In this blog, I will be discussing the effectiveness of social media marketing for firms, with a specific focus on the use of Twitter. Please note, that these views are my own and do not represent the views of any companies discussed.

Social media marketing greatly enhances the ability for consumers to engage and interact with brands, hence why it is increasingly being used across firms globally (Solomon & Tuten, 2014). According to Pick (2016), 90% of young adults today use social media, and one third of millennials say that social media is one of their preferred channels for communicating with businesses. Social media is a great way for businesses to respond to the needs of their customers almost instantly, rather than using the more typical methods, such as communicating via a phone call or an email. One social media platform which is widely used by companies to promote products and communicate with both existing and potential customers is Twitter.

The use of a Twitter for a customer

One way in which Twitter is commonly used by consumers is to get a quick response from a company regarding an issue they are currently having, for example a clothes order which has arrived late:

As you can see above, New Look responded within 24 hours to help resolve the issue, by asking the customer to ‘DM’ (private message) their New Look Help account, where someone would work on tracking the order. This response would most likely be met positively by the customer, because not only did they receive a quick response, but the personalisation at the end of the tweet “NLEmma” makes the customer feel like New Look are taking the issue seriously. However, New Look are also using the response to the issue as an effective marketing tactic. By encouraging the customer to follow “New Look Help” various tweets, such as the one below, will begin to appear in the customers newsfeed:

Interestingly, New Look use their ‘help’ page, to inform their followers of positive experiences that customers have had with them. Hopefully, this will effectively re-assure the disgruntled customer that although they are currently having an issue, the issue can be resolved and they can have a positive shopping experience with New Look in the future. In turn, this restores New Look’s strong brand image, and ensures that they are not losing customers due to negative press. Additionally, they are building customer trust, which according to Bart et al (2005), creates long-term customer relationships.

See the link provided for nine other reasons, alongside connecting with customers, as to why businesses should use twitter: http://askaaronlee.com/10-reasons-why-your-business-should-use-twitter/

The power of the hashtag for companies 

Another interesting element of Twitter is the use of the hashtag, as tweets which contain hashtags get twice the engagement as those without (Cooper, 2013). One of the most effective hashtag campaigns used across social media was the #ShareACoke campaign, which launched in 2013. The idea of the campaign was to find a Coca-Cola bottle with your name on it, and then share a photo of the bottle on a social media platform, such as Twitter or Instagram. This was an excellent social media marketing strategy, as not only did it encourage consumers to purchase a Coca-Cola product, but it also encouraged them to share a photo of the product online, prompting their friends and followers to go purchase the products for themselves.  The campaign was so successful that in total there were 235,000 tweets from 111,000 twitter using the #ShareACoke hashtag (Hepburn, 2017).

See the link for provided for an article which gives further detail on the power of the hashtag for an entrepreneur: http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/08/17/how-to-harness-the-power-hashtag-as-an-entrepreneur/#1b33c6a145fa

However, the use of social media can also have a negative effect on a company. In 2014, the Di Gornio pizza company tried to use the #WhyIStayed hashtag to promote their pizza. However, they failed to realise that the hashtag was being used to respond to a newly surfaced video of an NFL player assaulting his wife (Broderick, 2014).

Unfortunately for Di Gornio, the misjudgment had a negative impact on Di Gornio’s brand image. Mei at al (2012) found that a hashtag has a dual role: it is unique indicator of both the topic of the content and the membership of a community. In this instance, Di Gornio simply misunderstood the topic of the content, however there was a large uproar from Twitter users as it could be perceived that Di Gornio were trying to promote their product to a vulnerable community. Di Gornio were quick to react to the mistake they had made, and promptly deleted the tweet and released several tweets apologizing to anyone they had offended. Although Di Gornio were a hot topic on Twitter when the event occurred, the top trends and hashtags on Twitter are constantly changing, as news and world events are published online as soon as they occur. Therefore, although Di Gornio may have lost some customers due to the tweet, most Twitter users would have been reading about the next news story or scandal just minutes later.

References

Bart, Y., Shankar, V., Sultan, F. and Urban, G.L. (2005) ‘Are the drivers and role of online trust the same for all web sites and consumers? A large-scale exploratory empirical study’, Journal of Marketing, 69(4), pp. 133–152.

