Between 2001 and 2004, I kept a running log of the catalogs I'd receive during the holiday season. It was fun to see the new books coming out (eLuxury! eve.com! RedEnvelope! eZiba! Ashford.com!) as well as the changes that the old standards were making.
But never in that time did it occur to me to track "offers" during this season. Before 2006, promotional offers at holiday were rare, and limited to a handful of segments -- reactivation offers for formerly high-RFM households, for example -- and post-Christmas sale drops. In fact, I recall a time when I summarily declined all November/December list rental requests if there was any kind of promotion attached to the mailing.
My, how times change.
Today, the volume of new and refreshing catalogs in my mailbox are dwindling, while those I do receive are rife with promotions: Free Shipping, 10% Off, Tiered Discounts. Conversely, the sheer quantity of "Cyber Monday" emails in my Hotmail account in the last 36 hours or so have been overwhelming.
So in the interest of old traditions (and new technologies), I thought I'd do a roundup of the offers we received today in our collective TimesTwoMarketing emails accounts.
Tell us, what offers did YOU receive for CyberMonday? Who did a good job, and who let you down?
Also, come back Thursday for our roundup of the quality of the communications we received, and which retailers did a good job promoting an offer while protecting their brand.