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Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
1
An investigation into the use and results of email
marketing implemented by Unibox, a retail display
equipment supplier and manufacturer based in
Manchester.
Christopher Bardsley -‐ C S B BA Hons Business 2013
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
2
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
3
This Project is submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of BSc or BA with Honours in Business at the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School.
An investigation into the use and results of email marketing implemented
by Unibox, a retail display equipment supplier and manufacturer based in
Manchester.
Name: Christopher Bardsley Date of submission: 18th March 2013
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
4
Statement of Originality and Authenticity: This Research project is an original and authentic piece of work by me. I have fully acknowledged and referenced all secondary sources used. It has not been presented in whole or in part for assessment elsewhere. I have read the Examiners Regulations, and am fully aware of the potential consequences of any breach of them. Signed: Date: 13th March 2013
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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Contents Page
Contents Page ...................................................................................................................... 5 List of Figures and Appendices ....................................................................................... 7
Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 8
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ 8 1. Research Aim, Objectives and Introduction ........................................................ 10 1.0 Research Aim ...................................................................................................................... 10 1.1 Research Objectives ......................................................................................................... 10 1.2 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 10 1.3 Background of Unibox ..................................................................................................... 11 1.4 Research Project Structure ............................................................................................ 13
2. Literature Review ........................................................................................................ 14 2.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 14 2.1 The increase in use of email marketing .................................................................... 14 2.2 The benefits of email marketing to operating companies .................................. 15 2.3 Problems with the increase in use of Email Marketing. ...................................... 18 2.4 Email Marketing as a standalone tool ........................................................................ 18 2.5 The different types of email marketing ..................................................................... 19 2.6 The use of email marketing within companies and email marketing integration .................................................................................................................................. 20 2.7 User disengagement and email acquisition ............................................................. 23 2.8 The design and visual aspect of email marketing .................................................. 26 2.9 Summary of Literature Review .................................................................................... 27
3. Methodology ................................................................................................................. 29 3.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 29 3.1 Research Philosophy ....................................................................................................... 29 3.2 Research Approaches ...................................................................................................... 30 3.3 Research Purpose ............................................................................................................. 31 3.4 Research Strategy ............................................................................................................. 31 3.5 Research Choice ................................................................................................................ 32 3.6 Time Horizons .................................................................................................................... 32 3.7 Research Techniques and Procedures ...................................................................... 33 3.8 Research Ethics .................................................................................................................. 38
4. Findings and Analysis ................................................................................................ 39 4.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 39 4.1 Questionnaires .................................................................................................................. 39 4.1.1 The Success of Email Marketing ............................................................................... 39 4.1.2 Targeting and usage ..................................................................................................... 41 4.1.3 Social Media Integration ............................................................................................. 43 4.1.4 The design of emails ..................................................................................................... 44 4.2 Action Research ................................................................................................................. 45 4.2.1 Email Deliverability ...................................................................................................... 46 4.2.2 Email Engagement ........................................................................................................ 47
5. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 50 5.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 50 5.1 Objective 1 ........................................................................................................................... 50 5.2 Objective 2 ........................................................................................................................... 51 5.3 Objective 3 ........................................................................................................................... 52 5.4 Recommendations ............................................................................................................ 54
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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5.4.1 Use of Customer Relationship Management system. ........................................ 54 5.4.2 Increase in email address acquisition .................................................................... 54 5.4.3 Switch to a more integrated email marketing software system .................... 55 5.5 Research Limitations ....................................................................................................... 55 5.6 Future Research Recommendations .......................................................................... 56
References .......................................................................................................................... 58 Appendices ......................................................................................................................... 61
Word Count: 11,934
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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List of Figures and Appendices
Figure 2.1 – Various marketing tool’s return on investment ........................... 16 Figure 2.2 – Email marketing systems ..................................................................... 21
Figure 2.3 – Social Media Integration ....................................................................... 21
Figure 2.4 – Email Marketing Activities .................................................................. 24 Figure 3.1 – The Research Onion ............................................................................... 29
Figure 3.2 – Questionnaire Distribution Summary ............................................. 35 Figure 4.1 –Email Marketing’s contribution to success ..................................... 39
Figure 4.2 – Success Funnel Question 1 ................................................................... 40
Figure 4.3 –Email Marketing’s Audience Relevancy ........................................... 41 Figure 4.4 –Amount of emails sent ............................................................................ 42
Figure 4.5 – Unibox’s Social Media Integration ..................................................... 43 Figure 4.6 –Unibox’s Social Media Integration Funnel – No ............................. 43
Figure 4.7 –Unibox’s Social Media Integration Funnel -‐ Yes ............................. 44
Figure 4.8 –Design of Emails ....................................................................................... 44 Figure 4.9 –Emails Sent and Delivered .................................................................... 45
Figure 4.10 –Emails Sent and Bounced .................................................................... 46
Figure 4.11 –Emails Sent, Unique Opens and Total Opens ................................ 46 Figure 4.12 – Unique User Clicks and Total Clicks ............................................... 47
Figure 4.13 – Where recipients have clicked ......................................................... 48
Appendix A – Questionnaire Screen 1 ..................................................................... 61
Appendix B – Questionnaire Screen 2 ..................................................................... 61 Appendix C – Questionnaire Screen 3 ..................................................................... 61
Appendix D – Mailshot 1 .............................................................................................. 62 Appendix E – Mailshot 2 ............................................................................................... 63
Appendix F – Mailshot 3 ............................................................................................... 64
Appendix G – Covering Email ...................................................................................... 65 Appendix H – Two examples of completed questionnaires .............................. 66
Appendix I – Ethics Form .............................................................................................. 68
Appendix J -‐ Turnitin Summary Page ....................................................................... 70
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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Abstract
This research investigates the use and results of email marketing implemented by
Unibox, a retail display equipment supplier and manufacturer.
