Urban Industry supply authentic mens urban streetwear clothing, the online only store is situated in Eastbourne, Sussex & began in 2002.

Below shows an E-Newsletter offering a 20% Discount code for their website.

As we analyse this email we interpret many components, for starters we notice a large blurred image of a jack’o lantern, with writing in the middle stating the discount, showing the event trigger being Halloween & the photo explains details such as “use code at checkout” & “20% OFF ALL FULL PRICE ITEMS”.

This form of call to action (CTA) image follows a certain technique that the eye follows down the page in natural reading. Hernandez et al (2013) states that the Gutenberg diagram helps us show that the layout is a strong composition for someone to read, making the image a link that takes you to a page of their latest collection of product range for sale (link of image) in the centre the email is on one page showing a Z pattern to match the way the user gazes at the email.

Referring the Z pattern, between points 1-2  2-4 shows the most content in the email at a letter smaller size compared to the CTA discount button in the middle. Points 1-2 show the brand logo being the word “Urban Industry”, also showing details of free UK shipping & low costing international shipping is good way to make the consumer feel invited for a specific deal to benefit them personally. Lastly at the top is certain tabs the consumer can click on to take them to specific parts of their website, for example if they click on “Brands” the consumer will be taken to the part of the site which shows all the brands they sell. The reason this link will be at a small font size is because typographic hierarchy is used to make sure no part of the email is equal so the more important aspects stand out to the reader of the email (Typographic Hierarchy)

Now although this offer is very inviting, what can be criticised by it is that the email could very easily cover one page for the user to read, rather than having to scroll down to see most of the content. In this instance they could have made the CTA image link smaller but still larger than any of the other items in the email.

Even when viewed on a mobile the email is still more than two pages of scrolling. Which is unnecessary for the user. The whole email has a total of 9 clickable links that take you to the site and an additional 3 links that take the user to each individually social media platform, this is good for the user, it creates an easy access to follow them if they are subscribed to the list. Ballaben (2016) explains that consumers aged 16-34 have lower engagement to emails compared to social media.

Urban Industry have benefited from keeping their emails clear and to the point. They may not show photos of the clothes in the email due to the occasion of halloween that they want to emphasise, more than one large photo in the email may make the E-Newsletter seem to much, according to Chaffey et al (2009) a simple page is more meaningful when creating E-Newsletters.

The email shows use of emojis in the title, emojis are animated faces that people aged 16-25 typically are identified with using on their mobile phones. The title is “? Get 20% OFF This Halloween ?” which is a good way to relate to & attract the target market.

Lastly we look at the time of which the email was sent, it was sent on Friday 28/10/16 at 11:33 am, what we can gather from this is that it gives the consumer a 3 day period on which they can use the 20% until it expires but it also means they have a 3 day window where they can exploit the occasion of Halloween & make use of the special occasion to promote/drive sales. The reason the email was sent in the morning is to ensure that the email gets to the consumer early & has the opportunity to sit in the inbox of the user. E-Consultancy shows that the top click hours for people checking emails are typically in the morning for higher levels of traffic but only between 8-10 am, people are more likely be working between the hours of 10am-12pm, so Urban Industry made a mistake of sending the emails out at 11:33am, 1 or 2 hours earlier would be ideal for maximum click rate.

References

Ballaben, S. (2016). Digital Trends Spring – UK – March 2016.Available: http://academic.mintel.com.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/?highlight. Last accessed 4th Nov 2016.

Chaffey, D; Ellis-Chadwick, F; Mayer, R; Johnston, K (2009). Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation & Practice. UK: Pearson Education. p293.

Hernandez, A; Resnick, M. (2013). Placement of Call to Action Buttons for Higher Website Conversion and Acquisition: An Eye Tracking Study . Proceedings of the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. 57 (1), 1042.