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Bonobos is a wildly popular men’s online shopping boutique that is changing the way people shop. They recently hit $100 million in revenue, after nine years of business. The model is pretty simple: several variations on popular clothing items like pants, dress shirts, and casual shirts. No matter what you’re looking for, Bonobos probably has it.

Simply put, Bonobos has come to define ecommerce with a guide shop sales model that seems to work—but are they missing out on some key sales? Let’s examine the pros and cons of their guide shop sales model.

Pro: Huge Selection

No one brand offers the sheer number of options buyers can get from Bonobos. In the case of brick-and-mortar stores, there just isn’t enough room to display over two hundred pants styles—not of the same brand, anyway. By adopting an ecommerce model, Bonobos didn’t have to worry about display space or inventory storage. They didn’t have to worry about their clothing competing with other brands. No, everything in their online store is directly from Bonobos.

Con: Brick-and-Mortar Shop Without Shopping

Bonobos recently caused a stir by opening guide shops, where Bonobos clothing is on display for any shoppers craving the in-person experience. The problem is that the clothes are for testing purposes only. If buyers are unsure of a size or fit, they can drop in for a few minutes and try something on.

That all sounds wonderful, but what about buyers’ desire for instant gratification? If they’ve foregone the convenience of online shopping to head into a store, won’t they be disappointed when they can’t buy the items that fit right away?

Pro: Multi-Channel Marketing and Purchasing

To remedy that need for instant gratification, Bonobos has outfitted all employees with tablets so buyers can order immediately after finding items that fit. That way, no one has to leave the store without making a purchase; they just can’t leave the store with their purchase.

Con: Shipping Times

Once the buyer makes a purchase right there in the store, they still have to go home and wait for their new clothes to arrive in the mail. Again, they’re shrugging away the buyer’s strong desire to own their products by making them wait. Now, shipping times aren’t a problem to those who engage in traditional ecommerce, because waiting for the products to arrive is the price you pay for the convenience you experience when shopping from home.

Pro: Uncertainty Removed

In the end, it seems as though the guide shops have given a tremendous assist to the Bonobos model. Fans of the brand who haven’t purchased for fear that they’d order the wrong size can now ease those fears. Buyers who want to try out new styles and colors can test their wardrobe in front of a mirror before committing. The real magic, however, happens after the first order. If the size is right, buyers don’t have to visit the shop again. Uncertainty is removed and they can buy at their leisure.

Of course, there’s one thing we didn’t mention: Bonobos is actually available for purchase from Nordstrom, so those who have a serious crush on the products can get something immediately. As with any retail situation, however, the options are limited to whatever Nordstrom can fit into that little corner of their store.

So what do you think? Is Bonobos actually changing the way we do ecommerce with their guide shops, or is it all a fad that will fade away when shoppers miss the convenience of buying from their living room?

The internet is swarming with tips, tricks, and suggestions about how to design beautiful emails. And while a lot of marketers seem to understand the basics — personalize the copy, make the call-to-action pop, segment your list, etc. — many still overlook an important component of effective email marketing: emails also need to have visual appeal.

Oftentimes, marketers do give a lot of thought to email design when it comes time to launch a campaign. It makes perfect sense: You have an awesome new announcement or event, and you want to kick off the campaign right with a darn good looking email.

But what about the follow-up email? Or any email that may be included in an automated email workflow? It’s time to stop focusing on the design of just your biggest sends, and spend some time spiffing up all those other emails you’re sending. 

Need some inspiration? Check out the email examples below.

12 Types of Email That Marketers Can Send

Informational Emails

Informational emails are one-to-many emails you can send to folks to bring them up to speed in regards to your latest content, product announcements, and more. Note: You should only send them to people who have opted in to receive emails from you.

1) New Content Announcement Email

This is one you probably already know and love. You know, the one where you announce your next sale, ebook, webinar, coupon, free trial … and the list goes on. This email is used to describe and promote a particular marketing offer — one single offer — with a call-to-action that links to a targeted landing page made for that specific offer.

