Holiday resort increases Facebook followers through GraphicMail newsletter

Email Marketing Case Study: Sefapane Lodge & Safaris

In one campaign, GraphicMail client Sefapane Lodge & Safaris sent out a Valentine’s greeting which greatly succeeded in helping them boost their social media followership:

Says Arlette Bruggeman, Marketing and Sales Executive for Sefapane Lodge & Safaris: "By using GraphicMail, we got a great response when we asked subscribers to 'like' our Facebook fan page, and we now have many more than what we had before."

"I like to work with GraphicMail because it is easy to use and they have a lot of different templates to choose from with the option to completely change them to your own liking. And last but not least… I really like their online support because it is fast and they are very helpful!"

First impressions

In this case we have an example of a 'quick call out' type of email; one that's easy to read with a single point of focus. Again there is no mistaking the nature and purpose of the email right from the start.

Key learnings

1) Simplicity is king: Everything about this mailer has been done with as little as possible content. Evidence of them knowing what they wanted to achieve with the send even before drafting it. 

2) Communicate with purpose: The clear goal of this send was to increase their social media followership by getting subscribers to ‘like’ their Facebook page. The layout has been smartly set up so that a clickable facebook icon is the very first thing any reader would notice. You just can't miss that big red "f".

3) Less is more: This is a perfect example of how having only one call to action on a marketing email can sometimes be very potent. The newsletter can be read, understood and acted upon all within moments.

This February, Sefapane once again managed to impress us with their Valentine's promotion newsletter. We decided to take a closer look at it as well, to highlight a few pointers on how they are making email marketing work for them.

First impressions

This newsletter is real eye-candy. Before you’ve even read a single word of what they have to say, you're already sitting up and paying attention simply because of how beautifully the colouring and images have been implemented.

Key learnings

1) This newsletter is a good example of designing for the preview pane. Straight off the bat you know exactly what it’s about and that it'll be worth your while to give it a read.

2) The layout is elementry and effective. It's obvious at which points to begin and finish reading, and how the content has been positioned in order of priority. Notice how the vertical lines in the background encourages one to read from top to bottom, instead of letting your eyes dart around randomly.

3) The text is minimal, but impactful. They've said what they needed to say and did it in as few words as possible.

With the picture of the romantic candle-lit table, as well as the the colour scheme and decorative heart frame, there’s just no mistaking that this is a Valentine’s mailer: perfect for most readers, who take no more than 2 or 3 seconds to scan everything in their inbox to look for relevant offers that they’d want to take advantage of.