Whether it’s the latest seasonal collection from your favorite fashion brand or a brand new smartphone release, it feels good to own the latest products.
Having a section of your ecommerce store dedicated to new arrivals helps potential customers see your latest products, and is a key way to keep driving engagement on your site.
But, unless you have a superfan on your hands, it’s unlikely that your subscribers are checking out your site daily to see your new releases. That’s why you should send them new arrival emails, letting prospects know what’s hot off the press.
Sending new arrival emails is a great way to keep your subscribers up-to-date and encourage them to shop for new products.
If you want to get your new arrival emails noticed, however, you’ve got to hit your subscribers with eye-catching subject lines. That’s why I’ve compiled a list of the seven best new arrival subject line examples from brands that know how to get you excited about their latest releases.
Use these examples and techniques as inspiration for your new product releases and you’ll start getting more clicks to your store.
1. The North Face
If you’ve ever waited with bated breath for a new album or single from your favorite artist to “drop”, you’ll understand what The North Face is going for with this subject line:
By framing its product launch as a “drop”, The North Face builds instant hype for its new backpacks. This technique creates a feeling of exclusivity and immediacy, heightening the anticipation from their subscribers.
They do another smart thing by telling you exactly what kinds of products they’re launching. This way, you can immediately tell from the subject line whether you’ll be interested in what they’ve got to offer.
There’s no frustration involved in this email—you’re not required to click through to the email body or go on to their website, only to find out you’re not in the market for backpacks after all.
2. TOMS
Sometimes you’re not launching a specific product, but adding a bunch of new ones to your product range.
You could, of course, simply say that you have a lot of new arrivals. Or, you could really lean into the abundance of newness and use it as a selling point, as TOMS does here:
The specificity of “100+” new things to look through is what really works here. Adding a number to their subject line like this bases it in reality, making it both more credible and more enticing. If they have such a large amount of new arrivals, it gets each of their subscribers thinking that there’s bound to be something that appeals to them.
TOMS also pairs this technique with a limited-time offer of free shipping, which adds urgency to the email. Thus, you’re less likely to put off looking at their new collection and more likely to make that purchase today.
3. Tarte
A close cousin of urgency in the world of marketing is scarcity. If you’re unfamiliar, scarcity is a technique where you leverage the limited, exclusive nature of a product to drive potential customers to take action and make a purchase.
Scarcity is a brilliant copywriting technique to incorporate into subject lines with highly anticipated new products, as well as those that you’re releasing for a limited run.
Have a look at how Tarte does it:
In all-caps and with a bright red siren emoji, this subject line is as bold and in-your-face as it gets. It gets the point across quickly and effectively: it’s risky to let the chance to own this new product go by.
If you wanted to add some specificity into a subject line like this, you could include the name of the product or the exact number of items that have been added to your store.
Make sure that your subject line doesn’t get too long, though, or it will lose its catchiness.
4. Beardbrand
Now you have an idea of how to drive subscribers towards purchasing a new, highly anticipated product, you might be wondering how to create that anticipation in the first place.
One idea is to do what Beardbrand does with its new products:
With almost every product that Beardbrand adds to its range, they take to their emails to announce it beforehand and build up hype for their subscribers.
Beardbrand knows that its subscribers are more invested in its brand and products than the average customer might be, and they use that knowledge to their advantage. They tease their product releases ahead of time, often framing them as exclusives that their subscribers can be the first to know about and get their hands on.
You could also stretch these kinds of announcements out into several emails, as a countdown until the products drop in your store. This will keep your subscribers’ eyes glued to their inboxes to find out more about your products and when they’ll go live.
5. Ban.do
Perhaps you’re introducing a product that does something particularly innovative or exciting for your subscribers. How do you let them know, from the very beginning, what it offers them?
It’s as simple as putting the benefit in the subject line. This is how ban.do introduces its new product:
Aside from highlighting “new” right at the front, this subject line appears to be offering more than just another product to buy. Instead, it’s offering something that could genuinely help your mental wellbeing and emotional understanding.
The advantage of doing this over simply putting the name of their product in the subject line is that it tells subscribers so much more about the product and what it can do for them.
Once you click through to the email body, you can see that ban.do is introducing a card deck called “Feeling Feelings”. That doesn’t tell you much on its own, but when combined with the benefit you’ve been given in the subject line, it suddenly seems intriguing.
6. Anthropologie
It can be nice to have an excuse to treat yourself to new goodies. It could be a birthday, a recent achievement, or it’s simply a new month and you want to start it off right.
Anthropologie capitalizes on this impulse to pair a milestone with a new purchase by introducing its new arrivals at the beginning of the month:
Timing their latest releases like this allows their subscribers to get in on the excitement and buzz around the new product arrivals. The way that the word “new” is repeated in this subject line serves to reinforce the feeling of wanting to refresh and revitalize your wardrobe and your home.
The beginning of the month also happily coincides with the time that most people tend to get paid. If you want to catch your subscribers in a mood to splash out and treat themselves, this could well be the perfect time to do it.
7. Too Faced
One final way to get your subscribers hyped about your new arrivals is by collaborating with popular people or brands.
You already know that your subscribers are likely fans of your brand, otherwise, they wouldn’t have provided you with their email address. But what if you released a product or range in collaboration with someone else they love?
Many cosmetics brands already employ this technique, but not a lot of them use it in their new arrival subject lines, like Too Faced does:
After the attention-grabbing “new”, Too Faced goes on to mention its collaborator, the beauty influencer Mariale by name, or rather, by Instagram handle.
If you’re a participant in the social media beauty world, you’ll almost certainly have heard of her. So, a collection with her influence and stamp of approval is worth at least a click through.
Using big names and influencers to make products appear desirable is nothing new, but a product collaboration in a new arrivals email takes it to the next level. It definitely takes some planning, but the results could be more than worth it.
Conclusion
Our inboxes are getting more and more crowded, and email marketing keeps getting smarter and smarter, so it can be intimidating to try and make your brand stand out from the crowd.
Hopefully, these examples have given you a great range of ideas for how to announce and build hype around your own new arrivals to your ecommerce store.
Remember, it all starts with your subject line.
