There are a lot of people who have a great interest in travelling around the world, looking for new places to explore. I happen to be one of these people. The thought of visiting a new country and learning its culture appeals to me greatly. As a result of this, I use Hostelworld in order to find accommodation when on my travels. Hostelworld is a website used by travellers to connect them with hostels that are spread across 170 countries. This is perfect for a young traveller like myself, who wishes to explore the world. Therefore I decided to opt in to the companies permission-based emails, allowing them permission to email me whenever they pleased. I recently received an E-newsletter from Hostelworld that detailed some of the best deals currently available.
Subject Line
‘Hand-picked deals in top cities in Europe & Asia’
When scrolling through my emails, this one did not immediately capture my attention. In e-mail marketing, the subject line is the first point of contact and acts as a trigger to encourage the message recipient to open the e-mail, therefore it needs to stand out (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty 2012). In this case, the e-mail marketing was not effective as it didn’t entice me to read the e-mail, resulting in me skipping over it.
Check out the blog below for some of the best subject lines used by companies: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-email-subject-lines-list#sm.0001k6gptb132le7uznie01cepj05
Brand logo
With all companies, displaying the brand logo in an e-mail is important. It allows the customer to be able to easily associate the brand logo with the business making the business more recognisable. Once Hostelworld’s email is opened, their brand logo is visible and displayed towards the upper left section of the page, which according to managers is the best place for it, at is requires minimal scrolling for the recipient (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty 2012). This is an example of effective e-mail marketing.
Interactivity
One thing in particular that I found impressive with the e-marketing of Hostelworld’s e-mail, is the use of the interactive ‘search bar’ in the above screenshot. Once you had clicked it to search for somewhere to go, it took you to their landing page. One of the real values of marketing e-mails is getting the customer to go from the email, to the website, and Hostelworld do this well (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty 2012).
Personalisation
The screenshot below shows two destinations, Florence and Prague. These are two destinations that I have visited before, having used Hostelworld to book the accommodation. Hostelworld have personalised this e-mail to me through customising the content on the page based on the information they have about my previous bookings. I have stayed at both of these hostels before and Hostelworld have shown they are aware of this.
This blog gives a brilliant insight in to how to use personalisation in e-mail marketing campaigns effectively: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2016/02/how-to-use-personalization-in-email-marketing-campaigns/
Call-to-action
This e-mail also uses the call-to-action (CTA) technique that is incredibly important in e-mail marketing. CTA’s need to stand out. They work as the final little push that persuades subscribers to take a desired course of action to visit the company website, which could result in them becoming a paying customer. Hostelworld’s CTA is ‘BOOK NOW’. This is a punchy, direct post that creates a sense of urgency for the recipient.
Once you click on this, it takes you to a landing page. The landing page displays the availability of the hostel for the next three days. With a couple of clicks you could be inputting your card details to pay for the accommodation. This is an incredibly efficient and impressive use of the CTA technique.
Social Media
The presence of social media in this email is also noticeable. At the end of the email Hostelworld display the logos of six different social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google, Pinterest and Instagram. All six of these logos take you to Hostelworld’s homepage for each platform. By adding in these links, it allows me quick access to the most popular social media platforms for Hostelworld; allowing me to stay up to date with all the companies deals and events.
Opting out
As companies make it easy for you to opt-in to receiving emails from them, they also have to ensure that the opt-out process is simple for the customer, if they no longer wish to receive emails. The screenshot above shows an ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of the page, allowing me to opt-out of Hostelworld e-mails. With one click this takes me to a landing page, where there is a large ‘UNSUBSCRIBE’ button visible.
By law, companies need to ensure that the action a customer takes to opt-out is a single step (Mohammadi et al 2013). Hostelworld’s e-mail meets this requirement.
Illustrations
Throughout the e-mail, Hostelworld use ’emojis’. This is a brilliant use of marketing as ’emojis’ have grown in popularity with consumers to a point where they are becoming a preferred communication tool.
Hostelworld’s use of illustration throughout this e-mail is very impressive. The variety in sizes of the images makes the e-mail engaging and would lead me to scroll down to the bottom. It also gives me a a visual idea of what I am being offered.
Conclusion
Due to the subject line not attracting my attention, this e-mail would have never been read and the company would have never caught my attention in the first place. Despite this, within the e-mail, the marketing is very effective. The structure makes it incredibly easy to read and the template is extremely professional. The e-mail is just over a page due to the large illustrations and takes no longer than 30 seconds to read. There is quick access to all the companies social media sites as well as their website. If the e-mail were to have a more enticing subject line that included ‘Discounts’ or ‘Savings’ I would brand it as having been marketed fantastically by Hostelworld and would have probably opened it immediately.
REFERENCES
Ellis-Chadwick, F., & Doherty, N. F. (2012). Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6), 843-848.
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.