Parenting is easier in better shoes

According to FitFlop anyway. And I agree. In fact, this email is my hands-down favourite for Mother’s Day 2024.

There are three big reasons I love it. And, guess what? These three big reasons are three big things you can do to make your customers feel a bit better about being spammed by you at peak-guilt season and open your emails too.

1. Wait, what?

Mother’s Day offers inside! Open for a special Mother’s Day surprise! Treats treats treats! Buy buy buy! We’re selling you stuff! More stuff! Buy stuff!

Oh, bore off.

FitFlop cuts through the noise by telling us how we can be nicer to our kids.

Stops you in your tracks, doesn’t it? No sales (at least not immediately). Not what you’d usually get from your spammy sales inbox. And certainly not the advice you were expecting from a shoe retailer. You’re going to open that email first, right?

2. Thank God someone gets it.

Treat yourself! Buy flowers! Buy chocolates! Book a spa day! Go away for the weekend! Sip Champagne on a rooftop terrace in Milan while Tom Hardy feeds you grapes using his mouth!

Sounds great (the last one especially). But in reality? Mums aren’t doing this.

We’d like to do this (the last one especially). But school runs, taxi services, jobs, budgets, exhaustion and everything else makes it kind of a challenge. FitFlop’s email works because it’s asking us to do something we already do anyway – but just treat ourselves a bit kinder while we’re at it. So we might be stuck in the playground aka parenting hell, but we’re wearing shoes comfy enough to run when the kids get trapped at the top of the park’s death slide.

3. Oooh, something for me…?!

We’re back to the treats. Treat your mum! Treat that mother figure in your life! And now, treat someone, anyone, everyone except yourself!!

Lots of us have a mother-like person we’d quite like to show some appreciation for on Mother’s Day (my mum is exceptional, FYI). But what about us? If we can’t do the Tom Hardy grapes-and-snogging thing, is there nothing left?

FitFlop says there is. And it’s a pair of shoes. Sure, we want a spa day. But we need shoes – so we can’t feel bad about buying them (‘cos ain’t motherhood guilt a big thing?!). We might be rushing around after angry toddlers but we may as well look lovely and feel comfy while we’re at it.

Mother’s Day is kinda done for the 2024 now, yeah? Worry not. Not only can you use this tactic next year, it works pretty well for the rest of your email marketing copy, too.

1. Break through the noise.

Buy, open, buy, discover, buy, offers, buy! Being the same as everyone else is lazy. But being different is surprisingly easy. My favourite example of this is this new office announcement on LinkedIn. I don’t know Matt Rolfe. But I do know shouting “We’re next to Greggs!” caught my attention like a tedious “Welcome to our new office” most certainly would not.

2. Tell your customer you get them.

You know who they are, you see their woes and you can offer them something that makes sense to the lives they lead. Don’t piss them off with inaccessible dreams (though I have heard Tom Hardy’s spent a lot of time filming in Yorkshire….).

3. Give them something that’s accessible enough they’ll want it.

Pretty sure no mum sits there thinking “Jeez, I need to be more of a twat to my child”.

Make your message relevant with something your customers actually feel they need, want, or is such a no-brainer they’ll buy it from you instead of someone else ‘cos your email cuts to the chase.

We OBVIOUSLY need to give mums something that makes us separate entities from our children. But when that’s not possible, we talk to them about what they need. That’s sanity, and shoes. And maybe a spa.

“Sounds nice Laura love, but WTF am I supposed to write in my emails then?”

I’ll either teach you, or do it for you. Here’s how.