5 Common errors that high end department stores are likely to make when creating targeted email campaigns

Not segmenting your audience

Not personalising messages for your audience is a common error that high end department stores are likely to make. They have a lot of different products but not every customer wants to know about every product. Therefore emails need to be personalised to the specific customer to keep them interested, for example showing them products that they are going to personally like. Ways to segment an audience include gender, age, previously purchased products, discounts and many more. This can be seen as ‘customer orientated marketing’. “Customer-oriented marketing attempts to find targeted groups of products with respect to a customer or a group of customers”. (Huang, Zhong and Yao, 2012). This technique of targeted marketing is also known as ‘product recommendation’. (Adomavicius and Tuzhilin, 2005).

Not making the subject line interesting

It is very rare that you would open an email that has a boring subject line. The subject line is the first thing that the customer sees, therefore meaning that it must be intriguing and make the customer want to open the email and read more. It is also a good idea to personalise the subject line, for example with the customer’s name, as this will ensure that the customer feels valued. This could be an error that a high end department store is likely to make as they have so many customers so this may appear time consuming, however creating groups of similar people will make this less time consuming as you can send the email on mass. This can be seen as direct marketing, which “attempts to find groups of customers with respect to a product or a group of products”. (Huang, Zhong and Yao, 2012).

Sending too many emails/ not sending enough emails

A study done by TechnologyAdvice, in 2015, explored the question ‘For what reasons have you marked a business’ emails as spam?’ They discovered that 45% claim that it is because they were receiving too many emails. (Kreimer, 2017). The same study found that the best way to improve an email campaign would be to decrease the amount of emails that are sent. (Kreimer, 2017). People simply get annoyed when they keep receiving pointless emails from the same company. However, on the other hand you must also be sure to send enough emails as you can run the risk of reducing engagement and revenue from your customers. (Kreimer, 2017). A high end department store constantly runs the risk of sending too many emails as they have such a large range of products. However, ensuring that email campaigns are targeted will reduce this risk.

Below is an example of a company that send too many emails. All of the emails show below, are exactly the same, suggesting their email system is flawed. This annoyed me and made me unsubscribe from their mailing list.

 

Lifecycle marketing

Creating successful targeted email campaigns require lifecycle marketing. This is when you should be “speaking to customers differently based on their stage in the buying cycle”. (LaBrutto, 2017). This could be an issue for high end department stores as, due to their large customer base, it may prove difficult to keep track of every customer’s activity.

Poor Email Design

The design of the targeted email must be aesthetically pleasing whilst also getting the message across and functioning successfully and easily. For example, it may look good to have a picture that when clicked on takes you to the company’s website, however how is the customer going to know that they need to click on that picture? Therefore having a simple link next to a picture is more effective and functional in this respect, whilst also still looking appealing. High end department stores may spend too much time in trying to make their emails look good and stand out over stores below them, that they may forget that it also needs to function well and get the message to the customer. (LaBrutto, 2017).

Targeted emails, if used correctly and effectively, are one of the best ways to constantly interact with your audience. This blog piece should act as a good guide for high end department stores when creating their targeted email campaigns to help them avoid the common errors. (Doz, 2016)

Below is an example of a GOOD email that I received. The subject line is captivating and makes it clear that they have taken not of my previous purchases to pick out products that they think I will like. (the picture flicks through a handful of different items). They have also used my name to address the email.

         
Below is an example of a BAD email that I received. The subject line is not intriguing and the email has not been personalised for me. There is a discount code which makes you want to go to their website, however it is a general one available to anyone so does not make me feel valued as a customer.

 

Useful Links

The following link will take you to a guide that suggests the best way to design an email.

https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2017/05/the-really-good-guide-to-email-design-bonus-checklist/

 

The following video talks about MailChimp, which is a helpful service that companies can use to generate successful targeted email campaigns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX-niyx1

 

Link to MailChimp:

https://mailchimp.com/?awid=60436254&awag=53660641324&awad=250923369818&awkw=mailchimp&pid=GAW&source=website&gclid=Cj0KCQiAq6_UBRCEARIsAHyrgUwzGuq9NIVvzZuLAT1tpHyZovbFq7nz98jwYMIMUZXP3JPhVjcdW-waAv4ZEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CJXZg_WRtdkCFUqO7QodkG0LlQ

 

 

Reference List

 

Adomavicius, G., and A. Tuzhilin .2005. Toward the next generation of recommender systems: A survey of the state-of-the art and possible extensions. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Engineering, 17(6):734–749.

 

Doz, J. (2016). Seven Email Marketing Errors That Can Ruin Your Rep | DOZ. [online] DOZ. Available at: http://www.doz.com/marketing-resources/email-marketing-errors [Accessed 21 Feb. 2018].

 

Huang, J., Zhong, N. and Yao, Y. (2012). A UNIFIED FRAMEWORK OF TARGETED MARKETING USING CUSTOMER PREFERENCES. Computational Intelligence, 30(3), pp.451-472.

 

Kreimer, I. (2017). 5 Email Marketing Mistakes to Stop Making (and What to Do Instead). [Blog] Campaign Monitor. Available at: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2017/07/5-email-marketing-mistakes-to-stop-making/ [Accessed 20 Feb. 2018].

 

LaBrutto, M. (2017). 7 Common Retail Marketing Mistakes & How to Remedy Them. [Blog] Bluecore. Available at: https://www.bluecore.com/blog/common-retail-marketing-mistakes-remedy/ [Accessed 20 Feb. 2018].

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