We have been advocating marketers consider a multi-message strategy for key promotions, as they do an amazing job of generating incremental response and revenue. Newport News had a nice 3-message sequence tied to President's Day that I thought I'd share:

Message #1
Subject Line: Weekend Exclusive: An Extra 25% off the ENTIRE SITE
Sent: Thursday, 2/12 @ 10:43PM
Content: Broad focus on all categories

Message #2
Subject Line: Get the Beautiful BLUES & take 25% off the ENTIRE SITE
Sent: Saturday, 2/14 @ 10:38PM
Content: Focus on products in blue and aquamarine - "Don't forget"

Message #3
Subject Line: LAST DAY for an extra 25% off the ENTIRE SITE...don't miss it!
Sent: Sunday, 2/15 @ 10:47PM
Content: Broad focus on all categories - "Last Day"


A nice simple flow that takes a good promotion (25% off the entire site) and extends the message across a series of messages.

Without seeing the results, from experience, I can almost guarantee that this strategy resulted in the following:

More exposure (impressions = opens) than a single message
More activity (click-through) than a single message
More revenue than a single message
And a marginal amount of additional unsubscribes

Additionally, the online marketing team at Newport News only had to define 1 promotion and then 3 email designs in sequence to support it. Versus 3 promotions and 3 creatives - much more time-consuming.

Overall, this is a recipe for success. And in today's economic challenges, one all marketers should be using.