"Behind the Design" brand story
A step-by-step look at how the shoes are actually made, from first sketch to the factory floor, built to slow readers down mid-scroll instead of just pushing a discount.
The brief
Footwear brands default to discount-led emails almost by reflex: percentage off, new drop, restock. Burju wanted at least some of the calendar to build the brand itself, not just move stock, which meant an email that had to earn attention without an offer doing the work for it.
That's a harder brief than it sounds, because a subscriber's inbox has trained them to skim past anything that isn't obviously a discount. Earning a slower read means giving them a reason to slow down in the first three seconds, before they've decided whether this is worth their attention.
The approach
Rather than describe the craftsmanship in the abstract, the send walks through the actual production process (sketch, pattern, factory floor) in order, so it reads more like a short documentary than an ad. That structure is also what buys it permission to be longer than a typical promotional email: people will read a story if it's actually going somewhere.
The sequencing matters as much as the content. Opening on the sketch, the most human, least "manufactured" part of the process, before moving toward the factory floor, means the reader meets a person and an idea first, and the factory second. Reverse that order and the same information reads as a manufacturing spec sheet instead of a brand story.
Product-craft storytelling like this also does quiet long-term work that a discount email can't: it's the kind of send a subscriber remembers weeks later, even if they don't buy that day, and it's what makes the next discount email land as coming from a brand they already respect rather than one more retailer in their inbox asking for a sale.
Average open rate across the account. Klaviyo's own benchmark rates this "Good."
Open rate on "B-Social," one of the stronger individual sends in the same account.
The email
