As a student rather keen on always finding the best offers, both online and in the physical market, I tend to sign up for having my inbox constantly overflowing with deals on the latest trends in electronics, health and beauty, and food and beverage, to name a few. Just about every online outlet has a sign up pop up, asking the visitor whether they want to receive emails about new deals and offers and whether they want to sign up for the store’s newsletter. I almost always do. As Del Rowe (2016) suggests, “it’s a fast-paced, mobile-first world, and marketers need to deliver something of value to customers and prospects” (p.1), which is why companies are constantly marketing their products through email, social media platforms, and traditional methods such as mail, in order to ensure their customers are up-to-date with all their products.

Traveling being one of my hobbies, my need for suitable temporary housing is accommodated by the array of websites offering deals on hotels, hostels, and accommodation all over the world. In my experience, and according to the number of international users seen in the graph below, Booking.com is the preferred online website for bookings around the world.

 Source: SimilarWeb, 2016

I receive emails from Booking.com almost bi-weekly in normal circumstances; however, they increase to up to daily emails when I’ve been actively looking for deals online. As the emails can get pretty repetitive, I don’t always exactly read or view every email. Nevertheless, what encourages me to interact with the emails is the fact that Booking.com use personalized data, addressing me by my name rather than the standard “Hello!”, and comprises of offers that match the trends found in my previous bookings on the website. These offers are categorized upon the different cities I’ve previously chosen, as well as different cities with accommodation of the same average price range.

Marketers have a knack for utilizing the methods that garner the most responses from their consumers; such methods include the use of pictures and illustrations as an extremely effective tool for grabbing a customer’s attention. (Rossiter and Bellman, 2005) All e-mails received from booking.com have pictures of different destinations, which by clicking on, lands me on a page of a hotel, or in other cases to a list of hotels in the specific city I’ve chosen. The use of pictures alongside the catchy prices stated usually encourages me to open the links, if not to make a booking, out of curiosity.

 

 

 

In accordance with Ellis-Chadwick and Doherty (2012), “the subject line of an e-mail must grab the initial attention of the customer and prompt him or her to open the e-mail” (p.847). Booking.com has been successfully implementing this aspect and utilizing the element of temptation by using subject lines such as “last-minute deals for you”, “there’s a deal with your name on it!” and “treat yourself”. This creates the feeling of excitement and curiosity within the recipient of the email, frequently prompting them to access the link and view the website.

Despite booking.com’s success in implementing several e-mail marketing strategies, there are certain aspects that need to be improved in order to achieve better results. Such aspects include what is known as a “Call to Action” (CTA), which plays a significant role when it comes to persuading potential customers to take a desired course of action. Taking ASOS as an example, they continue to excel, not only in marketing their new product lines tailored to customers’ recently viewed trends, but also in successfully displaying clickable calls-to-action in their e-mails. Examples include free delivery/shipment for a limited period, promo codes, seasonal discounts and much more. While this method is employed by booking.com, it does not seem to be as effective for several reasons. The most important of which is the fact that the same destination is continuously mentioned in frequent emails, even after the customer has either made a booking or began searching for other destinations. This is evident in various customer reviews, some of which are displayed below.

“Marketers stress the potential of frequent email marketing for building and maintaining customer loyalty; however, too many email solicitations could evince negative attitudes, leading to dissolution of the relationship.” (Cases et al., 2010, p.995)

On a last note, please feel free to drop in some comments below about a similar experience you’ve been through, whether you receive such emails, and if you do, how frequently you view them and/or nteract with them.

See you next week!

 

List of References:

Booking.com (2016) Booking.com: Get in the game  YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uGZQa29k3o [Accessed: November 2^nd, 2016]

Cases, A.S., Fournier, C., Dubois, P.L. and Tanner, J.F. (2010) ‘Web Site Spill Over to Email Campaigns: The Role of Privacy, Trust and Shoppers’ Attitudes’. Journal of Business Research [Online], 63(9), p.995. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296309002203 [Accessed: November 2^nd, 2016]

Del Roey, S. (2016) ‘E-mail Marketing Best Practices’. CRM [Online], http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Editorial/Magazine-Features/Email-Marketing-Best-Practices-113265.aspx [Accessed: November 2^nd, 2016]

Ellis-Chadwick, F. and Doherty, N.F. (2012) ‘Web Advertising: The Role of E-mail Marketing. Journal of Business Research [Online], 65(6), p.847. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296311000063 [Accessed: November 2^nd, 2016]

Rossiter, J.R. and Bellman, S. (2005) Marketing Communications: Theory and Applications. Sydney: Prentice Hall.

SimilarWeb (2016) Booking.com’s Digital Marketing Strategy [Online]. Available from: https://www.similarweb.com/blog/booking-coms-marketing-strategy [Accessed: November 2^nd, 2016]