Permalink: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/mpd14/2015/11/01/e-mail-marketing/

Promotional Email

Subject and Headline– Looks at personalisation, relevance, good length, originality variation: Worldwide deals- cheap flight deals, the Content of subject line is said to be a critical element for grabbing responsiveness. The advert used different subject to lead the reader into continuing finding out about the product Such as Special offer, cheap flights cheap deal end this month end.  The relevancy to content and uniqueness is imperative to proper symbol use.

Illustrations: This email shows special deals with a deadline discounts offers.  The bright yellow colours with layout seem to guide the eye towards the black bald words where the click needs to happen – call to action – “See Deal”, but is it worth clicking and seeing these deals?

Use of Images- Pictures- are said to help captivate the readers and resist attention. The holiday photos are so colourful, bright and great visual effect. They have a physiologically impact, that, i.e., you can see yourself enjoying a holiday in one of those attractive destinations. Therefore the deal is sold by the pictures themselves before one looks at the prices. The flight and hotel prices are put in a descending order starting with the cheapest to attract someone with a low holiday budget and gradual to a high end holiday traveller.

Would I ever open it- Not real as I am not familiar with the sender’s email as it looks like a spam, but on the other hand I would open It if I was planning a holiday or the email was sent at a particular time of the year when I plan my holidays given that the advertising company new my travelling pattern Frequency and timing of e-mail – Chadwick and Doherty [2013] states the importance of getting the frequency being more important than the product or the subject line.

See: David Jobber and Fiona E. Ellis-Chadwick (2012-12-14) Principles and Practice of Marketing 7th, McGraw-Hill Higher Education

When/why- Usually during Easter holiday or around August to try and look for cheap flights maybe to travel to Africa or for a holiday in Europe. I am very cautious when it comes to opening my mails, therefore most of such emails are just deleted and blocked as I find them annoying, given that I can look on any compare travel sight and allocate deals myself. Therefore checking if the sight is credible and compares flight prices maybe. Not that I’II buy flight tickets online. I’m prepared to go to the airport to get my travel tickets as I feel safe that way. I never have been an online shopper, therefore I have to be real convinced to even permit them to send me such emails. Unless I am sure of the company I am dealing with.

Is there any personalisation- Chadwick and Doherty suggest that one of the executional tactics in e-mail marketing messages is Personalisation: a very important factor – as one can get far better response if the e-mail is personalized, and only 35%, of marketing e-mails are personalized, and states it’s important not to be more specific than the richness of the customer data permits.  The email is dressed to me personally using both first name and surname correctly “To Pat Dube.  The notification- “LATEST TRAVEL DEALS STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX”,

See- Fiona E. Ellis-Chadwick and Neil F. Doherty (2012) Web advertising: the role of email marketing, In Journal of Business Research 6(65) http://oro.open.ac.uk/27747/

See also D. Chaffey (Ed.), Internet marketing: strategy, implementation and practice, Pearson Education – China Machine Press, Harlow, Essex

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2001.tb00119.x/full#ss1

Template/design –:  The template is simple not inviting and looks like a spam because of so many images of holiday destination, the colours’ yellow, black are a contrast to colours of holiday destination images which show blue seas, lovely buildings, greenery pastures and natural back grounds. The very bright and blinding yellow might be aimed to direct the eye to see the deals but it not a good colour for me as I am just put off.  The lay out is bad and unattractive as you open the email and scroll down. This yellow blank space with just “Deal alert” at the bottom is just wasted area that could be used to inform me what this is all about.

Critique

What is good, what works well? The marketer’s email promises worldwide holiday deals and as you open the email the headline matches the subject by continuing to confirm the subject and its promises showing that you are in the right place for- cheap holiday deals which is on their website, but clicking the see deal button leads to change in the name of the site and the promotion sign flashes red to direct to the promotions of which is another site. Thus not helpful for people who just want to compare flights and purchase. Time spent is essential and less is better.

User Experience – After the subject confirmation and the email leads, for you to see what holiday destinations are on promotion and what kind of deals you can get the website become different company web pages. Thus note establishing clearly what you want to see – “deals and holiday destination” thus what the page promises, instead a lot of information to wave through appears.  Then comes another problem as you scroll down the web page a message right at the bottom of the website states “i.e Cheap flights does not sell tickets but provides a price comparison service for prospective purchasers of travel products. Therefore, while we always aim for complete accuracy, prices may vary at time of booking. The deals in this newsletter were correct at the time of writing but are subject to change beyond our control, particularly as a result of availability, which may be extremely limited. Cheapflights accepts no liability for inaccuracies arising from this or any other cause, including, but not limited to, expiration of deals and typographical error, we are not responsible for any loss, damages, or injury incurred by the deals herein. If in doubt, always consult the agent or company supplying the tickets.” Thus even written in small prints. Who reads such small print on line?

http://www.travelcenteruk.co.uk/cheap-flights-to-usa-canada.php?utm_source=Cheapflights&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_term=USA%202016&utm_content=Special%20Deal&utm_campaign=Cheapflights

As a user you find yourself dealing with triple or multitudes of companies i.e Travel centre UK or Travago of which the name does not match the email address you received when the website can provide a high information quantity. Though the email give you an impression that you going to purchase a ticket direct from cheap deals, it is when you realise you are dealing with a third party- or affiliation, you feel that the emailer has invaded your privacy instead of being persuaded to opt.in  you just want to delete and block the email.

