A Consumer Analysis on Email Marketing (Real Examples)

The rapid evolution of email marketing means that organisations are able to create focused and targeted emails to their customers. Email has become an effective method of communication in which companies can share information, including promotional messages such as discounts and vouchers (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty, 2012).

As a frequent online browser, it’s no surprise that my inbox collects an extensive amount of emails every day. For example, today alone has resulted in 16 promotional emails (and it’s not early afternoon)! Guilty of being an avid online shopper, majority of my emails come from fashion e-retailers. Using real recent examples from fashion retailers House of Fraser (HOF) and Missguided, this post will analyse the different features within an email campaigns.

Subject Heading:
As the Subject Heading has the initial contact with the recipient that may influence whether to open the email or not, this can be considered as the most important component. Therefore subject headings should be eye-catching, using good words to attract the recpients attention. Similar to no 3) on this blog, Missguided included my name in their subject heading ‘May it’s your (half) birthday…’, indicating a personal bond with the retailer. Unlike the example linked previously, the subject heading alone by Missguided isn’t as obvious in offering a promotional discount. Whereas the subject heading from HOF ‘Up to 40% off* new season NOW ON in our Brand Event!‘ is more descriptive giving readers a reason to open the email.

Call to Action:
Having a clear call to action will have a higher effect in persuading customers to click on the button leading to their website. The two retailers above both use ‘Calls to Action’ in their emails, HOF stating ‘SHOP NOW’ and Missguided with ‘Get Shopping’. When comparing the two (in my opinion) HOF’s Call to Action is more obvious as it is more direct with the capital letters, which offers a sense of urgency. However both Call to Actions could be improved by using words that imply benefits for the customer e.g. ‘SAVE UP TO 40% NOW’. Once clicked, both ‘Call to Actions’ lead to the Homepages of the websites, which may be unsurprising for Missguided with such a generic ‘Call to Action’ but customers may have expected a more specific page from HOF. Though at that time, the Brand Event was heavily advertised across the HOF website homepage, making the promotion obvious and easy to navigate.

Use of Hyperlinks:
Linking closely to Call to Action, another element within an email is the links which can be through text or images. Looking at the two email examples, HOF incorporates a vast amount of links compared to Missguided (36 links compared to 16). You could argue that HOF incorporates too many links within their email. For example, having two seperate links to the same landing pages e.g leading to the pages ‘Women’, ‘Men’ and ‘Home’ by clicking at the top of the email and underneath the main promotional image. By including too many hyperlinks, companies risk the email being overcrowded, which may cause confusion or result in the recipient losing interest. Luckily, the way in which HOF have designed their links as buttons to look like their website, I think they just about get away with it unlike the ‘Macys’ ad below…

Source: (Econsultancy, 2015)

Another point worth mentioning is that both emails include links to the company Social Media accounts at the bottom of the emails, which increases engagement of the brand on other platforms.

Content:
When opening an email, the initial analysis of the content has a big impact on a recipients response behaviour (Cases, Fournier, Dubois and Tanner Jr, 2010). There is a similarity among the two emails (in fact across nearly all fashion retailer emails), that there is minimal textual information incorporated in the main email body. As a picture is allegedly worth a thousand words, the use of visual content is more important than text for email marketing. The choice of imagery and colours from Missguided can be seen as more ‘fun’ whereas HOF appears more simplistic with subtle colours, which is most likely due to their target customers. HOF could benefit from using less conetnt e.g. fewer buttons or images as this may take the email longer to download and display (especially on a mobile platform) resulting in a disinterest or frustration.

Personalisation:
Due to the nature of the email, Missguided were able to benefit from personalising their email (such as in their Subject Heading) unlike HOF with a mass event triggered email. Missguided were able to send this email using my personal data (birthday and name etc.) making it personalised. Including personalisation enhances the relationship quality, service quality and customer loyalty, increasing the online shopping experience for customers (Huang and Shyu, 2009).

Animation:
Unlike Missguided, HOF included an additional feature within their promotional email. The use of animation can be an effective element in drawing in the email recipient to a message. The animated GIF used by HOF engages customers into their promotional material of the 40% Brand Event (acting as a Call to Action) which may increase the number of clicks leading to their website. Another positive benefit of including animated GIFs is that they are support across majority platforms (e.g. web based, desktop and mobile).

All in all, both fashion retailers included good qualities within their promotional emails. Of course, there is always room for improvement. For example, HOF could improve on selecting a better landing page to increase user satisfaction experience or Missguided could add animated GIF features to enhance user engagement. In the end, I browsed through both websites as a result of these emails however failed to make a purchase. There’s always next time, with the next arrival of emails!

References:
Cases, A., Fournier, C., Dubois, P. & Tanner Jr, J. F. (2010). Advances in Internet Consumer Behavior& Marketing Strategy. Journal of Business Research, 63(9-10), 993-999.

Econsultancy, 2015. Email Marketing CTA Design. Available at: [Accessed 10 November 2015]

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

Huang, J., & Shyu, S. H. (2009). Building personalised relationships with customers via emails, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 20(6), 585-601.