Whilst social media may proclaim to be the be all and end all of marketing tools, 95% of online consumers use email regularly in comparison to 74% using Facebook (Lacy, 2013). According to Groves (2009) email marketing is unimaginably financially savvy approach to establish and build relationships that drive business success. To delve deeper into the keys of success this blog will give marketing managers implementations as to the keys of successful email marketing strategy. Google Small Business YouTube video below highlights the ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ of email marketing, however below are the most potent within email campaigns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9FPrwTwIXU

Creating solid content:

Personalised emails improve click-through rates, creating customised messages requires high-quality that provide value. Using a double opt-in process instead of a single, a brands email list may take longer to compile but will be cleaner and have a more engaged audience, this simple yet technique of personalising emails can help feel a greater sense of connectedness towards the brand which consequently drives loyalty (Ryan, 2017).

Decided ideal email frequency:

This process is not a one-size-fits-all, it is the involvement of segmentation; highly engaged, limited engagement and no engagement (Wallace, 2016). How often does the customer REALLY need to be contacted? 50% of customers feel emotionally unsubscribed to a brand despite being subscribed to their electronic mailing list (Chaffey, 2015). With this in mind there is a dire need to categorize mailers from those who regularly view content and those who don’t, limiting emails to those who don’t. This as a means in which to keep them on side, not losing them from mailing list.

Just visiting or here to stay?

Guests who come to the website, may choose to checkout on one singular purchase and never have a desire to return, this can therefore invite emails to be ignored or placed into the spam folder. As seen below, BuzzFeed’s successful email offering users’ content that invites images and content to attract users back to the page. This furthermore encourages users to revisit the page and in theory build brand loyalty, encouraging users to continue to involve themselves in content.

Overcoming risks:

Although ROI is high in email marketing, investment of time and steady streams of measurable results whereby they are to be nurtured over time. This can be risky to organisation as unlike online media like social networks and app launches, email marketing has no specifics to viral content, as emails are sent to specific recipients. With time and experience ROI remains easy to project and a balance rate of growth (Williamson, 2017).

References:

Chaffey, D. & Ellis-Chadwick, F. 2015, Digital marketing, Sixth edn, Pearson, Upper Saddle River.

Lacy, K. (2013) 50 Email Marketing Tips and Stats for 2014, Exact Target. 14 August 2013 [Online] <http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/50-email-marketing-tips-and-stats-for-2014/

Ryan, D. 2017, Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation, Fourth edn, KoganPage, London.

Wallace. M (2016) 6 keys to more effective email marketing. Marketing Land. Accessed at: https://marketingland.com/marketers-need-effective-183796

Williamson. W (2017) 8 Challenges of email marketing and how to avoid them. Accessed at: https://blog.jdrgroup.co.uk/digital-prosperity-blog/how-to-avoid-email-marketing-challenges

Email marketing can be considered an important medium utilised by organisations in order to build and maintain closer relationships (Chaffey et al, 2003). There is value in proof provided by Baggott and Sales (2007) implying email marketing builds better connections with customers.

Key factors are inclusive of:

• Personalisation 
• Click Through Rate (CTA) 
• Purchase patterns 

This blog is an exploration as to effectiveness of email strategies for businesses whom are within the retail sector, exploring the defining methods used to utilise strategy of emails.

The future of branding is personal: 

The sending of emails with the purpose of enhancing relationships of a merchant with current or previous customers encourages loyalty and repeat business (Mohammadi et al, 2013). In accordance with Bell and Francis (1995) response rates can increase sales, build loyalty, increase awareness and generate and enhance a customer profile/information database. Therefore, converting this into customers who involve themselves with email offers and conversion of click through rates have more of a likelihood of effectively involving themselves with the brand. 70% of brands still neglecting to customise their messages, furthermore giving competitive advantages to organisations whom make a choice to be more involved with customers (Madden, 2018). Sahni (2018) discovered that simply adding customers name to subject line increased the probability of recipient opening the message by 20%. Retailers can take note from that of Topshop whom puts a focus on new items with enabling customers to pinpoint ideal fits of jeans. Simple diversion makes it simple for customers to begin shopping immediately whilst viewing the emails. Talaya Waller (as seen below) demonstrates the power in which corporations and consumers can have with authentic and personal content.