When it comes to designing an email for a specific offer, the main component to keep in mind is the offer itself. You want the copy to be brief but descriptive enough to convey the offer’s value. In addition, make sure your email’s call-to-action (CTA) link is large, clear, and uses actionable language. You can also include a large CTA image/button underneath to make the action you want email readers to take crystal clear.

(Example: NextView Ventures )

2) Product Update Email

Product emails are tricky. People generally don’t want to receive these often, and they’re typically not as interesting or engaging as something like an offer email. That said, it’s important to keep these emails simple and straightforward.

Many companies choose to send weekly or monthly product digests to keep their customers or fan base up-to-date with the latest features and functionalities. And no matter how much a customer loves your business, it’s still work for them to learn how to use new features or learn why a new product is worth their investment.

Rather than inundating your contacts with a slew of emails about each individual product update, consider sending a sort of roundup of new updates or products periodically. For each update you list, include a large, clear headline, a brief description, and an image that showcases the product or feature. It’s also worth linking to a custom page for each feature to make it easy for recipients to learn more about it.

(Example: Adobe)

3) Digital Magazine or Newsletter

Do you maintain a business blog for your company? Are you a magazine or media outlet? No matter which of these categories you fall into, many companies choose to send a roundup of stories or articles published weekly or monthly. And if you truly want people to read these email roundups, it’s critical that you share them in a visually appealing way.

Within these roundup emails, it’s a good idea to use an image paired with a headline, a brief summary or introduction, and a CTA for recipients to read more. This simple format will allow you to use visuals to attract the reader to each article while still giving you the ability to feature multiple articles — without sending a super lengthy email.

(Example: Skillshare)

4) Event Invitation

Email can be a great vehicle for promoting an upcoming event you’re hosting. But if you want to invite your contacts to an event and motivate them to register, it’s extremely important to clearly showcase why that event is worth their attendance.

A great way to do so is through visuals. A lot of events cost money to attend, and most cost a pretty penny. So if you want to attract registrants, cut down on the copy and show potential registrants why the event will be awesome.

(Example: FutureM)

5) Dedicated Send

Every now and then, you may want to send a dedicated email to a certain group of people. For example, if you’re hosting a conference or event, you might want to send a dedicated email just to event registrants to alert them of any new event updates they should be aware of (like in the screenshot above). Or if your business is community based, it might be a good idea to send a monthly email to welcome all your new members. 

(Example: INBOUND)

6) Co-marketing Email

Co-marketing is when two or more complementary companies partner together for some mutually beneficial task, event, or other promotion. The main draw of co-marketing is to leverage the audience of another company to increase your reach.

Sometimes the relationship results in a strategic announcement; other times it’s as simple as a joint webinar. Let’s use the latter for an example of how co-marketing emails work, and why they’re so beneficial: Let’s say you and another company decide to do a webinar together on a particular subject. As a result, that webinar will likely (pending your arrangements) be promoted to the email lists of both of your companies. This exposure to a list that is not your own is one of the key benefits of co-marketing partnerships.

When it comes to the email your business sends, make it clear that this offer or event is the result of a partnership with company X — especially if your co-marketing partner is particularly popular or impressive. To do this, you can adjust the company logo in your email to also include the other business’ logo. Furthermore, make sure your copy mentions both businesses, and create a custom graphic or image to visualize the offer or event. 

(Example: HubSpot + Unbounce)

7) Social Media Send

Wait … what does social media have to do with email? Well, if you’re making good use of LinkedIn Groups or Google+ Events, email has everything to do with social media.

As the administrator of LinkedIn Group, when you send a LinkedIn Announcement, you’re directly reaching a LinkedIn user’s inbox. And when you create a Google+ event, sending the invite directly sends you into users’ email boxes as well. Without having to create lists or collect email addresses, you automatically have access to users’ email, but be sure to tap into these resources with care.

When it comes to these social media emails, you don’t have the option of using email software that allows you to customize the layout or add images. You’re at the mercy of copy alone. This is where leveraging white space is very important. Keep your paragraphs short, your sentences brief, and your thoughts clear. Optimize these emails for the scanning reader, and use bullets or numbers to deliver your main points. 

