Right, be honest, how many advertising emails do you open?

Me? Probably not as many as a marketer would want me to.

As a keen traveller, I have an account with bookings.com and have subscribed to their mailing list. This is known as permission based emailing and, in accordance to academics such as Cho and Chang (2006), it is a form of marketing that is on the rise.

Figure 1. A screenshot of an email that I received from Bookings.com.

Honestly, I did in fact open this email, but why?

The subject line (“Treat yourself Elle, its deal day”) was personalised to me which engaged my attention because I felt valued as a consumer.  A study from Chadwick and Doherty (2010) showed that personalisation is a primary tactic used for successful engagement in email marketing. Further to this, the study displayed that 33% of marketing emails are personalised, subsequently, personalisation can allow an organisations email to stand out against others and compete effectively for the recipients attention.

The email I received was in the form of a house-list campaign. Essentially these are campaigns to illustrate new products lines and incentives in order retain customer engagement (Chaffey, 2012). I had recently searched hotels in London with Booking.com and despite them having this big data, this house-list campaign (figure 1.) was not personalised. This meant that I closed the email because I felt it was not valuable to me. In contrast, ASOS have previously sent me house-list campaigns based on my buying habits which retained my attention to them.

The length of the email was also unnecessary. This variable was more visual upon a mobile device. Now here’s a statistics that surprised me: During the period of 2011-2014 there was a 500% incline in the quantity of emails opened from a smartphone (Jordon, 2015). Organisations need to consider this as, with the Bookings.com email, I did not even scroll fully down as I lost interest. This problem became apparent in other emails that I have received from organisations such as Groupon and Living social. Geissler, Zinkhan and Watson (2006) concluded that excessive information has a negative influence on consumer attention. This effect can lead to response decay (Chaffey, 2012) and in turn reduce consumer engagement to an organisation. To improve this, Booking.com should have focused on one destination in more detail and used their data to enhance the personalisation of the content.

On the other hand, this email used imagery heavily and as a recipient this allowed me to digest the content of the email quickly before I lost interest. Rossiter and Bellman (2005) explained that illustrations can be the most powerful way to attract the attention of a consumer towards a print advertisement. Their statement was proven as I was drawn towards the London sector immediately and then read the reduced rates.

Before I move on, I just want to talk about the call to action (CTA) technique Booking.com used. CTA is simply the content that prompts the recipient to take action. Booking.com used multiple CTA’s, e.g. “see all deals..” for each country.  This was effective as it allowed for a specific search and to be honest, I wouldn’t have bothered to search if the CTA was just a generic link to their website; (lazy I know).

According to Psychologist Greg Ciotti, urgency is an effective tool to make customers take the next step (Marketing, Land, 2016). There was no urgency in the Booking.com CTA’s and in reflection it was a few days later that I followed the link, unlike other CTA’s from companies such as ASOS which include free delivery for a limited time. So, this is an aspect which needs to be considered for Booking.com. Marketing Land produced an article on an effective CTA and from a buyers point view it illustrates how we are drawn in. If you have a spare minute here is the link: http://marketingland.com/5-examples-of-how-to-put-your-email-call-to-action-to-work-48677

Figure 2. A landing page of the email.

Now don’t think I am some sort of millionaire (I wish), the prices are still in Thai Baht from my summer adventure! (Take me back please!)

After I clicked on the UK deals this is where I landed and I just want to say thank you to Booking.com as their CTA correlated with their landing page, (pet hate when it doesn’t).  The page has a clear layout which makes it easy for specific searching. Further to this, it was personalised to my account so the deals were also accumulated specifically from my ‘genius points’. This is a good example of consumer relationship management as the efficiency created a satisfying experience and in turn reengaged me to become a retained customer, (Kumar, Reinartz, 2012)

The page does however have too many CTA’s, this created confusion as I was unsure which one to follow. Consequently, my attention was drawn away. This problem was also highlighted by Chadwick and Doherty (2012). Booking.com, do however, use imagery that inspires a recipient to search.

Okay, enough of me talking now. Here are the links to some of the material I have refered to and honestly they are really an interesting read.

http://oro.open.ac.uk/27747/2/47C57B0F.pdf

https://litmus.com/blog/53-of-emails-opened-on-mobile-outlook-opens-decrease-33

References

Chaffey, D. (2012) E-Business & E-Commerce Management, Pearson

Cho, C.H. & Khang, H.K. (2006) “The State of Internet-Related Research in Communications, Marketing, and Advertising: 1994-2003”, Journal of Advertising , 35 (3) ,pp.143 – 163

Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F. (2012). Web advertising: the role of email marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6) pp. 843–848.

Geisler,G. L., Zinkhan, G. M. & Watson, R.T. (2006) “The influence of home page complexity on consumer attention, attitudes and purchase intent”, Journal of Advertizing, 35 (2), pp. 69-80

Jordan, J. (2016). 53% of Emails Opened On Mobile, Outlook Opens Decrease. [online] Litmus Software, Inc. Available at: https://litmus.com/blog/53-of-emails-opened-on-mobile-outlook-opens-decrease-33 [Accessed 31 Oct. 2016].

Marketing Land. (2016). 5 Examples Of How To Put Your Email Call To Action To Work. [online] Available at: http://marketingland.com/5-examples-of-how-to-put-your-email-call-to-action-to-work-48677 [Accessed 30 Oct. 2016].

Rossiter, J. R. & Bellman, S. (2005) Marketing Communications: Theory and Applications, Sydney: Pearson Prentice Hall