VoucherCodes.co.uk send me their house-list campaign monthly with a generic list of offers and discounts.The email is kindly personalised, starting the subject line with ‘Hi Aisha…’ which does make me want to read on and learn what they have to offer. However, the subject line continuous by listing offers and companies, some of which I have little interest in and it is for that reason I often delete the email before reading it.

When I did open the email, I must admit that I found an offer I was interested in, although initially as the subject line reeled off a number of discounts from Marks and Spencer and Dorothy Perkins  (see screen shot below), I thought that there would not be any offers for me as although there is nothing wrong with the two stores in question, they are not necessarily to my taste. I understand that the vouchers vary each month and so there may be little scope to tailer to my own interests, but there is a slight contradiction in personalising the email with my name and then listing a generic list of vouchers and offers which are not personalised at all. Perhaps it would be better to say ‘Hi Aisha, check out our latest discounts’ which leaves a sense of ambiguity and may intrigue me to click through.

Voucher Codes SUBJECT TITLE

According to Mohammadi, Malekian, Nosrati & Karimi (2013) the message in marketing emails should be relevant and personal. They suggest that to optimise marketing you have to make building customer relationships your priority and use relevant material- something that VoucherCodes.co.uk does not appear to do.

VoucherCodes.co.uk should fit into ‘model 3- ad market’ of Krishnamurthy’s Four Models of Permission Marketing (2001). An ad-market is when organisations advertise via an infomediary. An example of an infomediary includes Groupon- the customer does not buy Groupon products, they receieve emails and use the site as a platform to find offers and deals elsewhere. The customer gives permission by signing up to promotional offers and emails to receive specific information from the infomediary.

So is VoucherCodes.co.uk an infomediary? And  does it fit into model-3 of permission marketing? There is an expectation that I would find more deals suited to my taste; permission marketing is supposed to be about the customer and as previously mentioned should be relevant and personal. I gave my information to VoucherCodes.co.uk expecting useful and applicable information which has not been the case. Until then I am likely to continue deleting their emails as they clog up space in my inbox, I am very rarely inticed by the subject line so will not read them at all (or, perhaps I could just unsubscribe…)

For a quick guide to permission marketing watch this Minutecoach, (2010) 60 second video

References-

Krishnamurthy, S. (2001). A comprehensive analysis of permission marketing. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 6(2)

Minutecoach, (2010) ‘Permission Marketing- a one minute description.’ [Video] <http://minutecoach.com/blog/permission-marketing-a-one-minute-description> Buckinghamshire: Minutecoach

Mohammadi, M., Malekian, K., Nosrati, M., & Karimi, R. (2013). Email Marketing as a Popular Type of Small Business Advertisement: A Short Review. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 7(4), 786-790.