Full Funnel campaign:

The basic premise of the full funnel is the process of customers entering the top and leaving after making a purchase. The funnel encourages distinction between stages of purchases, considering that by formation of a funnel customers are filtered and channelled; not every customer will follow through with purchase or in some cases remain on emailing lists.

Awareness:

Whilst constructing emails it instructs customers to be trusting with the brand, conveying engaging content instead of pushing sales. This phase is where customers find items or deals that are relevant to them.

Consideration:

This next phase is that of enticing customers into the advantages of the products in which brand has sent to them. Exciting/ colourful images as well as specific/relevant products to customers encourages enthusiasm for the products brands are wishing emailed customers to buy. Yet the advantages of email marketing are that deserted email battles can bring product back the forefront of customers minds.

Preference:

At this stage it is important to keep customers loyal to the brand/ items on offer. Stronger sales are involved, meaning that a previous purchase of an item of clothing or accessory, can then advertise another product in which has similarities e.g. a different colour.

Purchase:  

The messages that are prevailed to customers at this phase include the drive of sales. Emails call to action (CTA) making the emails more transactional and made as easy as possible. Making the conversion between the suggested products and the customers actual purchase of product, moving from engagement to purchase.

Ultimately, are they good for something? 

A study in 2012 carried out by Ellis-Chadwick, F. & Doherty, N. F, indicates a number of factors affect the effectiveness of an e-mail advertising campaign, such as the subject line, illustrations and personalisation. Thus, meaning lack of these factors can indicate an intrusion in effectiveness of campaigns, reducing the chances of customers opening emails. If email is below these standards then company loose out, as if subject line has no worth then customers are highly unlikely to read it; alternatively if there is nothing to catch customers eye, again they are unlikely to read through what the email has to offer.

However, the more prominent of critiques is the handling of GDPR. Can companies find loop holes into customers personal information as a means to exploit customers with trust? Where does this leave customers with trust in the brand? With the dust settling in terms of GDPR, companies can now disguise ‘opt-out’ tabs and furthermore continue to send emails and continue to bombard customers with potentially unwanted content. Consequently, companies handling of data can become the catalyst of both customers belief and disbelief in brand values. Martin and Murphy (2017) make is that competing on privacy is both feasible and likely to be successful under certain conditions. Moreover, hidden ‘opt-out’ can be a disadvantage as influx of emails can put customers off, thus not reading the emails and ultimately becoming a waste of resources and money.

References: 

Baggott, C & Sales,  A (2007) EMAIL MARKETING  by the NUM8ERS, How to Use the World’s Greatest Marketing Tool to Take Any Organization to the Next Level. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Bell, F. & Francis, N. (1995) Consumer Direct Mail Just How Effective is it? ESOMAR, WARC.com.

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

Chaffey D, Mayer R, Johnston K, Ellis-Chadwick, FE (2003) ”Business-to-Business Internet Marketing”, in Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice, Chaffey, D. (ed), Pearson Education – China Machine Press, Harlow, Essex.

Madden. M (2018) 5 Drip campaigns every brand needs. Accessed at:

https://blog.marketo.com/2018/07/5-drip-campaigns-every-brand-needs.html

Martin, K. D. and Murphy, P. E. (2017). ‘The role of data privacy in marketing’ Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45(2), 135-155.   

Mohammadi. M, Malekian. K, Nosrati. M and 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.

Singh. S and Sonnenburg. S (2012) Brand Performances in Social Media, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Volume 26, Issue 4, Pages 189-197.   

Patagonia is a designer of outdoor clothing and gear for the silent sports: climbing, surfing, skiing and snowboarding, fly fishing, and trail running. Their clothing is deemed as high end, as the products sold are high in price and quality. In relation to competitors two brands (The North Face and Columbia Sportswear) they compete with Patagonia in selling high end outdoor/ sports wear.

