Opening your fashion store is a big event, whether it’s for the first time or if you’re reopening following the easing of COVID-related restrictions.Regardless of the nature of your opening, clear communication with your customers is vital to ensuring a smooth event.And when it comes to communicating with your customers, email is one of the best tools you have at your disposal.Not only do 91% of consumers check their emails daily, but open rates for the fashion industry are higher than the overall average. Additionally, most Americans prefer hearing from brands through email (72%) compared to social media (17%).All of this is a large part of why email is the most effective marketing channel there is.So the question is not so much whether you should utilize email for your opening, but rather what the best way of doing so is.To help answer this question, below are three emails you’ll want to consider sending as you open your fashion store.PS. Before you set up any of these emails, remember to verify your domain so that your restock alert emails don't hit spam. Learn how to to it here.
Emails every fashion store should be sending
Announcement / invitation email
The first email you should send is an obvious one: an email announcing that your store is opening.This is the email where you inform your subscribers for the first time that your store is opening. In it, it’s best to include relevant details like where your store is located and the exact time you’ll be opening.To avoid your email from coming across as dry announcement of details, you can spruce it up as Marshalls did below by making it more of an invitation.
The use of a count down timer to the opening helps to build anticipation and excitement among their audience as well.
If you’re reopening after a COVID lockdown
If instead of opening for the first time, you’re reopening following an easing of COVID-related restrictions, then the nature of this email will be understandably different.For starters, you might want to go light on the fanfare.While it’s fine to still mention how you’re excited to finally be able to open your store once again, you probably don’t want to invite your entire email list to come over to celebrate.Instead, it’s okay for your email to be more focused on providing details like what hours you’ll be opening, how many people you can have in your store at any one time, etc.It’s also a good idea to reassure customers that you and your staff will be following heightened hygiene practices so that they feel comfortable coming into your store.
Talk about what stock you have in store
Ideally, your announcement email will be sent at least a week in advance of your opening which will give you time to follow it up with another email to get your customers excited.A great way to do this is to talk about what products you have in stock.If you’re launching your own fashion brand as a part of the opening, then you’ll definitely want to take the opportunity to introduce people to your product line.If you had to temporarily shut your business because of COVID, then you might want to adapt this email into more of a ‘back in stock’ email. Especially if you experienced disruptions with deliveries that affected product availability.The email below from Revolve is a good back in stock example.
Of course, if you are reopening following COVID, you might want to include a few lines about how you’re excited to be able to offer the items once more to your customers.
Reminder email
People live busy lives, so it’s entirely possible that they miss your emails about the opening.That’s why it’s important to send a reminder email a day or two before the event just like in the example below.
You can also send a reminder email after you’ve opened. This email would adopt more of a “have you had a chance to visit us” tone rather than reminding people about an invitation to your launch.
Other tips
Ensure you have a solid foundation for email marketing
Ideally, email marketing isn’t something you simply turn on when you need it.Instead, good email marketing strategies are an ongoing process that you can ramp up during particular occasions like a store opening.The success of your email marketing during these occasions will largely depend on the quality of your email list as well.A solid, healthy email list will mean that your emails will be received and opened by a large part of your audience. This, in turn, will improve their effectiveness and help make your opening a bigger success.So before you send your email announcing your store’s opening, it’s important to be collecting email addresses.Shopify email apps like SmartrMail will let you set up email collection forms and popups on your site for free. There are also alternatives for other platforms like WooCommerce.If you haven’t set up any way to capture email addresses yet, then this is something to get on top of straight away.
Don’t rely exclusively on email
As great as email is at connecting with your customers, you should never rely entirely on one channel to spread the word about your opening.Not everyone reads their emails and no matter how good you are at signing people up to your email list, you’ll have customers and fans who aren’t on it.Social media is an obvious choice to help expand the reach of your messaging, especially seeing as fashion brands perform well on platforms like Instagram.Depending on your fashion store, you might even want to consider some more traditional media options like announcing your opening in local newspapers and radio.
Final thoughts
By ensuring that you communicate all the details about your opening with your audience, you’ll stand the best chance of the event going off without a hitch.Reopening as COVID-related restrictions are eased requires a slightly different approach (where you avoid encouraging everyone to come visit on your first day of reopening) but requires the fundamentals of clear communication.In either case, send more than one email to ensure the greatest number of people know about your opening and don’t rely just on email either.Social media and even other forms of traditional communication will help spread the word.Good luck with your opening!Author bioAaron Wiseman is a marketing co-ordinator and content writer for SmartrMail. SmartrMail is the easiest way to send email that delights your customers and gets more sales. The app is available for merchants on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, and Neto.
