Email Marketing

Stop sending boring emails

By | June 11, 2019

Standing out in a sea of typical

Safety clothing does not seem too exciting, and the thought of stuffing people’s inboxes with pictures of yellow vests and tacky clip art seems like a recipe for creating spam. Reliable asked us to develop an email marketing strategy, and we were up for the challenge. When reviewing the competition we discovered a sea of blandness, and knew that focusing on products would lead them down a dead-end street.

Reliable email marketing

Starting with the brand

animation of emailsReliable really was not in the business of clothing, but was in the business of helping clients manage safety clothing programs. They sold the best clothes and made it easy for clients to manage programs. The owner had a reputation of trust and industry knowledge deep expertise. We knew helping him more regularly connect with people would keep their brand top-of-mind. This drove us to center our email marketing around a short personal message that introduces each email. Then, instead of focusing on product, we focused on safety with a loose connection to product. We wanted people to open the email because they were clever and would hopefully make them smile.

Defining results

Instead of just focusing solely on opens and clicks, the personal approach generated engagement. Even though it is a broadcast email, these emails generate personal replies. They are received as personal communication. Open rates remain high a year later, but more importantly they still start conversations.

anatomy of a typical email campaign for Reliable High Performance Products

Some surprises along the way

We segmented the list with slight message variations depending on the audience, but discovered some surprising results. The engagement of the least connected audience was the the highest, and this segment’s open rate remains the highest despite being 280-times larger (that is not a typo) than the most connected segment. Our simple segmentation empowers Reliable to speak more directly to the audience and provides valuable data used to make other marketing decisions.

The key to this campaign and all successful email campaigns is always keeping the recipient in mind. The simple question ‘Would I want to receive it?’ is an valuable gauge.


Want help with your email marketing program? For over 15 years we have been helping clients utilize email to connect with clients and prospects. Contact Jeffery James, a conversation might transform your communication.

Jeffery James
Jeffery James
Jeffery is the Creative Director and Principal of Spire2. He brings marketing expertise from a variety of industries. He excels at understanding clients' corporate objectives, translating them into brand positioning and executing marketing materials that exceed expectations.