When I create email calendars for clients, one of the first things I do is consider the seasons.
Can we tie our product to the changing season?
For example, if we sell running shoes and spring is coming up… can we highlight any waterproof features in our shoes?
Or if summer’s around the corner… Do our shoes offer any benefits, like being sweat-resistant or machine-washable?
This is an easy way to add discountless campaign ideas to your calendar (although you can always run a seasonal discount promo if you want).
Flux Footwear, a shoe brand focusing on stylish yet minimalist shoes, offers a great example.
The best part is they don’t even have to use a lot of copy.
Read on to learn why (plus a lot more)…
| Table of Contents |
| About Flux Footwear The Email: Seasonal Selling Email Angles The Subject Line and Preview Text: The Body Copy Takeaways What to Do Next |
About Flux Footwear
Flux Footwear is a footwear brand (wow, who would’ve guessed!) specializing in minimalist and adaptive yet stylish running and training shoes. Flux also sells socks, hats, and EMF-shielded crossbody bags.
Flux Footwear was cofounded in 2020 by Isaac Mertens, Benjamin Loschen, and Zach Frey.
The first two had the dream — an advanced athletic shoe that combined adaptability and natural movement with style. But they lacked the manufacturing background to get started.
They reached out to several designers. Eventually, they connected with Zach Frey, a footwear designer with a decade of experience at Reebok and Puma. While there, he learned a lot about the intricate movements and articulations of the foot and toes at that job…
And brought this knowledge with him.
The trio put their brains together to craft a prototype shoe that carefully accounted for how every bit of the foot strikes the ground while running.
Their crowdfunding campaign for the first shoe broke its $15,000 goal in two hours back in 2020. It was only up from there, and today
Since then, well, the brand has launched several shoe models in plenty of colors.
The Email: Seasonal Selling Email Angles
Today’s email is themed around the coming summer season and uses a big benefit of the product in question for this theme.
The email structure itself is short, mixing visuals and text in what I believe is an excellent balance:
There’s color, but it’s not overbearing. It’s just enough to catch and keep interest. Just four total images. And just seeing text alone makes the reader curious — they want to see what they’ll learn from this email.
Plus, good use of white space. Flux didn’t cram unnecessary elements in to seem more helpful. Overall, it’s nice to look at.
So far, we have the best bits of a “billboard email” (of which there are few) with some copy to get attention. Let’s look at each piece:
The Subject Line and Preview Text:
The subject line is niche-relevant and employs some humor:
“Going commando,” if you didn’t know, technically means wearing no underwear beneath your pants.
(It allegedly offers benefits, particularly for me. You can imagine why, but I’m skeptical. But that’s neither here nor there.)
But the subject line would fall flat if it were for the clarificatory preview text:
The subject-preview complex conveys the benefit in a more tactile fashion. People know what “Going Commando” means. Pardon any images I put in your head, but going commando implies “freedom of movement” and “let them breathe,” so to speak.
Same thing with the feet.
Also, “Go Commando” adds some wit. “Go sockless this summer” is more boring.
The Body Copy
The email body starts with a hero image, some copy, and a CTA button:
This combines visual elements — crucial for apparel, including shoes — with copy.
It’s almost like a “plain text” section with the image as the background rather than a standalone image.
The headline reiterates the subject line idea. Then, the copy introduces the product’s big benefit relevant to the summer training angle.
Finally, a CTA button. This gives less-skeptical readers a chance to buy now.
Those who need a bit more persuading can continue to the next section and learn why the reader should ditch their socks for these shoes:
You always hear “feature, then benefit.” But Flux does benefit first (each list item), followed by the feature and some dimensionalization to make that benefit feel real.
Speaking of, I like how this is a numbered list with each item bolded. Plus, notice the spacing between each. Flux Footwear maxed out the readability factor here.
Rounding out this section is another CTA button for people who are ready to buy at this stage of the email.