Broderick, R. (2014) DiGiorno Accidentally Tried To Advertise Their Pizza In A Hashtag About Domestic Violence. Buzz Feed News [Online] <https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/digiorno-whyistayed-you-had-pizza?utm_term=.qvMbBKWnvX#.ixY3086dW7> [Last accessed 22 February 2017]

Cooper, B. (2013) 10 Surprising New Twitter Stats to Help You Reach More Followers. The Huffington Post [Online] <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belle-beth-cooper/10-surprising-new-twitter_b_4387476.html> [Last accessed 23 February 2017]

Hepburn, M. (2017) The Share a Coke Story. Coca-Cola Journey [Online] < http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/stories/share-a-coke> [Last accessed 22 February 2017]

Mei, Q., Sun, T., Yang, L. & Zhang, M. (2012) We Know What @You #Tag: Does the Dual Role Affect Hashtag Adoption? School of Information, the University of Michigan.

Solomon, M.R. and Tuten, T.L. (2014) Social Media Marketing. SAGE: 2^nd edition

Pick, T. (2016) 47 superb social media marketing stats and facts. Business 2 Community [Online] <http://www.business2community.com/social-media/47-superb-social-media-marketing-stats-facts-01431126#1V5PMafCzcj8mRse.97> [Last accessed 23 February 2017]

According to research undertaken by Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty (2012), email marketing campaigns produce twice the return on investment than any other online marketing campaigns and are increasingly being used by businesses of all sizes. During 2011, US firms alone spent $1.51 billion on email marketing campaigns (Mohammadi et all, 2013) as small and medium sized firms began to realise the benefits of email marketing, which include low set up and distribution costs.

However, there are some disadvantages to email marketing campaigns. Firstly, there is the intimidation threat of the practice; if a customer wishes to be contacted via email, they need to ‘opt in’ and say that they have agreed to receive marketing emails, otherwise it is considered to be illegal. Secondly, there is the risk that customers chose to not open the email and either delete it or move it to a spam folder. Therefore, it is important that companies ensure that their marketing emails are sent with a purpose, and that they get the customers attention straight away with an effective subject line.

In this blog, I will be critically analysing an email that I received from ASOS, an online clothes retailer who I subscribe to.

The Subject Line

“Sorry – can we make it up to you?”

This subject line immediately caught my attention for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to open the email to find out what it was exactly that ASOS were apologising for. Secondly, I was intrigued to know how they would be making it up to me, for example, would they be offering me a discount on my next purchase? This subject line was very effective, as it was straight to the point and it left the reader wondering what benefit they would receive if they opened the email.

Personalisation

Although I have received personalised emails from ASOS in the past, this email was addressed solely to me because it was being sent to apologise for technical issues that the website had been having.

In this case, the email didn’t necessarily need to be personalised, as all customers were affected by the technical issues. However, adding personalisation to the email may have encouraged more customers to use the discount that they were offered, such as in the email below, which was sent to me by Save the Student.

Although the ASOS email was not personalised in that it was not addressed to me, it did clearly state at the top of the landing page how many points I had to spend, therefore encouraging me to visit the website to use my points (see image below).

Design and Call To Action (CTA)

Overall, I think that the design of the email is very effective. As you can see from the below image, the use of colours makes the email striking, and the little wording that there is gets the message across straight away.

This is an example of a house-list campaign email, where ASOS were offering a discount on all purchases if customers shopped within 24 hours. These emails are typically personalised for the consumer, including hyperlinks and images in order to keep the customer’s attention. As you can see from the image above, the email included two main hyperlinks, where the customer could choose to view clothing either from the sale section of the website “SHOP SALE”, or the normal section of the website “SHOP NEW”. This is also known as the Call to Action (CTA), as the intention of the email was to get customers to visit the website and use the discount.

Although the email was effective in encouraging customers to visit the website using the links provided, it may have led to some customers choosing to unsubscribe from ASOS’ emails. When I opened the email, I had not been on the ASOS website for a while, and therefore I was unaware that the website had been experiencing any technical issues. Therefore, I was being informed of a problem that I was not even aware off. Although this would not deter me personally from shopping with ASOS again, some customers may have been irritated that they received an email regarding a problem they did not know existed. Additionally, the discount was being offered on all clothing, which may deter some customers, who would rather be able to follow a hyperlink straight to clothes which they like or usually purchase. For example, in the personalised Save the Student email mentioned above, there were 20 hyperlinks which took you to specific deals (see image below). This may encourage customers to follow the hyperlinks because they are being informed of specific deals, rather than being offered a discount across the whole website.

ASOS, was the apology necessary?

Overall, the subject line and the bold, colourful body of the email were the reasons that this email marketing campaign was effective. The use of an open-ended question for the subject line ensured that customers opened the email to see what ASOS were apologising for, and once the email had been opened, it was clear that an attractive discount was being offered.

 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