Although Patagonia can be easy to confuse with little difference in pricing and selling of winter athleticwear it can be difficult to decipher which has the upper hand (Ryan, 2014). Patagonia is aimed more at helping visitors of the website around the ins and outs of the company, whereas the other two are aimed more towards the purchasing of products. When opening both Columbia and TNF visitors are greeted with headers that are sections of what each sell; Men, Women, Kids and Footwear. The general feel that Patagonia’s website offers is that of a blog, utilising images of outdoor activities such as surfing, hiking etc. Patagonia’s current global ranking is 2,681 whereas The North Face (TNF) ranking at 3,641 and Columbia ranking 7,513. these results indicate that Patagonia rank higher globally upon their digital website (SimilarWeb, 2018).

Digital media channels have the use of communication techniques, this is such functionalities as search engine marketing and online E-PR to enable maximisation of favourable mentions of brand on third party media sites (Chaffey and Ellirs-Chadwick, 2016). Key to successful audience segmentation is not just the identification of customers but knowing what kinds of information they prefer to receive and how. In doing this targeted information is sent to specific groups of customers using medias that are best suited to buying behaviour (Miller, 2012). Patagonia’s market segmentation includes men and women aged 18-35, those with disposable income, maintains an active lifestyle, enjoys nature and outdoors, value for quality products and conscious buyers (Sublett, 2018). Buyer personas are fictional, generalised representations of your ideal customers, they are used as a means to understand your customers better, making it easier to tailor content to the specific needs, behaviours, and concerns of different groups (Vaughan, 2018).

Ben:

• Background– an avid hiker, who makes repeat purchases upon Patagonia’s website’. Has a high interest in the environment, recycles, cycles to work and is a vegan.
• Demographic- fits in the 35-50 age range.
• Identifiers- has a calm demeanour, very active and communicates through a smartphones that he is solely responsible for.
• Goals- support the care of the environment.

Ben is wanting to replace his current insulated jacket, after having the jacket for 2 years he is in need of repurchasing a new one. Court et al (2009) state that customers have touch points and are metamorphosed as a ‘funnel’. The funnel analogy suggests that consumers systematically narrow the initial-consideration set as they weigh options, make decisions, and buy products. With this being said as Ben is a repeat purchaser, the touch point is successful as he has intent in trading in his old clothing for a new jacket. Post purchase, Ben receives an email to confirm his order and its estimated time of arrival. About 64 percent of shoppers “consider transactional confirmation emails to be the most valuable messages in their inboxes,” (Roggio, 2016).

Michael:

• Background- a student who is currently studying away from home. He is browsing Patagonia website to make a potential purchase, he has never made a purchase from them before.
• Demographic- fits in the 18-24 age range.
• Identifiers- has a hyperactive demeanour, very active on the consumption of alcohol and communicates through a smartphone and is completely in control in terms of access.
• Goals- graduate University and get into a high end job.

Michael visits Patagonia.com looking at the fleeces that they have, this is as a fashion statement as a pose to finding a fleece that may be warm. As stated by Mckinsey (1999) The funnel analogy suggests that consumers systematically narrow the initial-consideration set as they weigh options, make decisions, and buy products (Raisel, 1999). Micheal is a student and therefore has a non disposable income, meaning his funnel is lower than that of Ben’s. Micheal clicks through to the jacket he likes but the price of the fleece is ranged too high for Micheal to be able to buy, resulting in him clicking off the website furthermore not making the purchase. Companies use a premium pricing strategy when they want to charge higher prices than their competitors for their products. The goal is to create the perception that the products must have a higher value than competing products because the prices are higher (Woodruff, 2018). Instead of Michael making a purchase from Patagonia he later visits a charity shop in which he can purchase a recycled fleece at a lower price.

Vaughan’s persona model can be accessed at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research

To make a comprehensive conclusion, it is clear that Patagonia’s website is easy to use and is a utilisation of the brands ethics and overall company message; making high end products without the cost upon the effects of the environment. Although they run very closely with TNF in terms of brand position, in terms of outdoor sports wear, Patagonia’s overall visits out ride TNF.

References:

Chaffey, D and Ellis-Chadwick, F(2016)Digital marketing.6^thed.Harlow[etc.]:Pearson.

Rasial. E (1999) ‘Using the techniques of the world top strategic ‘ McGaw-Hill Education.

