Fashion Email Marketing: 32 Workflow Ideas (With Real Examples)

Fashion eCommerce will be a global size of $1,1031.1 billion by 2027 = business is booming again.

Also, third-party cookies are going = ads will become less successful = emails will become twice as important.

And who will win? The stores that send amazing emails - based on shopping journey (NO mass emails).

Here's a look at the kind of fashion emails you can send to:

New subscribers

First-time buyers

Seasonal buyers

Loyal customers

Cart abandoners

Idle shoppers

Email Marketing Examples For Apparel Stores

NEW SUBSCRIBERS

1. Engage through a spinwheel

Spinwheels tickle the shopper’s brain with variety, action and an undetermined reward at the end of it all.

This can especially be more exciting for new shoppers who’re just getting acquainted with your brand, and is looking for a reason to engage more.

Here’s a format you could adopt for your apparel eCommerce emails:

2. Highlight the best inside perks

Research says when shoppers experience great engagement from a brand, they’re 7 times more likely to respond when you send them promotional material.

This means you need to pave the way for more engagement for those who’ve just joined your email list—eCommerce fashion brand Nasty Gal does this by telling new sign-ups about the benefits:

You might like: 40 Discount Email Templates (& Examples) for eCommerce Stores

3. Help them take action

Especially when shoppers have made their way into your email list but haven’t bought from you, it’s an opportunity for you to tell them to choose from actions.

Check out how Nordstrom does it—they talk about getting gifts, getting styled and getting rewarded:

4. Guide them towards what’s most wanted

Unlike existing customers, newcomers on your fashion email list are more likely to convert when you tell them what other customers are picking—check out how fashion brand Net-A-Porter does it in their eCommerce email strategy:

FIRST-TIME BUYERS

1. Find an interesting way to say thank you

58% of users check their email first thing in the day.

So if you’re sending a thank you email for your apparel eCommerce brand that switches the brain cells on, your first time shoppers will thank you.

J. Crew, for example, puts in undeniable character into their thank you emails:

2. Get ‘em to follow you on social

When you think of how 70% of shoppers will recommend their most-loved brands through social media, promoting your social handles through your fashion emails becomes a no-brainer.

Exactly how ecommerce fashion brand Cusp by Neiman Marcus does it in this apparel eCommerce email—

3. Highlight influencer recommendations

Pick the right influencer, pick the audience that’s  most likely to engage with their content and pick a category that’ll be loved instantly—and you have a winning combination to make one-time customers repurchase.

Take a look at how Shopbop gets this right, using a simple yet powerful layout and dynamic product recommendations in their fashion eCommerce email:

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4. Discount chosen picks from browsed categories

Remember: if they’ve bought once, they’ll buy once if you can make it easy for them to find all the products they’ve ever glanced at in your store in one place.

Your eCommerce fashion email is that place and you can optimize it to fit in more products just like Kate Spade Saturday does:

5. Build a “connection”

It’s one thing to say “thank you for your purchase” and quite another to validate shoppers for choosing you—throwing in a line on why you’ll continue to make a great choice can add value.

Check out how smoothly eCommerce fashion brand Abercombie & Fitch does this:

6. Roll out those exclusively online offers

The benefit of this is clear, especially when someone has bought for the first time and needs to buy again—another way to shake your email list up is to announce an “email only” offer.

Check out how Ann Taylor communicates this:

SEASONAL BUYERS

1. Recommend a high-value brand favorite

Since this is a crowd that picks only during the peak season, you’ve gotta be picky about what you showcase as part of your fashion eCommerce email.

A great way to go about it is to feature just one product and position it in a way that your shoppers convert—here’s a wonderful example from MARCS:

You'd also want to check out: How to Boost Fashion eCommerce Conversion Rate

2. Feature “comeback” bestsellers

If out-of-stock is a fashion eCommerce holiday marketing strategy to be leveraged, so is “comeback.”

In fact, the two can go hand-in-hand perfectly—and when you combine them to attract peak season shoppers, you have a winner.

Check out how Duvin Design Co.  fashions this comeback email—it carries a subtle sense of urgency by highlighting the seasonality of the products:

You might like: Best-Performing Holiday Email Templates for eCommerce (+ Brand Examples)

3. Position those quantity discounts smarter

Peak season buyers will buy more with quantity discounts, quite naturally.

You can increase this likelihood by segmenting the categories you feature for various audiences and the message you send out with your headline.

Nine West, for example, hints at stocks not laying beyond summer and features select categories for the quantity discount deal in their fashion eCommerce email:

Recommended reading: 23 Marketing Ideas For Online Fashion Stores (With Examples & Case Studies)

4. Highlight the most popular + affordable categories

Anchor your fashion eCommerce email in fast-flying categories and make sure you state the starting price to hook your peak season buyers—just like Rainbow does:

5. Make the shopping nudge small to draw attention

If you don’t factor in peak season shopping fatigue for buyers in this category, your fashion email strategy may just fall short.

Making the wish BIG and the shopping nudge small can be key—eCommerce fashion brand Kate Spade shows us how:

LOYAL CUSTOMERS

1. Tell them you’ve published their review

Many eCommerce fashion brands throw in reviews to drive customers towards purchases.

But imagine doing this in a non-transactional fashion email, targeting a loyalist who’s written a great review—J. Crew knows the best way to do this without sounding shady or weird:

2. Remind them what you both have is “exclusive”

The best way to do this is to bring them news and views of a product launch before you take them to anybody else—check out how Loeffler Randall does it, while staying simple and not cluttering it with too many elements:

3. Get those “X Days of Deals” rolling

This is exactly what will help you roll conversions and engagement into a single package—send one different deal or reward every day after an introductory teaser fashion email and you’re sorted.