(Example: CMI)

8) Internal Updates

Don’t neglect a very important audience for your company: your employees. Many companies, especially if they’re on the larger side, choose to send internal updates or newsletters to their employees to keep them in the know about the latest company information — whether it be new product updates, marketing offers, or events.

With these emails, it’s less about the beauty, and more about the clarity. The most important formatting tip for these types of emails is to arrange the information in a simple and helpful way. Once you’ve nailed your formatting, it’s simply a matter of highlighting the most critical information associated with each offer or update so its messaging is crystal clear to everyone.

(Example: HubSpot Academy)

Transactional Emails

Transactional emails are one-to-one emails that are triggered by specific actions, such as completing a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. Note: You’ll need specialized software in order to set up transactional emails.

9) Confirmation Email

How frustrating is it to book a flight or register for an event and not receive an automatic confirmation email? I know that personally, every time I make an online transaction, I wait impatiently to see that my transaction was complete. After all, nobody wants to worry that they’re first payment wasn’t processed, only to click the payment button again and get charged twice.

What bothers me most about so many businesses’ confirmation emails are two things: when the subject lines are vague, and when the information I actually want to confirm isn’t immediately evident when I open the email. Confirmation emails should be just that — confirmation emails.

To avoid any confusion, keep these emails simple, with just a brief summary of the information your recipients would want you to confirm. Try not to fuss with the design, as they simply want to know that the action they took was completed so they can save the information, have peace of mind, and move on. 

(Example: GrubHub)

10) Form Submission Kickback (Thank-You) Email

Whenever a prospect, lead, or customer fills out a form on one of your landing pages, a kickback email should automatically get triggered after their submission. Depending on the form, these kickback emails are often referred to as thank-you emails. These emails are mainly for the sake of fulfilling your promise to the user, and storing the information you promised them safely in their inbox.

How frustrating would it be if you downloaded an ebook, and then forgot where you stored the link to the PDF? Kickback emails solve that problem.

These automatic emails should make the CTA big and clear. Keep in mind that the CTA should link to the direct offer — NOT to the form. In these emails, simply thank the reader for their form submission, and give them what you promised, whether it be a link to the PDF of an ebook, instructions on how to activate their free trial, or the coupon they requested. Furthermore, don’t overcomplicate the appearance of these emails. The reader isn’t looking for additional information, but rather the offer or content they already know they redeemed.

 (Example: IMPACT Branding & Design)

11) Welcome Email

Another type of transactional email, the welcome email is the perfect option for thanking and providing more information to people who have signed up for your newsletter, product trial, or other offer.

The elements you include in a welcome email will depend on the specifics of what you’re offering. But in general, you can use the email to showcase your brand’s personality and to highlight the value that recipients can expect to receive. If you’re welcoming new users to a product or service, the welcome email is a great place to explain how everything works and what users need to do in order to get started.

Remember: First impressions are important, even when they happen via email. For more inspiration, check out this list of stellar welcome email examples.

(Example: Food52)

12) Lead Nurturing Email

Depending on the specific action a persona takes, you may want to enroll them in a lead nurturing campaign. Lead nurturing emails consist of a tightly connected series of emails containing useful, targeted content.

As their name suggests, these emails are used to nurture leads through the marketing funnel into a position of sales readiness. For example, let’s say you sent your list a marketing offer email. You might then set up a lead nurturing workflow that triggers another email about a complementary offer or piece of content to everyone who converted on that initial offer. The logic is simple: By identifying a particular group of contacts that you already know are interested in a specific topic, you and can follow up with more relevant and targeted content that makes them more likely to continue their relationship with you.

In your lead nurturing emails, it’s important to call out why recipients are receiving the email. For example, you could say something like, “We noticed you’re into [topic x] since you downloaded our [Topic X] ebook, and we thought you might want to learn more about [topic x] …” Once you’ve addressed why recipients are getting email from you, you can format your lead nurturing emails similar to the way you’d set up your general marketing offer emails.

