Email Marketing: Some Small Tips

Using one of my email subscriptions as an example, in this post i will be examining the  contents from e-newsletter, Retail Week, particularly focusing on its design, personalisation and relevance to me as its end consumer. Additionally i will be drawing upon Mohammad, M et al (2013) Email Marketing review for small businesses to further my review in this post.

First of all, while scanning the message and its contents, i found little to no marketing riff-raff, diversion links to other services or promotional eyesores averting me from which was important to my emailing experience. Content was kept suitable and concise and much in keeping with the permission based content i signed up for. I can safely say that Retail Week have delivered on my expectations giving me the only the content in which i subscribed to prior to this email.

While all the content is somewhat relevant and useful, i feel like the breaking news stories have been compiled together to fill the page. It feels standardised with no focus on personalisation which i know would make for a more pleasurable experience, giving me the opportunity to view only the news stories that suit my interests.

I have these news bulletins set twice daily and expectedly they comprise of similar content, not really giving me any good incentive to open the second bulletin. Rather this, it would be an idea for them to reinforce their strategy by possibly offering me a call-to-action (CTA) incentive or potential free download. While this kind of strategy can negatively impact the perception of the brand, CTA’s get unprecedented traffic through impulse clicks.

While companies want to preserve credibility, there is a way to appear at the very least, polite about trying to sell a product or service. Soft-Sales is an approach where you formulate “gentle reminders” as a means of promoting new products in an attempt to soften the pretence on what can appear to be aggressive sales. Thereby tailoring certain offers on a CTA basis Retail Week could potentially increase their subscription list over a wide range of platforms. Aggregating the  two (CTA and soft-sales) is a cohesive tactic and a potentially very effective one if companies want to explore new revenue streams whilst sustaining a loyal following.

Pre-determined triggers are a fantastic way to target consumers when they are most susceptible and likely to be of value. However, Retail Marketings should be using alternative strategies in order can reinforce the message of the brand and to remain interesting to its target market. Thereby effectively utilizing personalisation techniques and a further promotional incentive, such as CTA strategies, they may find that competitive advantage that we all know is so vital in such a augmented marketplace.

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