Yet we’ll have a few stragglers who need more. That’s why Flux’s email goes on:
A few more images to show the shoes in action.
One is a close-up to focus on the shoe’s look in isolation and demonstrate how the shoe moves/articulates in motion. This is crucial for the next section, as you’ll see in a moment.
The other is a full shot of an athlete using them to train. This also highlights the style, but from a different perspective — what a person looks like with them on rather than just the shoe.
Having both perspectives helps customers picture themselves in the shoe as they tackle the trails or conquer the stairs.
But there’s one last bit that we need to cover. Like I said, the left image in the current section sets up the next section well:
Flux highlights each key feature and where they are to de-abstract them.
You’ve seen the whole shoe up close, so now you can see how each feature (and its respective benefit) works together to create a comfortable and optimal training experience…
In style.
Oh, and yes, there’s one more CTA button for the people who got this far.
One last bit:
Not much to say here. I simply enjoy how even the footer has the brand colors and logo, along with a pithy “Made to Adapt” slogan and social links.
Simple, yet it does its job as a footer well.
Takeaways
Here are some big takeaways:
1. The Copy Mechanics
A few mechanical takeaways:
Readability and appearance
Flux uses various font sizes, spacing, bolding, and lists to draw attention and make the email easy to read.
The brand also uses white space well, avoiding the error of cramming more in just to “fill space.”
Image + copy balance
Shoes are technically apparel, and apparel is one of the few industries where I recommend using images.
All the visualization copy can only go so far when it comes to an item someone will wear on their person. They want to see it.
So Flux doesn’t go full plain-text, but they don’t get carried away with images. They have a hero, a close-up, a full-body shot, and a diagram.
The copy rounds things out so readers get a balanced helping of style and athletic benefits.
2. The Email Structure
The email structure is as follows:
- Hero image + headline
- Subheadline
- CTA 1
- Body copy
- CTA 2
- Product images
- Infographic
- CTA 3
Pretty simple. But notice how Flux placed a CTA after each section. This captures readers at various levels of buyer readiness. It also helps address more objections and questions.
3. The Overall Strategy
Seasonal selling
Flux sent this on May 22. That’s 1.5 weeks from June. The weather’s warm.
So Flux is doing some seasonal selling.
Seasonal selling often works best as the season approaches since people feel better about themselves if they “prepare” for it.
It’s a good way to “launch” the new season for brands whose products may have a seasonal component.
Must be why Flux did it.
You can still sell throughout the new season, of course. You’ll have to change up the angles in the emails, though.
Here’s another example:
Flux sells waterproof running shoes. Those would make a great item for late February.
“Get ready for the snow to melt and the sun to come out while keeping your feet dry in the rain.” That type of angle.
Retention ceiling strategy
I’m not sure what things look like behind the scenes at Flux, but these are particularly good cross-sells to people who bought Flux’s trainers… especially in this email.
The trainers are suited for walking and cross-training. Maybe lifting, too. The running shoes are purpose-built for running. When the summer hits, people who spent winters in the gym with their trainers want to get outside and run.
Boom. Sell the running shoes. Since existing customers are easier to sell to than new ones, this is a surefire way to make sales.
This helps Flux hit the “retention ceiling” — the max number of products a reasonable customer would buy.
One recommendation for Flux
If I could offer Flux Footwear one idea to make their email marketing even better (and save them some time):
Repurpose this type of angle into a more text-based piece.
They could write a whole email about the downsides of wearing socks when running. Maybe multiple (one covers discomfort, another covers inconvenience of washing socks, a third covers potential health problems if they exist, a fourth for style since sockless can look more stylish)…
Then present their shoe as the solution.
What to Do Next
- Get on my email list using the signup form below for more Email Breakdowns and other helpful marketing content.
- Share this with someone who might find it helpful (or entertaining).
- Reach out to me if you want help writing emails like this one.
- Check out Flux Footwear for minimalist yet stylish shoes that strengthen your feet and feel good!