Email Spotlight: Patagonia
Patagonia are an outdoor clothing company who initially caught my attention by making waves for their environmental activism. After subscribing to their emails I wanted to delve a little deeper as to why they’re also rocking the email channel.
They go so far as to refer to themselves as “The Activist Company”, with a mission statement of:
“We’re in the business to save our home planet”.
Below are some examples of how they do a great job keeping their customers up to date on exclusive offers, activism awareness, events and relevant content.
Email 1
Chosen for:
- Personalisation – Even though Patagonia is an international company with over 1000’s employees, they are actually big supporters of independent retailers, especially ones that are involved in grassroot activism that align with their own causes. This email stood out in my inbox with its high level of personalisation. The email content is based on a users address and showcasies independent retailers in their local neighbourhood. In the example The Brokedown Palace is featured which is just a short walk down the road from me!
Email 2
Chosen for:
- UGC – Patagonia are also really good at establishing connections and engaging with their customers. They often showcase this relationship in their emails through using user generated content of customers using their products in real life.
Email 3
Chosen for:
- Crediting Photographers – When they are not using UGC, Patagonia always makes sure to credit the photographers for photos they use in their design, which is something we don’t see enough of in marketing. The email design is a good example of them pushing their template and breaking the grid and also using the inverted pyramid layout tactic to draw the readers eye down towards the call to action.
Email 4
Chosen for:
Content – It’s refreshing to see a product email in the inbox that isn’t 100 percent dedicated to pushing sales. Patagonia do a great job of pairing products with interesting content and really adding that extra value for their consumers.
Email 5
Chosen for:
Environment first, products second – The main reason I love Patagonia emails is because they use the channel to power their fight to stop the environmental crisis. Through promoting their platform for Action to raising more than $21,000,000 in donations for grassroot activists, they use their following and influence to really make a difference.
Patagonia’s email content is always timely, relevant, and interesting. Using newsletter templates are a great option for teams to create campaigns quickly and be more reactive to their market and competitors. It also ensures guidelines are adhered to, making it harder for campaigns to go off brand.
It would be nice to see Patagonia send more one-off solus emails. Sending more reactive emails could allow them to push boundaries, and stand out in the inbox amongst the newsletter templates.
Brittany Catton
Account Manager @ Action Rocket