Questionnaire research and action research was undertaken and attempted to
provide data on strengths and weaknesses of current systems, how successful Unibox
currently perceive email marketing to be and how successful the implementation of
email marketing is.
The investigation into current strengths and weaknesses outlined, identified that
Unibox employees believe the current use of email marketing is efficient, however
there is a need for improved targeting of customers as employees felt irrelevant
recipients were being sent emails which increases the chances of recipients
unsubscribing, which is backed up by action research as many emails failed to send or
were not opened. Within emails opened, engagement was high, although this outlined
the need for a Customer Relationship Management solution which provides
information on specific customers and would provide increased measurability in
results of email marketing.
The implementation of email marketing was also investigated, and Unibox employees
stated that the design of emails impacts upon their success, contradicting what the
literature outlines. Engagement within emails was most common within the body
text, which suggests that images only complement the email and the most important
factor within the email design is interesting, relevant copy. Unibox employees also
outlined that they believe social media should be integrated into email marketing.
The literature review identified this is uncommon amongst businesses, although
Unibox employees believed social media integration provides greater conversion and
consistency of marketing campaigns.
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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Acknowledgements
Everything I have achieved, including the completion of this project, is thanks to the
love and support of Joan, Steven and Laura Bardsley. They have been my source of
inspiration and I can’t thank them enough.
My only aim is to make sure whatever I do makes them proud, and that my mum’s
spirit lives on in everything I aim to achieve.
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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1. Research Aim, Objectives and Introduction
1.0 Research Aim
To investigate the use and results of email marketing implemented by Unibox, a retail
display equipment supplier and manufacturer based in Manchester.
1.1 Research Objectives
• To identify the strengths and weaknesses of email marketing in relation to
practices currently implemented by Unibox.
• To investigate how successful the marketing, accounts, sales, design, admin and
purchasing teams within Unibox currently perceive email marketing to be.
• To evaluate the implementation and results of email marketing to discover how
successful email marketing is in generating sales and awareness.
• To provide recommendations that could improve the successfulness of future
email marketing campaigns
1.2 Introduction
The aim of this study is to identify how email marketing is currently implemented
within a company that is one of the market leaders in several different industries.
This will allow the investigation into how a real company has developed their use of
an incredibly fast paced digital marketing channel, and how they have incorporated
this into an existing offline and online marketing strategy.
As email marketing is still a relatively new concept in terms of theory and literature,
this study aims to provide some insight into how email marketing is used with an
operating company outside of the ideal situations literature provides.
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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1.3 Background of Unibox
Unibox was founded in 2000, as a child company of United Aluminium that was set up
10 years prior to this in 1990 by Nick Wraith and Andy Ferns. United Aluminium
initially supplied bespoke aluminium extrusions to be used in a wide variety of
industries, such as the Retail, Exhibition and Refrigeration industries. In 1994 the
company completed its transition into being a solely UK based manufacturer, and as a
result of this gained its first market leading service, the supply and manufacture of
refrigerated glass doors (United Aluminium, 2012).
The launch of the Unibox and its Aluminium Modular System in 2000 allowed United
Aluminium and Unibox to offer different products, United Aluminium continued to
provide extruded aluminium as well as refrigeration and door solutions, whilst
Unibox focussed on the design and manufacture of retail display case solutions. As a
result of this expansion, Unibox established themselves as leading suppliers in the
retail industry, and expanded their offering in 2004 to provide solutions for the
events and exhibition industries (United Aluminium, 2012).
