisms (three call-to-actions, bursts, before and afters, etc.) in a way that satisfied the product owner, Cindy Crawford, while effectively driving sales.