Ryanair’s e-mail

The below e-mail is a house-list campaign set by one of the most famous and used low-cost airlines of Europe… incredibly done! … but with a catch.
A house-list campaign is a permission-based list in e-mail marketing which can be elaborated and structured by anyone. It is used to establish a relationship with the customer over time by “reminding” them about the company and current deals they have specifically for the receiving individual. (Group, 2016)

Structure of the e-mail

This particular kind of e-mail making needs a particular set of strategies in order to catch the attention of whom receives it and convince them to purchase the valid offers:

• The layout must be recognizable as the official style of the company:
  colors, logos, fonts, etc. should be the same as the official website.
• There is often a discount included within the email or cheaper prices for their products or services
• The message should be kept relevant and personal
• A language to sell:
  Soft Sale statement (like proposing to the customer to solve a possible outstanding issue)
  Call to Action, with terms such as BUY NOW or LIMITED OFFER OF 24H! in order to give the individual a sense of urgency.   (Mohammadi et al., 2013)

The style and structure of the Ryanair e-mail tick most of the points made above.
The layout is easily recognizable by anyone who has visited the official website once before, the pictures invite the reader to be more interested in the destinations described although no prices nor discounts are visible. The title is relative and personal, the company is aware of my nearest airport available (London Gatwick) and, in the content, Ryanair uses both languages to sell.
The first section of the e-mail includes soft sale statements, such as “Maybe it’s time to book a trip” and contains further information on many destinations they would be able to connect you with the rest of Europe.
The second section of their message includes call to action statements: BOOK NOW as a means to redirect the reader towards the website and book the displayed flights.
The final section of the page is relevant to give further options to the reader, download the app and to opt out from the mailing list (which is a legal requirement to include).

Landing Page

The page includes 4 re-directing links to the website through the method of supplying further information in case the reader is interested in the displayed ad.

So to recap, Ryanair’s e-mail is attempting to tell the customer (me in particular) that they can make it super-easy to fly to Barcelona and/or London. Amazing right? … WRONG.

Although the company is aware of my approximate geographical position (Brighton), the displayed ad for the London destination is non-relevant. While by clicking on Barcelona’s trip, once re-directed to the landing page, the website does not seem to apply the information received into offering the relevant service. In other words, the landing page is simply a generic flight searching page. Many cheap offers are displayed on the page but none of them are in relation to the sent e-mail.

By going even further, there is the final realization that the destination of Barcelona has one particular issue on the landing page: Ryanair does not offer flights from Gatwick Airport to Barcelona!

The whole ad became therefore meaningless, for me in particular, and created big disappointment once I realize I could not travel to my favourite part of Spain with this company.

References

Group, B.I. (2016) Glossary of email marketing terms – house list. Available at: http://www.benchmarkemail.com/resources/email-glossary-detail/house-list (Accessed: 4 November 2016).

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.