Because of the increasing business from the retail, exhibition and events industries
and their demands for increasingly high quality products, in 2010 United Aluminium
launched Lumenal, a LED lighting manufacturer. This allowed the company to
incorporate the latest in lighting technologies into their existing products at the same
time as winning major contracts for itself, providing lighting solutions for huge UK
companies such as Morrisons supermarkets (United Aluminium, 2012).
United Aluminium, Unibox and Lumenal are now all based within the same building
in Middleton, Manchester, with over 60 employees and provide solutions to
companies based in countries such as the US, Greece, Nigeria and many more based
all over the world (United Aluminium, 2012).
Email Marketing was first introduced into Unibox in 2006. It was initially carried out
on an ad hoc basis, with no strategy in place within the first year, as its success would
be assessed once 12 months had passed since its introduction. These emails were all
used to attempt to drive sales of certain products, with an emphasis being placed on
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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getting the customers to ring up and speak directly to sales staff rather than sending
people to the website for more information.
Caroline Reeves began as marketing manager in 2007, and quickly identified that
email marketing had been successful for the company. This resulted in an increase in
its use, and more significantly, the implementation of an email marketing strategy.
Two emails would be sent per month promoting products chosen a month in advance.
As this started to generate more enquiries, the design of the emails was adapted, and
people were now directed to the newly developed website which contained all the
information needed for recipients to make an informed decision without wasting the
time of the sales staff. This increased the efficiency of email marketing, as more time
was being spent by sales staff answering relevant calls thanks to the vetting process
of enquiries being directed to the website.
This level of use continued as the company had a lack of marketing resource to
allocate towards the design and implementation of email marketing, as Caroline
Reeves was redeployed into the sales team, and Nick Wraith (Managing Director)
took control of marketing at the same time as managing the entire company with
Unibox’s other Managing Director Andy Ferns.
Eventually in 2011, two years since Unibox had a manager with the sole
responsibility of the marketing function, Joanne Grace headed the team as marketing
executive with student placement Craig Whittaker.
With the development of web-‐based email software and the recruitment of trained
design and marketing students, email marketing was again introduced to the
company, with two emails being sent a month until a new placement student was
recruited whose job description was based heavily around the development of email
marketing and increasing its usage.
The following year saw Unibox’s marketing team increase the use of email marketing,
with at least one email going to a highly targeted section of the Unibox database per
week, and as a result web traffic increased to new highs.
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This was carried through to September 2012, when there was a further replacement
and Matthew Connaughton took over as marketing executive with the challenge of
furthering Unibox’s development of email marketing and increasing website traffic
and results.
However, until very recently Unibox’s email marketing was carried out in an
extremely simple and immeasurable way, via sending out images attached to emails
to a large database of contacts. In addition to this, mostly all emails going out were
sales emails with each one being heavily targeted on boosting sales. Very few were
sent in a ‘newsletter’ form designed to boost awareness and brand value.
This study plans to investigate whether the change Unibox has gone through, in terms
of upgrading to a web-‐based email software system, has been effective, and in what
ways is this change in email marketing strategy affecting other digital marketing tools
such as website visits and social media integration.
1.4 Research Project Structure
This research project will contain a theoretical framework and literature review,
which will investigate into the various literature based upon email marketing,
including the increasing use and the results of email marketing. Following this
chapter is a detailed view of the Research Design and Methodology that will be
undertaken by the researcher. This will outline the types of research proposed to
accurately convey the status of email marketing within Unibox.
These methods of data collection will be critiqued to ensure validity, but to also
assess how effective they will be once used. The following Findings and Analysis
chapter will present the findings that have come from the data collection methods,
and analyse these in accordance with the research objectives initially stated. Finally,
conclusions will be drawn from the research collected that will be compared to
relevant literature identified within the literature review chapter. Recommendations
will be presented for both Unibox’s email marketing strategy as well as for further
research that could be undertaken.
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2. Literature Review
2.0 Introduction
This section will provide an in depth look at the existing literature regarding email
marketing, to enable the researcher to gain insight into the background context and
structure the research which is to be collected upon this. The researcher will look at
many different forms of literature to ensure a thorough view of the topic is captured,
from academic journals and published books to newspapers and websites concerned
directly with the topic. Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009) state that ’Reviewing the
literature critically will provide the foundation on which your research is built’. They
further explain that ‘Its main purpose is to develop a good understanding and insight
into relevant previous research and the trends that have emerged’.
2.1 The increase in use of email marketing
“Email marketing is a channel that allows individuals and companies to communicate
en masse with their customers, prospects, fans and subscribers” Waldow & Falls
(2012). This is a definition of email marketing, which is further explained by Acharya,
Kagan, and Zimmerman (2010): ‘Email allows a marketer (seller) to communicate detailed information about various products and services with customers promptly in a
non-‐intrusive manner’. Acharya, Kagan, and Zimmerman (2010) argue that the use of
email will allow companies to contact their stakeholders in a ‘non-‐intrusive manner’,
which is something that is increasingly rare in marketing today.