Other very important considerations to make when crafting your lead nurturing campaigns are the planning, setup, segmentation, and timing of your nurturing emails. 

(Example: HubSpot)

At the end of the day, your emails should not only be visually appealing, but they should also be valuable. Focus on sharing the key information in the most appropriate format depending on the type of email you’re sending — and the audience you’re sending it to.

After all, what’s the use of a crazy-beautiful email if it doesn’t provide any true value to the reader? 

Know of any other types of email that should be on this list? Share them in the comments section below.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in December 2012 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

 

Most marketers and brand strategists understand the dangers of brand inconsistency: without a well-defined logo, color scheme, and brand voice, your brand won’t stand out in consumers’ minds. And if consumers can’t remember your brand, you haven’t a chance against competitors.

While brands are constantly trying to uphold a strong visual image, the internet is notorious for uncovering small inconsistencies, many of which reside in the most unexpected places. 

To make sure that you’re covering all the bases, we’ve outlined six sneaky places where brand inconsistencies tend to hide — from the depths of your product descriptions to that email you’re about to send. Alongside these sources you’ll find inspiring examples of world-class brands that are doing their due diligence to keep things consistent across the board. 

6 Unexpected Sources of Brand Inconsistency (And How to Fix Them)

1) Content Marketing Clarity: OpenTable’s Voice and Tone Guide

Whether your content team is made up of two or 20, you’re inevitably going to end up with different writing styles. Having a range of voices is a good way to keep your audience interested, but there’s a fine line between an interesting variation and writing that’s downright inconsistent. And when the writing styles and visual content across blog posts are too drastic, your readers will be confused about the message you’re trying to send.

How to Fix It

One way to achieve consistency on your blog is to create a detailed content style guide. This guide can include information such as what types of stock photos to use, whether or not to use oxford commas, and what language to avoid. In addition to sharing this guide with everyone on your internal team, you can also share it with contributors, partners, and press.

OpenTable’s style guide includes helpful guidelines for what tone their branded content should embody. These tips are used to inform blog content, so writers of all different backgrounds have a basic standard to follow.  

2) Search Engine Results: Slack’s Organized Brand Guidelines

Pop Quiz: If you need information, fast, where do you typically go to get it?

We’re going to take a gamble and say that your answer was Google. People looking for information about your brand probably have the same train of thought. After all, Google is seen as a trusted method for finding information. Trouble is, this can be bad news for brands. Since Google is so good at scouring the web, they’ll pull up anything and everything related to your brand — even outdated logos, old product shots, and inaccurate company descriptions.

How to Fix It

If you’re not keen on chasing people across the interwebs every single time your logo is used incorrectly, try taking a proactive approach. You can prevent brand misuse by showcasing your brand accurately in a single, public-facing location. You can adopt a cloud-based platform like Brandfolder to provide easy, immediate access to your brand assets and their usage guidelines.

Slack ensures proper use of their brand assets by linking to their Brandfolder directly from their website in the top left corner. They also have a “brand guidelines” page on their website where readers can access all asset usage instructions.

3) Website Product Descriptions: Warby Parker’s Consistent Copy

One of the biggest culprits of brand inconsistency resides in product descriptions and feature pages. This copywriting is especially notorious for being misaligned with your brand, and with one another, because they are extremely detailed and change often.

How to Fix It

The best way to keep your website up-to-date is to conduct a website audit. To ensure the process goes smoothly, be sure to involve leaders from every department. Your marketing team can help refine copy, your product team can ensure that it’s accurate, and your sales team can verify pricing information. Website audits can be especially challenging if you haven’t conducted one in over a year, so try getting into the habit of conducting one every six months or so.

Warby Parker is a great example of a brand that achieves consistency across hundreds of products. Each pair of glasses has a product description that is similar in length and language. Since people shopping for glasses are inevitably going to look through many different pairs, these consistent product descriptions help Warby Parker uphold the quality and perceived brand value of their product.

