Email marketing or permission based Email marketing is “An important medium of marketing communication especially for companies seeking to build and maintain closer relationships with customers “(Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). Email marketing involves using both advertising and promotional material through email messages to current and prospective customers to build loyalty, trust and create brand awareness (Mohammad, M et al, 2013).
Email marketing is now common globally due to the increase of customer complaint about unsolicited emails. Due to this, customer’s consent (Opt-in) to receive direct emails. Email marketing is typically low cost and companies stand the chance of making twice the return on investment due to low setup up and distribution costs compared to other forms of web marketing (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). Web marketing consists of e-commerce websites, online advertising search engines, affiliate marketing web sites, promotional or informative web sites, online advertising on search engines and organic search engine results through search engine optimization (Mohammad, M et al, 2013).
The email I will be evaluating is a house list email from the online clothing retailer End Clothing. The UK based retailer is one of the biggest online source for the latest, exclusive menswear, sneakers as well as some of the highest quality clothing. End Clothing stocks a range of brands such as Adidas, Comme des Garcons and Maison Margeila. The purpose of this house list email is to market the release of the latest products available on their online shop. House list campaigns can be used to market new products, service, line, campaign as well as offers and incentives (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). House list email campaigns have a range of drivers which makes it favorable such a Fast Campaign deployment, Interactivity, Flexibility, Measurable (Was the email Deleted or opened? number of seconds opened, any scrolling and links followed) and Integration with other forms of media.
The permission based email I received from End had a direct subject line of what to expect in the email which was the new arrivals they currently have in stock from Wacko Maria and Adidas Consortium. 100% of marketing emails all have a subject line (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012).
The first thing we must note in this email is the lack of its message content but instead the use of bold texts and imagery which instantly caught my attention. For me personally I’m more inclined to purchase a product if it has more visual representation rather than text. End seems to adopt this technique of visual advertising in their email marketing as it showcases their products rather than descriptive information about the product. According to (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012) over 70% of marketing emails, a clear link could be traced from subject line, through headline to the content.
Example of Wacko Maria’s New Range.
The brand logo is very prominent in this email and can be found in the top centre of the page. This makes the reader aware of the company and its specialisation. 99% of marketing emails have a brand logo prominent in the top left corner (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012).
The email from End also had various interactive features such as hyperlinks to their online store to view their latest products, clothing, footwear, accessories and sale. By featuring interactivity in the email i’m more drawn to finding out more about their products and possibly making a purchase. According to (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012) 99% of marketing emails contains at least one hyperlink to another webpage. The number of links vary from 1-50.
Three quarters of marketing emails have a distinct headline in addition to the subject line (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). In this case the headline in the email i receive wasn’t very descriptive and gave me the option to “check out the latest arrivals at END” via a hyperlink to their online site. The email i received lacked animation and personalisation. 35% of marketing emails are personalised (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012) . If End incorporated personalisation in their email marketing strategy existing and prospect customers may feel special which could see them purchasing more of their products.
The relevance of digital marketing is very important in my chosen organisation as we’re seeing a major change in purchasing behaviour from in-store to online. To outperform competitor’s retailers must have a strong online presence via social media and e-commerce shop as it boosts user generated content.
There are a range of email analytics that could be used to determine the success of any organisations email marketing campaign. Google analytics is a common tool used by marketers to determine the success of their campaign. Google analytics enables companies to find out vital information such as the number of visits that have come from the campaign, how many pages email subscribers view per visit, how long subscribers spend on the page, where in the world subscribers are from and how much traffic is generated compared to other channels. Google analytics isn’t the only tool in digital marketing making a big change, there are an increasing rate of emerging technology that’s shaping the digital marketing world such as Intelligent Virtual Assistance, The Internet of Things and Micro Location.
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.