In Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty’s article ‘Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing’ they claim that, “Permission-based e-mails sent to customers are a form of marketing that is on the increase. E-mail marketing campaigns produce approximately twice the return on investment of the other main forms of online marketing such as web banners and online directory adverts.” Considering this, email marketing is a incerdibly important aspect for businesses as it is one of the most cost efficient ways for companies to market their product or service to their target audience.

I have taken an example from my own inbox to demonstrate just how powerful this stratergy is.

Having a smart phone, I have linked my email account with my email application on my handset, therefore I recieve all my emails on the go. I open every email I recieve on the go, usually without paying much attention. With reference to the particular email above, a few days before I had been browsing amazon and added an item to my basket, but then decided not to check out. After opening the email, the first line immediately caught my eye ‘Hello chloe brogan’ as it contained personalisation which automatically grabbed my attention. I then scanned the rest of the email and recalled my previous online shopping activities. The email cleverly contained an image of the product I had added to my basket along with a link to my shopping basket on my amazon account.  This is an example of successful email marketing, as it led me to click on the landing page, which took me straight to my basket, and go ahead with the purchase that I had previously forgotten.

The email was not over crowded with images or advertisements and was kept very simple and short to read. This helps to ensure that the reciever does not get bored before they have finished reading the content. This also indictaes that it would not have taken long to put the email together, making it more cost efficent. Putting the phrase ‘less is more’ into perfect practise.

Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty state that “The subject line in the e-mail is the first point of contact and acts as a trigger to encourage the message recipient to open the e-mail. There are two main components in the subject line: e-mail sender and the subject matter.” Amazon have taken this on board completely as they have kept the subject simple by using the name of the product I had added to my basket. When seeing the subject it rang a bell as I recognised it as something I had previously browsed online. Together with the personalisation after I had opened the email, amazon had successfully captured my attention. By keeping the email short and precise, I quickly scanned the whole content and went ahead with the purchase, all in a matter of minutes. It is safe to say that this could be considered as email marketing in its most powerful form.

Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.