4) Email Communications: Hamilton College’s Efficient Style Guide

Consider this scenario: Your sales team is communicating with a customer about a possible feature upgrade. Your support team is communicating with that same customer to help fix a bug. Meanwhile, you’re crafting the perfect promotional email to send to all your customers. While all of the emails are from the same brand, none of the teams are aligning their email language. As a result, each email sends a radically different message, and the customer retrieves a mixed message about what your brand is about.

How to Fix It

Similar to the content style guide we suggested in tip one, an email style guide can serve as a helpful alignment tool. Your guide should include guidelines on how to respond to questions and concerns, and what specific language you should include (and avoid). Start by rounding up the most common questions each department receives, then work with your marketing team to craft on-brand answers. In addition to helping your brand be more consistent, this will also save your team time.

To make it even easier for writers to follow your brand’s editorial guidelines, simply make your style guide public.

Hamilton College sets a great example for brands looking to standardize their email writing styles — their Email Style Guide includes directions on everything from acceptable fonts and colors to imagery usage.

5) Social Media Profiles: Apple’s On-Brand Support Account

So your brand has an official Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and — wait a minute, what other social platforms are you on? With so many options for marketing your brand on social media, it’s hard not to feel pressured to have a presence on all of them. However, trying to tackle all of these platforms is difficult — can you really maintain a consistent posting cadence on all of these sites? Even more problematic is that fact that each of these platforms have varying audiences — and not all of these audiences are aligned with your target market and brand strategy.

How to Fix It

The best way to stay consistent on social media is to choose a few platforms that make sense for your audience and your product — then master them. It’s also a good idea to do a cleanup of your social profiles and delete the ones you don’t use, or don’t plan on using in the near future. After all, you probably don’t want people looking up your brand on Twitter to find you’ve only tweeted once … three years ago.

Apple gets it: they’re one of the largest tech companies in the world, but they don’t even have a designated Twitter account. However, they do have an Apple Support account, which offers helpful tips and tricks on getting the most out of your Apple products.

This actually fits into the greater brand experience that Apple creates. Instead of reaching out to customers with promotional discounts and deals, Apple offers an online support community where people can go to find what they need — similar to their in-store experience.

6) Reviews and Ratings: Hotel Indigo’s Informative TripAdvisor Page

Since product review sites are regulated by people who know nothing about your brand, they often portray the wrong information. Whether your business has the wrong location, or is missing a proper company description, review sites can be a huge source of concern for potential customers. And while there’s not much you can do about the poor ratings and negative reviews on these types of sites, you can take steps to keep your fundamental brand information accurate.

How to Fix It

First, reach out to these sites and do whatever you can to correct your brand’s information. It’s the job of the review site to inform their users, so they’ll likely be receptive to your request. Another way to boost your presence on review sites is to reach out to your champion customers and ask them to leave a review (if they haven’t already). This will help filter out the not-so-positive reviews, so people visiting these sites understand both what your brand is about, and what people honestly think of it.

Nashville’s Hotel Indigo proves that a TripAdvisor profile can go a long way. Their page includes professional photography, accurate contact information, and TripAdvisor’s official “Seal of Excellence.” Nashville’s Hotel Indigo Staff can easily monitor this site to help customers gain knowledge and trust.

Now that you’re aware of six places brand inconsistency may be lurking, you can get started on creating your most consistent online brand presence yet.

Did we miss something? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Active blogging is a basic building block of any successful inbound marketing strategy – its hub, if you will. For schools and admissions offices struggling for resources, launching and maintaining a blog may seem like a daunting undertaking. But it’s one well worth taking. HubSpot research found that marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to be able to show a return for their efforts.

Having a school blog (or two) can boost your student applications in a number of ways. First, good blogs are regularly updated with with entertaining, informative content. Google loves blogs with a steady flow of engaging content. If you’re writing around the right keywords, your blog will increase the flow of organic traffic to your blog and website. 