Hey, you might also want to read: 15 Top Examples of eCommerce Teaser Emails (+ Templates)

Check out how Backcountry does it:

You might like: eCommerce Email Design: 25 Beautiful Examples (& Why They Drive Sales)

4. Offer them recommendations-with a twist

We say take the opportunity of telling loyalists of an out-of-stock product while recommending them similar styles—trust us, this one really works, as Adidas proves:

5. Use social proof to drive gifting

When you’re strategizing on your fashion eCommerce emails, there’s nothing called too much loyalty.

eCommerce brand Everlane proves that surveying customers for their favorite gifts isn’t just important, talking about them in a fashion email is impactful:

6. Surprise ‘em early

As a fashion eCommerce brand, you’ll need to come up with ingenious ways to tell your most loyal customers there’s none like them.

Like what eCommerce apparel brand Free People does very well is to offer early access surprises like this one:

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7. Make up for bad experiences

There will be times in the year when your website won’t work well (like during peak season) or when products will sell out faster during a particular deal.

Make it your opportunity to drive value for your loyal customers like eCommerce fashion brand Wet Seal does:

CART ABANDONERS

1. Warn them about selling out kindly

This cuts through the typical fashion eCommerce clutter of pushy emails.

Check out how fashion brand Fashion Nova does it:

You should also read: Reducing Fashion eCommerce Cart Abandonment: 12 Proven Strategies

2. Hint at subsequent free shipping

Any cart abandoner high on intent otherwise will jump at the promise of free shipping in the future—see how Rue La La drives this message strategically through this fashion eCommerce email:

3. Drive the “pangs” with emotional copy

What creates an impact is if your fashion email copywriting can make your shoppers imagine beyond the regular cart abandonment nudges—check out what eCommerce fashion brand Rent the Runway does:

You might like: 52 Cart Abandonment Email Subject Lines That Actually Work

4. Go beyond “hurry” to reflect urgency

Position it as a “reminder”While almost half of all the cart abandonment emails are clicked on, it’s undeniable that they have a pushy quality about it.

So, one strategy you could take to tone this down is to use it as a reminder and leave the choice of the purchase more with the shopper—notice how Jack Wills does it:

IDLE SHOPPERS

1. Give them updates about what they’ve missed (+ a deal)

Talk about new edits, changes you’ve made to your website, fresh surprise deals you’ve been offering your loyalists—and throw in a discount or a coupon code.

Here’s how Land’s End communicates in their re-engagement fashion emails:

2. Make the re-connect super relatable

What we mean is: put the idle shopper at the center of it all, give their preferences importance—that’s how eCommerce fashion brand Clarks wins back customers:

You might like: Re-engagement Email Examples That (Actually) Win Back Subscribers

3. Use a story to take them towards free delivery

It’s common for idle customers to give brands they’ve stopped engaging with, the royal ignore.

But if you can craft your fashion eCommerce email with the end objective of making them sit up and pay attention, nothing like it.

Fashion brand Missguided shows us what it takes:

4. Flank email preferences with a big sale announcement

It’s easy to just ask for email preferences when shoppers have been idle for a while, but when you throw a highlighted deal, chances of conversions just increase:

5. Leverage a gift card

Better still, make it possible for the original email recipient to share it with someone they know so that the sale can anyway happen.

Check out how apparel brand Mr. Porter doesn’t just leverage a gift card, but chooses an anniversary date to send it out to the disengaged shopper:

5 great ways to add to your fashion eCommerce email list

1. Make your content differentiate you as a brand

This would include what kind of blogs you feature on your site, how helpful your product descriptions are and how well you break down your brand benefits.

2. Leverage a strong social proof game across your site

To grow your fashion eCommerce email database, just featuring product page reviews may not work. Instead, showcase select reviews in your gift recommendation pages, label images with specific words from reviews and make your social wall prominent & shoppable.

3. Drive sign-ups through your social channels

Feature a product discovery quiz in your Insta bio, use a gift finding guide during peak season or showcase an influencer’s blog while gating some part of the content there.

4. Strengthen your referral program

Make it quick, relatable and ensure the turnaround time & associated conditions are simple—one fashion brand that aces referrals is Girlfriend Collective—check out this quick example:

5. Come up with some great contest/giveaway ideas

Feature some bestsellers and ask your loyalists to tag X number of friends or announce a collective deal when an existing customers shares X number of email IDs with you—as long as you respect privacy and don’t spam potential shoppers, it’s likely you’ll convert well.

Recommended reading:

30 Amazing eCommerce Email Templates (from 6 industries)

32 Amazing Valentine’s Day Email Examples (eCommerce)‍

Top 20 lead nurturing emails in eCommerce

Fashion emails or iconic conversion drivers?

Most apparel eCommerce store owners don’t see email as a serious revenue stream.

Ask them about the importance of email marketing, and you'll hear: “we don’t really have a major strategy,” “we mostly use generic templates,” or “we just send emails to people on our list.”

BUT AT THE SAME TIME:

There are stores out there that drive 30%+ of their revenue from email marketing.

Engage can help you do the same - Book a free demo.

We’ll show you:

• workflows we can create for your store,
• proven ways to drive 30% or more $$ from email alone, and
• successful templates and strategies from your industry (and others).