“OPEN ME FOR GREAT DISCOUNT”

“10% OFF EXCLUSIVELY FOR YOU”

“HURRY OFFER ENDS MONDAY”

These are only a few of the popular taglines you could see within your mailbox when targeted through email marketing.

Email Marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most popular digital marketing technics around, with the vast majority of e-commerce websites having email marketing as a key element of their business model. (Reimers, Chih-Wei Chao & Gorman, 2016)

Remember: Mobile, Mobile, Mobile – 47% of emails are opened on a mobile device (Lee, 2013) therefore it is key that organizations make their emails compatible with these devices.

So Why Do businesses choose to use Email Marketing?

• It’s simple and easy for a business to do

 

• It has global reach meaning anyone around the globe can be contacted.

 

• Email Marketing is cheap

 

• Easy to reach a large number of people with one solo communication

 

• Email marketing is easy to track and measure

 

• Easy to target different types of customers through making communications personal.

These points can be viewed further here:

http://shoutitoutdesign.com/top-10-advantages-of-email-marketing/

How do you sign up for email marketing?

(Jack Will, 2016)

Recognize the box above??

If you enter your email address into the box above you would have given permission to the owners of the website to send you emails to market their products. Almost every e-commerce website will have box like the one shown above however the way in which they choose to utilize emailing marketing will vary depending on the company.

Effective Email Marketing:

Tag lines:

 The tagline or subject line is the first thing the user will view when they enter their mail box therefore it is key that this is exciting and interesting ensuring that the customer wants to look further into the email.

Personalization:

A customer needs the emails that they receive to be relevant to their interests therefore it is key that the business does some research into the customer behavior and interests before targeting them with email marketing. Also when addressing a user by their first name the business needs to ensure this name is correct and not some made up user name like “Azzaboy 43” as this becomes unprofessional and careless and reflects negatively on the business.

Time of sending the email

The two diagrams show that sending an email to market between 8pm and 12pm is the best time for viewership and that sending an email on the weekend would be the day of the week that utilizes this method.

Free stuff – Everyone loves free stuff therefore offering customers “free” stuff within an email could help utilize this platform.

Read more here:

https://blog.bufferapp.com/8-effective-email-strategies-backed-by-research

Let’s Look At An Example: 

The email shown above is from B&Q is the only email the organisation sends a week, the email address was collected by signing up to a club card in store or online.

The email has a strong subject line showing a half price deal that is available this weekend in stores and online which could entice the user to look further around the website or visit a store. 

The rest of the email shows other products to put an idea into the head of the customer showing then what else the company does and products that could be of interest to the customer.

The final element of the email is the customers personal Club card details giving the email a personal touch and allowing the user to have a barcode of their club card details which the user can present in store when they make a purchase, this barcode *could* tell B&Q whether a purchase has been made through viewership of the email. 

Overall this email is a strong example of email marketing however could do with slightly more personalisation through the inclusions of products that may be of interest to the customer by using information gained from purchases made before from the club card user. 

Rating 8/10

Limitations of Email Marketing:

Melville and Pilce (2008) wrote that email marketing is in danger of being over run by spam therefore any new initiative needs to try and stand out and eliminate the noise within potential customers mail boxes.

My Mailbox shown below shows that within an hour during the normal evening “peak” times I received 5 different emails trying to market different products.

Interesting tag lines and attempted personalization has been used during these emails however none really stand out to me apart from the River Island email that poses a question and I feel curious to look further into the email.

Despite this after viewing the email I did not make a direct purchase from the site, I believe an effective use of email marketing could only be achieved if I was looking out for the email from a certain brand and the type of email that I was looking to receive was expected therefore I would go into my mail box expecting the email.

Therefore my recommendations for a successful email marketing campaign would be:

Timely: a customer would like to know when the email would be received therefore they can enter the mailbox at a certain time looking for that email.

Creative: whether this is through the tagline, Humor could grab attention or a shock factor could tempt the customer to look further into the email

Personalized: An email needs to be personal and something of interest to the user who is viewing it therefore it is key not to take the one size fits all approach to ensure every type of customer is accommodated for.

 

References: 

Anon. (2016). TOP 10 ADVANTAGES OF EMAIL MARKETING. Available: http://shoutitoutdesign.com/top-10-advantages-of-email-marketing/. Last accessed 13th April 2016.

Jack Wills. (2016). Available: http://www.jackwills.com. Last accessed 16th April 2016.

Lee, K. (2013). 8 Effective Email Marketing Strategies. Available: https://blog.bufferapp.com/8-effective-email-strategies-backed-by-research. Last accessed 13th April 2016.

Pavlov, Melville and Pilce . (2008). Toward a sustainable email marketing infrastructure. Journal of Business Research. 61 (11), 1191–1199.

Reimers, Chih-Wei Chao & Gorman, 2016″Permission email marketing and its influence on online shopping”, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 28 Iss: 2, pp.308 – 322