Email is one of the most powerful and personal ways businesses connect with their customers. The ten main benefits of email marketing by Pure360 are listed below:
- Return on Investment
- Immediacy
- Global
- Easy to Share
- Easy to Track
- Easy to Create
- Calls to Action
- Segmentation
- Target Fans of your Brand
- Low Cost
I received a personalised email from Tripadviser an American Travel Website Company allowing people to share their experience of hotels, restaurants, landmarks and various other attractions. It all started on the 5th February 2016 when I visited a local Italian Restaurant. After receiving the bill the owner asked if we enjoyed the food and if so could we log into Tripadviser in our own time to write a positive review. I wrote a review and since then I receive an email from Tripadviser monthly. The most recent one had a subject line of “Dan, thank you! You’re on a roll: here’s a summary of your recent activity”. The fact that Tripadviser personalized the email subject line to say my name certainly meant that it caught my attention as well as using an explanation mark and telling me I’m on a roll… as we know the subject line is probably the most important part of the email, if it fails to entice the customer then they are a lot less likely to open it (Ellis Chadwick 2011) . However, iContact an email marketing specialist firm offer a long list of words not to use in your email message and other solutions and services on their website. Looking at the list below there are some similarities between ‘you’re a winner’ and ‘you’re on a role’ which could put off some customers.
After opening the email I was met with another personalized message in the email heading, it read “Hi, Dan”. The company logo was positioned in the top left corner, according to the Journal of Business Research 2011 99% of emails in their sample had logos that were positioned in the top left hand corner.
Moving on to the content of the email, there was some interesting statistical data letting me know how many people had read my review and where they were from. As well as a piece of text letting me know I had 100 ‘TripCollective’ points and I could build up more by writing another review which would lead to earning badges. I was curious as to what these badges meant so clicked on hyperlink for more information. The landing page gave details of the ways in which to gain points and the amount of points you needed to level up. This did not appeal to me as the badges just meant other readers could see you were an active reviewer and there did not appear to be any other benefits. In this case Tripadviser’s call to action failed as I did not write another review, they should have offered discounts on hotels for example depending on the amount of reviews you post. This is a form of permission marketing where users are just rewarded with badges and nothing more…
Scrolling down the email I was met with another call to action. However, this time it was a promotion/offer. Although the words ‘special offer for reviewers who book’ were in orange and in capital letters I could have quite easily of exited the email by now. In my opinion the promotion should have been positioned beneath the heading at the top of the email for better effect. I was more enticed by this than I was by finding out how many people read my review. I’ve been receiving this email once a month for 6 months and this is the first time I have noticed a promotion. After reading what was on offer it would not make me book a trip immediately, however, I would probably re visit Tripadviser to book a hotel through them if I was looking to go on holiday in the near future in order to receive the £25 gift card to spend in their online store.
The image by the side of the promotion made me click on the ‘see details’ hyperlink to have a look at the other items on offer. The landing page gave brief instructions on what to do in order to qualify for the gift, some terms and conditions and another link to the bookings page. I liked the simplicity of the instructions and the imagery used on the landing page, however, there were many different colors. TripAdvisor should have used green, white and orange like in the email so that there’s a familiarity from the email to website.
References
Ellis-Chadwick, F. Doherty, N.F. (2011). Web Advertising: The Role of e-mail Marketing. Journal of Business Research, Vol. 65, Issue. 6
10 Benefits of Email Marketing (2015) Available at: www.pure360.com/10-benefits-of-email-marketing/
Words to Avoid Using in Your Email Message (2016) Available at: https://www.icontact.com