“Personal relevance is thought to be only one determinant of the route to persuasion” (Petty et al 1983)

SPAM! Pretty much all online consumers nowadays have some form of email address and most people have received spam emails in some form or another. Companies often email consumers directly using personalisation techniques such as addressing them by their first names or displaying products relevant to the individual using the companies knowledge of their consumers online activities. 

“a whopping 97.4 billion spam emails and 973 million malware emails were sent out each day.” (Softpedia. 2013).

Firstly I’d would like to point out that normally I wouldn’t delve into the promotions section of my Gmail inbox to read such an email, I’ve used this as an example to prove a point. 

The subject line in the e-mail is the first point of contact and acts as a trigger to encourage the message recipient to open the e-mail (Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty 2012). Yesterday just after midday I received an email from Ebay and they addressed me rather directly, personalising the subject heading on the email with my first name.

“Osho, My Big Weekend is here!”

I’m used to companies emailing me claiming that I can get “over 50% off” online or that I “don’t want to miss these deals” but this was a blatant attempt at attracting my attention, It made me quite aware that they think they might know who I am. Upon opening the email I read the heading at the top “YOUR PICK OF THE DEALS” – Wow, Ebay might actually know what deals I’m looking for this week. Sadly after scrolling down I realised they got me all wrong as I’m pretty sure I don’t need a new underpants or a kids 69 piece kitchen toy cooker.

The majority of Ebay’s email comprised of images of products with slogans such as “DEALS ARE ALWAYS ON THE TREND” or “WHEN I GET A LOT FROM SPENDING A LITTLE #MyLittleBigVictory”. 

Do Ebay expect me to tweet about their email? Am I meant to engage in “MY BIG WEEKEND”, What the hell is “MY BIG WEEKEND” and why do I need to know about it? None of this is explained in the email and the majority of the products are not what I generally search for on Ebay(I use Ebay quite a lot to buy vintage clothing). I would have preferred less use of my name and more products that are relevant to what I usually buy. 

Research shows that “Consumers may also bristle in response to solicited messages that convey highly distinctive knowledge of their personal characteristics.” (White et al 2007). Often consumers feel uncomfortable when companies address them personally. This can have a knock on effect with interactions with marketing emails and company websites. 

Companies can use online tracking and analytic tools to assess what products consumers are interested in buying, using a simple tool such as Google Analytics you can assess what online activities your consumers get up to. Companies can also use analytics to assess how many people respond to their email marketing campaigns, they can assess the percentage of people who open their emails, who clicks on links via the emails and who purchased products as a direct result of a companies email marketing campaign.

Email Marketers should be wary of using personalisation as a key driver in interaction with consumers, some may be put off by over-personalisation. Although this doesn’t seem to put off some of the most well known E-Marketers such as Ebay or Amazon – Maybe It’s about time they thought about new personalisation techniques, what’s next? Personalised social media adverts? Oh wait that’s already happened, George Orwell eat your heart out.

References

Richard Petty, J T. Cacioppo and David Schumann. 1983. Central and peripheral routes to advertising effectiveness: the moderate role of involvement. Journal of Consumer Research, 1983, vol. 10, pages 135-146 

Fiona Ellis-Chadwick and Neil F. Doherty. 2012. Web advertising: The role of e-mail marketing. Journal of Business Research, 2012, vol 65, issue 6, pages 843-848

Tiffany White, Debra Zahay, Helge Thorbjørnsen and Sharon Shavitt. 2007. Getting too personal: Reactance to highly personalized email solicitations. Marketing Letters, 2008, vol. 19, issue 1, pages 39-50

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Q1-2013-Report-973-Million-Malware-Emails-Sent-Out-Each-Day-350611.shtml