Retail Email of the Week: YLiving Offers Inspiration, Content

YLiving, an online retailer of modern furniture, lighting and accessories, uses email marketing to showcase seasonal products.

Mailer Name: YLiving
Date Emailed: April 19, 2017

A brand of YDesign Group, YLiving boasts an extensive collection of products that cover a wide range of styles.

As the calendar moves further into spring, YLiving is using the opportunity to promote its outdoor furniture. “The Material is the Message: Outdoor Designs in Teak, Concrete, Metal and More” this email's subject line reads.

“OUTDOOR FURNITURE EVENT” blasts the headline just below the navigation bar. Two additional factors — free shipping and limited-time availability — appear underneath to grab recipients’ attention as well.

The top image shows a set of teak furniture arranged on a lakeside deck. Before even reading what follows, YLiving has created a customer mind-set — one more ready to buy.

A block of copy comes next. It informs the reader about the material used in the fabrication of the furnishings shown in the image.

With a couple of sentences, the copy describes the value proposition of that specific material to the customer. For example, teak is “naturally resilient to the elements.”

A grid of four images comes next, each showing a piece of furniture made from that material. Each clicks through to its product page on YLiving's website.

This arrangement makes for a lengthy email. Four materials (teak, concrete, metal and plastic) mean many choices for consumers. So a reminder of the sale — and its discounts of up to 20 percent — comes in handy.

YLiving offers additional inspiration to customers in the form of content marketing. The email provides two articles from the retailer’s blog. An image and a few sentences tease both stories, and click through to the full post on the company's blog page.

The Takeaway
Give your customers inspiration and content based on how the changes in seasons affects their lives — and how your brand's products can fit into those changes.