After reading the journal article by (Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F, 2012) on the role e-marketing plays within website advertising. I started to looked into the types of e-mails i receive.

Annually, monthly and seasonally I’m bombarded with E-newsletters from Cineworld enticing me with all the latest and greatest movies that are currently released during that period of the year for me to go and watch. However do they actually work?

There are many areas of concern for most folks about receiving e-mails from organisations as they see it as spam or otherwise known as unsolicited e-mails (Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F, 2012).

From the extreme number of complaints this caused, permission based emails, where enforced, which meant that only companies can send e-mails if consumers opt-in to it. This could happen when they first sign up to the organisation to purchase a product or service, they can give them the option to sign up to receive information/newsletters from the company.

This is exactly what happened to me, I use Cineworld quite often as I love movies, I purchase my ticket online and I was offered to receive information about the latest movies which I agreed to. Recipients are more likely to open and read such messages if its more personalised to them, as Cineworld will track my movie habits, this was a major incentive for me to “opt in” to the companies e- mailing list in the prosect of receiving material thats tailored to myself.

What is good, what works well?

The first noticeable part of the newsletter would be that you know it is from Cineworld, by the brand logo on the top left hand side of the e-mail. A study conducted by Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F, (2012), on 20 companies, all receiving their emails, throughout the year explained that ‘Brand logos were used in 99% of the e-mails in their sample’. The managers interviewed from this study confirmed this to be the most important position on the page.

Alongside that would be links to various social media sites which would link to Cineworld’s pages on those platforms, as well as this, if the recipient likes what they saw within the newsletter they have also opted for the option to ‘send to a friend’, which is easier and convenient.

The very large header also works well as its drags the recipients eyes straight away and dials them into the story of the newsletter.

Benefits of E-newletters (perspective of the company)

• Highly trackable- the company can track what has happened to the e-mail once received by the recipients, how many have acknowledged it, opened it, put it in their Junk folders etc.
• Delete or opened- They know how many people clicked onto it and read through it or just opened it and then deleted it, or deleted it straight away before opening it.
• Number of seconds open- Once opened they can track how long someone has spent viewing the page.
• Any scrolling?
• Links followed- any links followed once clicked, as this would link back to their website which can be tracked also.

Call to action

The CTA from the landing page is very simple, they want you to buy tickets to see the movie, the way that they can see if the newsletter is working in that aspect is simple, the increased number of clicks which lead to an increased number of traffic on their website, which leads to an increase in sales of tickets. All this can be tracked and monitored by Cineworld.

Personalisation

There is a small sense of personalisation, as it has your name at the top of the newsletter, even though they have spelt it wrong, this alone can put me off from reading the newsletter, as it is not addressing me right from the start. It does not feel like its addressing you personally. More like a generic e-mail sent to 1000 other people, which it is, don’t get me wrong, however it should not feel like that. It should feel more welcoming speak to me as if they know what I like and what I should go an watch. E-mails such as this for a company such as Cineworld should try their best, so that every section the reader scrolls past makes them want to go an see that movie ASAP!

10 out of the 20 retail firms studied, 50%, used no personalisation. The other 10 cases, the level of personalization varied from specific customer details such as title, given name, and family name. Therefore this is quite common for organisations not to put a lot of personalisation in their emails which should be a key concern of theirs.

Template/design

The Design and layout of this newsletter is very angular and have a very structure layout, very many boxes and only one long rectangular box in the middle to split the body of the newsletter. I think the longer the e-mail, the weaker it gets at the bottom and If an e-mail is unnecessarily long the customer will switch off.

What does not work?

From looking at the pure content that this email has to offer me, I would say that it does catch my eye with the first Large Picture of the new movie, The hunger games part 2, as that is something I would want to see, however as I scroll and continue to scroll the content becomes less personalised, less towards my interests, and just information and all the new releases which put me off and will make me close down the email and delete it. It does not speak about any offers/promotions on offer. Nor does it encourage the unlimited Cineworld card, which I would recommend should be on each issue to re-remind the reader and persuade them to get it.

There are certain way to improve your e-newletter, take a look at this online article -> 10 Ways to Improve the Open Rates of Your Marketing Emails.

What  could be improved?

I think adding some form of animation or interactivity would be a good idea, as of now its all static. It could be a good idea to an the trailer to some movies right on the newsletter, instead of having to view it once clicked to go onto the Cineworld website.

Opt-out

As illustrated by the image below, if you so wish to opt out to the e-mails and e-newletters that you get from these companies, there is an option to do this, most emails have it. Once you scroll all the way to the bottom, you find some information which looks like this:

It asks you if you no longer wish to receive emails, to press the unsubscribe button, most of the time it would automatically once clicked, or it could re-driect you to their website, where you can enter you email address again to be taken off their mailing list.

Use of images

You would expect for the use of images to be used quite often and to be quite vivid, however they are all linked with hyperlinks back to their webitsite, presumably for more information, however Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F, (2012) have stated that too many graphics, and too many hyperlinks have a negative effect. “If an e-mail is too complicated, the customer can feel overwhelmed or lost, which may cause them to lose focus and interest rapidly.”

Finally…

Therefore to answer the question is it a nuisance? or pure genius? I would say that it would be mostly a nuisance. Main reasons are that the personalisation towards the reader are low, its way to busy, with a lot of graphics and hyperlinks which overwhelmed me. What to take away from this is very simple, to spend to engage with those you are trying to address, todays modern world has a lot to offer. To use tracking software more intelligently and build and an algorithm which can determine what the reader would find more appealing. With e-newsletters the purpose is to inform, which this e-mail did do, but their presentation made it difficult.

All companies use e-marketing in various ways, some do it very well, some do not, what is important is to find a balance.

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References