Miller. M (2012) ‘B2B Digital Marketing: Using the web to market directly to businesses’ Pearson Education, Inc.

Sublett. C (2018) ‘Patagonia Inc. Brand Audit’ Accessed at: https://patagoniabrandaudit.weebly.com/consumer-profile.html#

Roggio. A (2016) ‘Order confirmation emails can build brand loyalty, sell more’. Accessed at: https://www.practicalecommerce.com/Order-Confirmation-Emails-Can-Build-Loyalty-Sell-More

Ryan. K (2014) ‘The Bottom Line: Patagonia, North Face and the myth of Green Consumerism’ Groundswell. Accessed at: https://groundswell.org/the-bottom-line-patagonia-north-face-and-the-myth-of-green-consumerism/

Patagonia (2018) ‘Company Information’ Accessed at: https://www.patagonia.com/company-info.html

Vaughan. P (2018) ‘How to create a detailed buyer personas for your business’. Accessed at: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/buyer-persona-research

Woodruff. J (2018) ‘What is premium pricing strategy?’. Accessed at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/premium-pricing-strategy-1107.html

In ‘The benefits of Facebook “friends” social capital and college students use of social network sites’, Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe carry out an investigation of students uses of Facebook. The article explores student’s use of Facebook and whether or not it accumulates social capital. This is done through a series of investigations displayed on tables during the article as well as a ‘Literature Review’ also, using visual descriptions as well as a literal explanation of the research.

Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe begin with an overview of Facebook, then moving into an investigation of social capital. It highlights the positive impact in which social capital has including better public health, lower crime rates and more efficient financial markets. (Alder and Kwon in Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe 2007). However predominantly it highlights an interesting idea that social capital is bridged by theories of self-esteem between users of the social network, stating that it is ‘different for individuals with varying degrees of self-esteem’ (Rosenburg in Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe 2007). Users of the site allows a person to feel a sense of belonging with an outlet of which makes them feel they can post parts of themselves they couldn’t physically express had they been in person. Social capital researchers back this point up with ‘forms of social capital are related to indices of psychological well-being such as self-esteem and satisfaction with life’ (Mckenna and Putham in Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe 2007). The validity this has is that of building of social capital is that online relationships are supported by technologies like distribution lists, photo directories and search capabilities, building industry through the capital.

Facebook was created in 2004 but by 2007 had more than 21 million members, the sites has no specific demographic, as anyone can join, there is nothing specific in order to be ‘accepted’ onto the site. The site can be used for many different uses either social or even for businesses wanting to promote products/films. Throughout the research, of which is high in terms of depth, the tables show the mean and S.D with graphs emphasizing the impact, with 94% of the undergraduate students surveyed were Facebook members therefore an accurate reading. On average a user spends 10-30 minutes in a day with links to 150-200 friends meaning there is always content on the users ‘timeline’. Most users of the site, as shown in the research carried out by Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe is that Facebook is primarily for people to maintain offline relationships, crystallising ‘relationships that might otherwise remain ephemeral’ (Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe, 2007 pg22). For example people who have moved countries or families who are always moving, the statistics show that America’s use was higher because of marine families being more common.

During the research 96% of the people who did have accounts included where they went to university/ college, meaning there was a direct link between them and others who are in the same social circle, resulting in 97% report that high school friends had seen their profile because of this. It shows that more information on your profile can link the two as in suggested friends it makes them unavoidable. Furthermore the effect it has upon students is helping them to overcome barriers of low satisfaction or self esteem as well as keeping in touch with other people who may live away from individuals.
In relation to social capital, Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe make the point that one quarter of the variance in students’ had reported bonding social capital. This is prominent as shown in the conclusions and discussions of the article proved that the Internet use alone did not predict social capital accumulation, but intensive use of Facebook did. I believe that social capital has massive value as, as a society we depend upon social networks to keep up with everything including news stories, preferring to read from an app than an actual newspaper. Through the article it shows that 94% of the students in the study we’re dependent/ invest our time to a site therefore emphasising the social capital within the generation. The article for me shows the intense use of social networks furthermore critically being within a social capital.

Bibliography
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x/full

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