What you need to know about me
The reason I like easyJet is because it’s a service that does what I want when I want it. What more can you ask for! When I moved in 2013 from Basel, Switzerland to Brighton, United Kingdom for university easyJet was my way home. Its easy, quick and most of all its cheap. Affordability is the greatest part of this service whether I wanted to be back for a weekend, a week or months it was always at my fingertips, getting home has never been an issue for me. Email marketing is one of the greatest tools of communication between a service and a consumer. EasyJet has come a long way since they first invested 50m into their new marketing strategy, so lets see if its paid off.
“Marketing sits at the centre of all consumer businesses. I don’t really know how to run a business without listening to consumers, particularly understanding how they perceive your brand and deciding how you want that brand to be positioned and then attracting and retaining customers,” – Carolyn McCall chief exective of easyJet.
1.) Focused Content
“Can you believe we used to send out the same email to every customer in Europe once a week on a Friday?” – Peter Duffy marketing director of easyJet.
easyJet used to use a one size fits all type methodology when it came to email marketing. Now as you can see the company has developed a much more personalized form of marketing, one that tailors to the consumer. easyJet has even gone the extra mile to use big data to calculate when I last traveled and exactly how many miles I have travelled with them. This gives the consumer a sense of involvement within the company, as if they are being taken into account.
2.) Call to Action
Immediately when you open the email the title and picture “ how 20 years have flown” it links you to the easyjet website. This is not the only link within the email, the word “Berlin” when clicked takes you to an easyJet page with tickets from London to Berlin. This is a good way of getting direct activity from the consumer. The social media links at the bottom also all link to their own pages, which is a good way of promoting their other social media platforms.
2.) Permission
EasyJet uses an opt-out box, which you can access on your easyJet account. If you later decide you do not want to receive emails the consumer is free to update this at any time.
3.) Spam or marketing
If you’re wondering why easyJet isn’t in my junk mail box well its because they aren’t overloading me with lots of useless information. I counted that in the year of 2015 I have received 20 emails from easyJet, all which share valuable information that I am very much interested in. However within a year the retail company Selfridges & Co have sent me 105 emails. Perhaps it is down to personal preference but that is far too much unnecessary information, you don’t want to annoy your customer.
4.) Less is More
Email marketing is one of the most important channels of communication for travel brands. It had been rated as the best channel of response within consumers. Lay out is essential when thinking about email marketing you have a very limited window of time before the consumer is going to move on to the next email. EasyJet keep their colour format simple, using the well establish orange that is immediately associated with the company. The simple collage of pictures with 5 textbox’s with no more than one sentence makes it quick and easy to read. Hierarchy of effects is a good reflection of easyJets approach to email marketing.
Critique
The simplicity of this email complements the message they are trying to get across. The information isn’t over whelming or hard to understand. The colour scheme and direct link to the easy jet website make it easy to use. The fact that easyJet does not bombard you with emails works very well because when you do receive an email you know its going to be important or a good offer. In comparison to other emails from Selfridges and Twitter I rarely even think twice about looking at them because they email far too often. EasyJet also excels at being a very fast website, the delivery rate is always of high quality.
As much as I do love the scarcity of the emails, I think perhaps there could more to do with cheap flights and good offers for weekend get-aways. The subject line of the email does indicate some inclusion of the consumer and perhaps a travel deal but its not exactly clear. Perhaps something more direct like “Maria great deals on this 20th anniversary” I would have been keener to open it. For instance
Rynair sent this email to my cousin the other day just in time for her to book tickets for her and her boyfriend’s anniversary. I know I wouldn’t hestitate to open or buy this great offer!
After doing some essential reading I do believe that easyJet does fit the guidelines for a successful email marketing campaign. However from a consumer point of view it does lack promotions as such. If you are planning on starting an email marketing campaign I suggest looking at The Small Business Guide to Email Marketing.
References
Tink Taylor. (2013). EasyJet email marketing flying high as Ryanair crash lands. Available: https://econsultancy.com/blog/63044-easyjet-email-marketing-flying-high-as-ryanair-crash-lands/. Last accessed November 13th 2015.
(2014). easyJet’s Marketing Makeover Inspires High-Flying Engagement. Available: http://www.marketingtango.com/easyjets-marketing-makeover-inspires-high-flying-engagement/. Last accessed November 13th 2015.
Sarah Vizard. (2014). EasyJet CEO: ‘Marketers should be at the centre of all consumer businesses’. Available: https://www.marketingweek.com/2014/11/26/easyjet-ceo-marketers-should-be-at-the-centre-of-all-consumer-businesses/. Last accessed November 13th 2015.