See {Milne, George R & Mary Ellen Gordon (1993), Direct mail privacy-efficiency trade-offs within an implied social contract framework, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 12(2), 206. Web of Science® Times Cited: 59}

Call to action: CTAs are said to be extremely important and in this email these buttons or text links are generic “see deal” because these are next to all the images they seem to be too much to bare as each holiday you have to go back and click see deal button and taken to a different page again and again.  It would have been better if the marketer included some descriptive ALT tags that at least give the receiver a good idea of what the email is about and why they should view it in full: lastly only a single call to action button would do and less images, too many images put me off. Too many hyperlinks trigger a negative effect from me. See [Hernandez, A., & Resnick, M. L. (2013, September). Placement of Call to Action Buttons for Higher Website Conversion and Acquisition An Eye Tracking Study. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 1042-1046). SAGE Publications].

What is less good and comparison-The fact that I have not given the emailer or the third party a receiving permission, I have ignored the emails and blocked them as spam. Though given that they used Personalisation on a generic email it looks like spam as personalisation is best used when its location or intent based. The emailer seem not to have any due respect the level of email I should receive a day given that  receiving permission  might have been given if at all- through third part, but that doesn’t mean they should spam my inbox with undated and unrelated offers.

As a permission marketing email there seem to have missed the incentive to entice me to make a purchase or opt in to their communication. As there is more than one click to a relevant page.  Following one of the permission Marketing steps on the lecture notes – the following procedures could have given them a better result by:

Incentive to start– (free stuff) i.e. a promo code to buy a further ticket at a 2% discount.

Adjust the incentives: being offered- For me to trust the in the organisation and product the emailer needs to keep offering information of great value.

Increase the permissions– by asking for more information about me – through surveys, phone calls, or consultations

Leverage your permission – into a profitable situation for both after demonstrated that follow through all their promises.

Godin explains, permission marketing involves three factors given as –

Anticipation–  Do I want to hear your message,

 Personal, Is you message targeted to me personal,

Relevant-  Am interested in getting cheap holiday traveling deals offers.{ holiday maker}

These approaches seem not to have been incorporated by cheap flights emails as they seem not interested in teaching “me” the customer about the product or services they offer.  They are only telling me about the deals and more deals and more cheap flights to certain destinations that I might not be interested in

See- Godin, Seth (1999), Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends, and Friends into Customers, Simon & Schuster http://www.sethgodin.com/permission/thanks.asp

Improvements

The emailer page looks like a third part display The emailer page needs to be given elements of white to have that breathing room to produce a calming effect feel, allow the CTA to stand out from the rest of these yellow bright coloured design. Psychologically the page does not give an impression of trust so they need to improve to boost conversion. Colour contrast make it hard to differentiate the most important things. Using videos instead of pictures it’s better for visual persuasion and conversion for me so would recommend that.

See Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Mayer, R., & Johnston, K. (2012). Internet marketing: strategy, implementation and practice. Prentice Hall.

  http://unbounce.com/landing-page-examples/36-landing-page-designs-critiqued-for-conversion/

http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S0148296311000063

 

 

 Blog – Analysis on Subject line data Use your words wisely

The article link above is an interseting overveiw on how readers are enticed by certain words to read or open their emails. The Article seems to be well researched (over 20 million emails researched) and with detailed statistics analysis. The blogger’s targeted audience seems mostly geared to proberly email marketers. The genral point to think about how the marketing campaigner can write the all-important opening title, outlining the research details and approaches used to gain analysis to the importance of the need to directly atrract the reader, why lead line of an email is the key factor. By studying 24billion delivered emails with 22 different subject- line. They concluded with the outcome suggestions of that:

Regression– analysis indicates that similar words often have similar impacts on open rates. Second that choosing the right words wisely can have a profound impact on the opening rates for users with high standard deviation.

Personalization: By using the mail chip merge tag to address the receiver by their first name and surname shows positive impact and can improve open rates, but does not mean all will automatically open, The outcome showed a data analysis of 33% in first and surname- 17% when using only one name and lastly 09% when using only last name.

Words with a positive impact: i.e. “do not miss this offer” increased open rates while on the other hand negative words that are implied with positive words can low the open rates.

Coloration analysis on word presence: findings are that combining certain words does increase opening rates such is words related to thank you, natural disasters or political issues i.e.; these being words used most regularly. In contrast the user are not keen on being told they are missing out or it’s their last chance.

Capitalization: Use of capitalised words brought slightly higher open rates outcomes and the use of one or less capitalised word yielded a very negative outcome rate.

The blogger suggest that buy using the following results – personalizing subjects, marking appropriate emails as urgent, thanking your recipients can actually increase opening rated and can be applied in email marketing campaigns.

Conclusion: The blogger seem to have used a lot of data and statistical analysis giving the impression of quality and quantifiable information with educational and informative objectives. The content on the blog is laid in a very systematic way that any reader will follow easily. The blogger seem not to have any other links to the media such as twitter face book or LinkedIn except the search engine optimization on google. The topic is unique on its way and the content gives value to the reader.

See blog Link:   https://blog.mailchimp.com/subject-line-data-choose-your-words-wisely/

See also Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Mayer, R., & Johnston, K. (2012). Internet marketing: strategy, implementation and practice. Prentice Hall.

http://unbounce.com/landing-page-examples/36-landing-page-designs-critiqued-for-conversion/

http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S0148296311000063