Wahacca is a Mexican restaurant which has recently moved down to Brighton offering Mexican street food and fruity cocktails. Following in its Mexican roots Wahacca have used the holiday ‘Day of the Dead’ to create an email marketing promotion to draw people in to the restaurant. This email example is a promotional email from Wahacca currently promoting the deal where if you order one dish from the menu you also receive free tequila and tacos if you show this email.

Subject Line

Any student who sees the title ‘free tacos and tequila’ is instantly drawn to such an inviting email, therefore as soon as the email came through I opened it immediately. Having the word “free” in an email can sometimes be seen in junk or scam emails therefore when creating a subject line like this you need to ensure that as soon as the customer opens the email they know it’s not scam and Wahacca does this by making sure the terms and conditions were clear when you first open the email, just to prove its legitimate!

Design & Images

The email is clear, concise and does what it says on the tin! As soon as you open the email you see the words “Free Tacos and Tequila” right in the middle of the page in clear white and blue text, which also fits the day of the dead theme. The pink background fits with the Wahacca branding and also keeps with the theme once you click on the landing page, it has also incorporated the day of the dead skulls which are a well-known image within that event, ensuring people know it’s a reason to celebrate! The lack of imagery on the email apart from ‘free tacos and tequila’ means that is isn’t 100% obvious where the email is from but the use of colours to match Wahacca’s branding has helped make it clearer to the audience where to gain this promotion as well as the landing page link.

Call to action

The link to the booking page is under Wahacca’s homepage therefore the email is also advertising there website as well as urging you to come in to the restaurant. Once you click on the link you are first taken to the booking screen showing you all the different locations and along the side you can see all the different tabs for the website including its home page, about Wahacca and events. When the audience click on the link to the Wahacca landing page it also asks for personal information when booking a table. This is a clever way of gathering data from the Wahacca customer as this data capture can be used in future emails where Wahacca will be able to personalise your emails and make them more specific towards you based on your purchases. The landing page is clear and relevant and continues to work with the Reach–Act–Convert–Engage model by converting the audience to book a table for the event and therefore engaging with Wahacca and purchasing there services, which also backed up by Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F. (2012) in their study of emails and there use of hyperlinks and interactivity to initially attract customers’ attention and then encourage further interest.

This email is an example of a promotional email triggered by an event and is trying to attract people in to the restaurant to celebrate day of the dead. Within the email is a link within the phrase “book now”, this is the obvious call to action from the promotional email, this is encouraging people to book a table as soon as the email gets to their inbox as the bold wording “now” makes the audience think that tables might not be available if they don’t. This is a clever use of marketing as people will be the most keen to visit the restaurant and use this promotion as soon as they read the email, especially as its advertising free food and drink, which is always appealing. In order to engage with the offer the email asks you to put in personal details such as your name, email address and address.

Personalisation

A follow up email “Sorry…Taco delay” was then sent a few days later which showed a weakness within Wahaccas marketing. Although I had already put in my personal details there was a lack of personalisation within this second email, which was also telling me that they were delaying their promotion! The email stuck to the original promotional emails theme showing the connection and who the email was from before you even read the content which shows good branding from Wahacca.

Key Critics

I believe this promotional email works well for the audience, it advertises the promotion well and entices the customers with the idea of celebration and free food, however the lack of personalisation within the emails could hold potential customers back as the email can just look very generic. My suggestion to Wahacca would be to use the information that the audience has provided within further emails, as studies have shown the use of personalisation through data mining is the most effective way to ensure customer satisfaction and increase loyalty (Sterne and Priore, 2000) and therefore will engage more in further promotions and events, especially as the information has already been given to them in the initial sign up stage.

References

Ellis-Chadwick, Fiona and Doherty, Neil F. (2012). Web advertising: the role of email marketing. Journal of Business Research, 65(6) pp. 843–848.

Sterne, J. and Priore, A. (2000). Email marketing. New York [u.a.]: Wiley.