Poor Email Breakdown: Lady Black Tie Promo Email

Promotion emails are a good thing to include in your email marketing strategy. They help keep your products in front of customers and drive sales even if the items you're promoting aren't new and shiny.

However, you need to do it right, or they can end up turning people off rather than getting them to buy. Unfortunately, I have an example of an email that did just that for me.

In this post, we’ll break down this product promotion email from Lady Black Tie and what they did wrong. As a reminder, these are my opinions, and I’m not sending any hate to the person who wrote this. I’m using this email for educational purposes by pointing out what didn’t work for me (and probably other subscribers).

Product Promotion Email Breakdown

Subject Line

While the subject line of this email did catch my attention, it was for the wrong reasons. Reading it immediately gave me the ick for a couple of reasons.

1. It’s out of date. The “very demure” trend started in summer 2024. This email came out in the summer of 2025. This makes the email feel really out of touch.

2. Too much internet speak. I get that they’re trying to appeal to a Gen-Z audience, but the use of “very demure” and “POV” makes the email feel like it's trying too hard.

Hero Image

The email opens with a hero image and text. The image itself is a simple, pretty image of a model in one of the dresses they're promoting. But once again, we have the outdated trend and overly online language in the copy.

CTA Button

Under the image is our first CTA. It’s a little boring, but it gets its point across without any cringeworthy language, so that's something.

Copy

This section is almost a word-for-word recreation of the trending audio. Besides being out of date, it’s annoying that it’s so unoriginal. I would have at least changed it up a bit so it caught people’s attention by breaking the expected pattern.

Product Promo

Now we get to the main body of the email, where they’re promoting their milkmaid dresses. Again, they use the “demure” trend as their intro. It’s just annoying at this point. At least the photos are nice, even if the buttons continue to be a bit basic.

IG Promotion

The email ends with a secondary CTA to follow them on Instagram and tag them in your posts with their products. Personally, I wouldn’t have included this. It would have been better as its own email.

My Overall Review

It's probably obvious, but I don’t like this email. Most of it is cringy, outdated, and overused. The parts that aren’t are boring, leading to an overall bad experience.

What You Can Learn from This Email

#1: Be Careful with Trends

Hopping on trends is always a dangerous business. They can feel outdated very quickly, especially if you use them a year later, like this email did. Even if it doesn't end up getting quickly oversaturated, the trend might be dead by the time you get around to publishing your take on it.

If you’re going to use a trend in your marketing, please be (and I hate to use the word in this context) mindful. Choose something that’s not already overdone or boring. And look for ways you can add your own spin to it, rather than copying it word for word.

#2: Make Your Email Clear

The goal of this email is to promote their milkmaid-style dresses. But the whole “demure” thing takes over the email to the point where you can barely tell what you’re looking at or how the two are connected (because they’re not).

It’s okay to do something fun with your promo emails. You do want them to stand out, after all. But make sure the point you’re trying to make and the product you’re trying to promote are front and center.

#3: Use Better CTAs

Frankly, the CTAs in this email are boring. I think I would have rather Lady Black Tie doubled down on the “demure” thing with them than keep them as the basic “shop now”. It insults me as a marketer.

If you want to do one thing to make your emails better, write better CTAs. Keep them clear and easy to understand, but also give them a little life. If I have to see one more “shop here” or “sign up” button, I’m going to scream.

Remember, product promotion emails are meant to promote products. While you can sometimes use trends to do that, it can backfire on you, like it did with this email.

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