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E-mail marketing over the Halloween weekend. Evil exasperation or spooky seduction?

Toward the latter part of last week my e-mail inbox seemed to be inundated with Halloween related promotions – a seemed seasonal tactical approach to marketing. Furthermore, coincidentally with the Halloween celebratory weekend falling on the last weekend of the month just as a majority are celebrating “pay day”, I feel the e-mail marketing campaign from many e-retailers was stepped up a notch.

My inbox was engulfed with the likes of “Spooky Savings, Save 15% off all goods” or “Trick or Treat Week, Save 10% off Everything!”. Was this a hindrance to my already spammed inbox or were these timely promotions encapsulating me to realising that there was a mid-season sale at some of my favourite retailers?

Everyday I get submerged in e-mail marketing promotions, the reason for this being that e-mail marketing campaigns account for twice the ROI compared to other forms of web marketing such as web banners, video advertisements and landing page adverts (Pavlov et al, 2008). The heavy presence of daily marketing e-mails starts to make more sense.

As I sift through my daily collection of marketing campaigns in my inbox, executional tactics from the benefactor become apparent. The attraction toward me opening a marketing e-mail is important, why do I open e-mail “A” and not e-mail “B”? To accord sustained attention it is suggested that the subject line of an e-mail is the defining factor of the consumer opening the e-mail, otherwise the opportunity of sustained attention is diminished as the e-mail can be deleted and never seen again unlike many other forms of marketing (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2011).

To enhance attraction to an advert the length, size and layout are extremely important in harnessing the recipients attention (Rossiter, 1981).

The e-mail(s) that grabbed my attention over the weekend were received from the online retailer Route One. Route One is a seller of branded skateboard hardware, clothing and footwear, they stock the likes of Nike and Adidas to name a few. The first email I received from the retailer notified me through the subject line of “Trick or Treat Week, 10% off everything! Including sale items”. With a discount through sale items I’m tempted and I click through to the landing page.

Choosing to be the bargain hunter I accepted the invitation from the e-mail. I wanted to directly browse the sale items with which I get an extra 10% discount. The one hyperlink on the email took me straight to their full price items – I believe two or more hyperlinks were needed in the e-mail. “Browse all items”, “Browse sale items”, “Browse men’s department”, “Browse women’s department” and so on.

Through (Chadwick and Doherty’s, 2011) research into executional tactics in e-mail marketing messages, I will make comparisons from their collected data to the e-mail that coaxed me into opening and browsing their site.

Frequency and timing of e-mail

• 35% of e-mails show evidence of use of targeted timing.
• The e-mail I received was timely through the Halloween season and end of the month (pay day).

Brand Logo

• 99% of marketing e-mails have a brand logo prominent in the top-left hand corner.
• The brand logo was centred.

Hyperlinks

• 99% of e-mails contain hyperlinks to another landing page – varying from 1 – 50 links.
• The e-mail had a number of different hyperlinks – the most prominent being the Halloween voucher offer which takes you direct to it’s new arrivals section – not to the sale items to my dismay.

Personalisation

• 35% of marketing e-mails are personalised.
• My e-mail was not personalised to me in any form – this was a standardised message that would of been delivered to all of it’s subscribers.

The notable infraction to the research of (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2011) is that of the position of the brand logo. If research is anything to go by it must be a miracle for the brand logo not to be centred in the message I received. However this research was carried out in 2011. More people nowadays are opening their e-mails through their mobile device, as of 2013, 41% of e-mail receivers opened their e-mail through their mobile device, the increase of this from 2011 – 2013, was 30% (Campaign Monitor, 2015), a figure which will have grown today.

I believe marketers will be more inclined to move their logos from the standardised top left corner to the middle of the page, making it more noticeable on a mobile device.

As a result of this marketing e-mail I was tempted to do some online shopping, a whopping 66% of online consumers make purchases as a result of e-mail marketing (DMA, 2013). I fall into the category of the two thirds of the population who are easily swayed with a minor promotion/discount.

I was still receiving Halloween related e-mails on Sunday evening – Halloween is done, their persistence is admirable but not well received. Below is the e-mail I received from Route One on Sunday, this time announcing their Halloween offer ends at midnight – but I had never received this offer in the e-mail at the start of the weekend, was I targeted with a different offer?

However this marketing campaign didn’t go quite to plan for Route One. A pair of Adidas trainers that I was lured to purchase from their sale items were not in my size. Unfortunately for them – I went to one of their closest rivals (Flatspot) and purchased the trainers (in my size) from them instead.

I think Route One tricked themselves!

References

Campaign Monitor. (2015). Email trends report: mobile vs desktop. Retrieved 11 2, 2015, from Campaign Monitor: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/email-marketing-trends/

DMA. (2013, 08 03). Saturday Stat Series: The Influence of Email Marketing Messages. Retrieved 11 02, 2015, from The DMA: http://thedma.org/blog/data-driven-marketing/saturday-stat-series/

Doherty NF, Ellis-Chadwick FE. (2011). Web Advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research , 65, 843-848.

Pavlov OV, Melville N, Plice RK. (2008). Toward a sustainable email marketing infrastructure. Journal of Business Research , 61, 1191-1199.

Rossiter JR, Bellman S. (2005). Marketing communications: theory and applications. Sydney: Pearson Prentice Hall.