Learn other ways to increase traffic to your site in our ebook The Do’s andDon’ts of SEO for Schools >> 

Also, the more you blog, the more inbound links you get back to your site, which Google also loves. It sees inbound links as a sign of trust and authority for your content, so it bumps up your place in search results because it wants to serve up the most relevant, reliable content. Helpful, engaging blog content also gets shared on social media, which in turns drives more new visitors to your site. 

Once you have all these new visitors to your blog and website, you have the opportunity to get their information into your marketing database. You want to include a call-to-action form on every blog post, and throughout your website. The call-to-action may be to sign up for your newsletter or blog, or to download a report. The blog visitor shares her email and other information with you in order to get this content.

Now you can push more content out to them overtime as you nurture them along the path to making an application. And the more they visit your blog, the more effectively you can personalize the content you send them.

As you can see, having a school blog gives you more opportunities and control over how and when to interact with prospective students and parents who’ve already shown interest in your school. It also provides a bigger platform to tell the school’s stories, instead of relying entirely on others to frame your stories for you.

Convinced you yet why your school needs a blog? Great. Here are the basics to put together when you plan it out.

Choosing the Right Content

Every successful blog shares content that its personas want to read about. The blog posts educate readers about the issues that concern or interest them. The posts don’t directly promote your school. Leave that for other types of content.

When you built your personas, you outlined each one’s goals, challenges, and concerns. Use that information to keep your blog content focused on topics they’ll read, share, and react to. If your personas need some sprucing, go back and ask with some current and prospective students what information would be most valuable to them. Ask the parents as well.

Refine your topic list by looking at all the content your school already creates. Your school already has tons of content. There are curricula, admissions FAQs, program brochures, career office reports, and campus organization descriptions. What questions are these pieces answering? How can a blog post dig deeper or provide a new perspective on them?

Finding Content Sources to Feed Your Blog

As you’re making your list of all your school’s existing content you want to use to spark blog post ideas, it probably occurred to you that you can use some of this existing content itself.

Great idea. Your existing content can be converted, with just a little tweaking, directly into blog posts.

In addition to the content sources listed in the previous section, also look at any newsletter or publication put out by a student group, program, even your alumni and development newsletters. Are any faculty or staff writing thought leadership pieces – see if you can reprint them on your school’s blog. If you can’t reprint them, you can craft your own post sharing the piece and linking to it.

When you convert existing content into a blog post, make sure to edit it so it works in a blog setting. Give it some context as a blog post. You’re not going to just reprint a program’s curriculum. You’ll rework that content into a post about the different areas of theoretical and practical knowledge the program provides, and why each is important – with a call-to-action linking to the full curriculum.

Creating a Stable of Writers

Repurposing existing content is a great tactic for finding meaningful, cost effective content for your blog. But you do want original work on the blog as well, in addition to people on your marketing team who can write.

Many of your student leaders would love having a platform on your blog, from formal student ambassadors to group leaders. Student voices are especially influential with prospective students, who want to know what life is really like at your school.

Have alumni who want to give back, but aren’t yet in a place where they can write a check? Ask them to write about their transition from student to the next phase of their life, whether its finding a job or getting another degree. Faculty and department staff also have stories to tell about what’s going on in their domains. Find a couple key people in each department who have an interesting voice to write posts occasionally.

Have a Distribution Plan 

Blogs without a distribution plan are the falling trees nobody hears. Regular posting of high quality content based on relevant keywords will build some SEO juice for your site. But there’s more to distribution than organic traffic.

Outline how you’ll use your social media profiles to promote your blog, and get others to share links to your blog via their own social profiles. Include links to blog posts in your newsletters and emails in other campaigns, where they add value.

Managing your blog will be much easier when you don’t have reinvent the distribution plan for each post. This doesn’t mean each post goes into each newsletter or gets its own promotional email. It means outline the different avenues for distribution and promotion and clarify which routes work for different types of blog posts. Then it’s easy to specify in your blog calendar how any given post will be promoted.

Attracting Sudents to Your Blog is the First Step to Getting Their Application

Every prospective student is on their own, personal enrollment journey. If you want your school to be part of that journey, a school blog is the best way to attract them early on in the process.