Goodsender of the week: Darty and its email notifications!

published on 24/05/2016,

updated on 19/12/2022

Well, okay, it's been dozens of weeks since I've written a "Badsender of the week" or a "Goodsender of the week" (and believe me, I'd love to have the time to do more). So you could say this is the Goodsender of the semester, but that's just to say I'd love to do one every week. Anyway, back to our emails! Yesterday, I received a really nice email from Darty. Yes, you saw it right, Darty, the Weather Darty... I don't want to bore you with my life, but a few months ago, I bought a television from them (and also a fridge), well, not from them, on their website. Since these purchases, I've obviously been receiving newsletters regularly, but also emails from the "Communauté d'entraide Darty". And I say BRAVO! As you may know, we at Badsender are big fans of notifications. If 50% of email marketing traffic could be replaced by targeted notifications, our market would probably be in much better shape! So, back to the "Darty Community". The principle is simple. When someone asks a question on the Darty community site about a product, the buyers of that product receive a notification enabling them to answer the question. The advantages of this type of mechanism are numerous. On the one hand, it creates a substitute for after-sales service. We can't ask all our service agents to know the entire product range by heart, but a regular user of a product can potentially answer a large number of questions. Then there's hyper-targeted, hyper-personalized communication! In this context, it's a safe bet (we're not the authors, so we don't have the results) that these emails are well received by recipients. It's proof that the brand is interested in its customers, that it can be (at least on the facade) disinterested, ... in short, a good strategy for generating new purchases in the future.

What else could be optimized?

Of course, since it doesn't exist, we're not reaching perfection with this email. Firstly, when it's received in Gmail, it falls into the promotion tab and not into notifications or social notifications. Several parameters could be optimized to try and achieve this result (we agree, it's not easy). The graphic and HTML design could do with some improvement. We would have liked to have a responsive and/or Gmail-friendly email, but that's not the case. There's a lot of text inserted into images. The hierarchy of information is not optimal (product not highlighted enough, no branding specific to the community, etc.). The use of domain names (sending, image hosting, landing, etc.) is not very logical from a deliverability point of view. On a final note, the concept seems to be managed by : https://www.apreslachat.com/ Feel free to read one of our previous articles on email notifications.

Identity card

Generic email information:

Subject of the email : A member of the BRANDT B3228HD group requests your attention
From :
Preheader : None
Router : SendGrid

Checklist :

Link to privacy : OK
Link to unsubscribe : OK (but only for communities, not for the whole Darty)
DKIM : OK
Text version : OK
Text to Image Ratio : OK
List-unsubscribe : KO
Friendly reply : OK
Mobile ready : KO

Screenshot of the email

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The author

Jonathan Loriaux

I've been involved in email marketing for over ten years, and my career path began on the technical side (email campaign integration) before moving on to sales (as an eCRM expert) and finally marketing consultancy. For the past 9 years, I've been the author of the Badsender.com blog. Emailing isn't just an expertise, it's truly become my passion, which is why Badsender is now my main activity, with the creation of an emailing consulting business linked to the site.

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7 responses

Valérie D.

9 years ago

funny ... because Darty, their usual router is usually Neolane
Jonathan Loriaux

9 years ago

Here they use a partner to manage this type of campaign. Hence the different router.
Nelson

9 years ago

32 inches is a bit small to watch the euro ... 😉

Anyway ... otherwise very interesting!
Mistergooddeal also does this type of mail.
Or how to make soap with the community 😉
Guillaume

9 years ago

Indeed, a very nice initiative that seems at first glance to be selfless... a great example of Customer Engagement!
That being said, isn't this a missed opportunity to push a personalized offer or offers?
Jonathan Loriaux

9 years ago

Is it really necessary to always think about the offer? Actions thought only for the engagement are also a good opportunity to reconcile consumers with the brands that address them... and to bet on a long-term profitability.
Darty customer

9 years ago

I came across this article while searching for "spam community darty" on Google, which says a lot about my perception of the emails I receive from darty (yes, I wake up and am grumpy to see another one of these spams in my mailbox...)

I'm sorry, but when I spend 2500 euros for a projector, I don't expect the seller to take me for a member of his team.

I am unsubscribed from any Darty newsletter and have never asked to be subscribed to this community.

You receive at least one email per purchased PRODUCT. You can unsubscribe for a given product ("I don't want to receive any more emails asking me for advice about...") but in this case, you will receive two days later an email like "hey cuckoo, we just created an account for you on the community, here is your password", which obviously requires a manual action to unsubscribe.

For me, this is clearly a false good idea. As a regular buyer on the net, I hate buying experiences that lead to sending other than useful emails:

* Order confirmation and invoice
* Delivery tracking

So I would rather classify these mails from the Darty community as badsenders.