However, this ‘non-‐intrusive’ (Acharya, Kagan, and Zimmerman, 2010) approach may
only have been apparent in the early stages of email marketing. Because email
marketing was a relatively new concept years ago, recipients may have been more
willing to open the email and read the contents whether they were relevant to them
or not. Nowadays, email recipients demand much more relevance as more companies
have become aware of the advantages of email marketing, in addition to the increase
in the amount of emails received daily. Vigden, Sims & Powell (2011) refer to this as
‘e-‐mail overload’. They state that ‘E-‐mail overload begins with inappropriate employee
behaviours when creating and sending e-‐mail. A long and rambling e-‐mail with no clear
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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action sent indiscriminately via a mailing list creates a burden for its many recipients’.
Clearly, this was less common during the introduction of email, however companies
are increasingly purchasing mailing lists from others, which may not necessarily be
relevant to the main function of the buying company and as a result, more emails are
being received which can create ‘email overload’ (Vigden, Sims & Powell, 2011).
2.2 The benefits of email marketing to operating companies
‘Email overload’ (Vigden, Sims & Powell, 2011) has not halted email marketing’s
increase in use however, as many companies have seen its relevance in reaching their
target, as well as being relatively cost-‐effective. Hanna, Berger and Abendroth (2005)
indicate that ‘Its popularity as both a communication device and marketing tool can be
attributed to its relatively low cost, fast reaction time, and high response rate. Thus far,
emails have been used for many different purposes including brand building, acquisition
of new customers, and retention of existing customers’.
Hanna, Berger and Abendroth (2005) also discuss fast reaction time. Reaction times
depend solely on the email itself, and whether the email is designed to illicit a fast
response. However if the email allows for easy interaction for the user, then reaction
will be almost instantaneous. This is heightened by the fact that emails can be
scheduled to send at particular points in the day, when companies believe their target
recipient is most likely to be responsive to the content. Mullen & Daniels (2009) state
that ‘Email is the most popular form of asynchronous communication; it touches
hundreds of millions of people around the world every day’. Here, Mullen & Daniels
(2009) refer to email as being asynchronous, meaning email can be sent at any time
throughout the day, followed by subsequent campaigns that will not be sent at the
same time. This allows companies to gather more data on the recipients of email
depending on the time they receive the email, and will be a tactic to reach their
audiences when other rival companies may not be.
McLuhan (2007) adds to this by stating: ‘Email is recognised for its speed, cost
efficiencies and the fact that the return on investment is highly measurable’. Perhaps
the most desirable result of email marketing from companies is what McLuhan’s
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(2007) final point raises. Companies increasingly want to see the effect that
marketing has on their organisation, and email marketing offers an unrivalled level of
accountability. This is a statement backed up by Anderson (2013) who states,
‘Correlating online email marketing efforts with offline results allows marketers, for the
first time, to quickly analyze diverse data in a single dashboard interface for deeper
targeting and segmentation’.
Econsultancy (2012) reinforce this in figure 2.1, where companies were asked ‘How
do you rate the following channels in terms of return on investment?’ The two channels
that ranked first and third in this table are both searched based channels, and need
constant monitoring to ensure that their effectiveness is maintained. Email marketing
requires no such monitoring, as campaigns are scheduled to send at certain times and
the effectiveness of the email campaign is then determined by user engagement.
This is further identified by McKay, Musico and Tsai (2009) who state email
marketing is ‘a highly effective channel, consistently responsible for approximately 10
per cent of online sales’, and identified that industry specific retailers vary their use of
email marketing ‘from two emails a month to as many as four when event-‐specific
excitement is running high’. McKay, Musico and Tsai (2009) therefore indicate that
email marketing is also responsive to demand fluctuations.
Vigden, Sims & Powell (2011) earlier state that ‘e-‐mail overload’ can sometimes occur
when businesses send out too many emails to their database, however, what McKay,
Figure 2.1 – Source: Econsultancy 2012
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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Musico and Tsai (2009) outline is that ‘e-‐mail overload’ (Vigden, Sims & Powell, 2011)
may be subjective and dependent on the time in which the email is sent.
Recipients may become more frustrated with emails that contain irrelevant data in
which they can make no connection with at that current moment in time, however
recipients may be more responsive to a high number of emails if there is a natural
consciousness towards the particular subject e.g. if a national sporting event is taking
place and companies offering products related to particular sports are frequently
sending out emails, recipients may be less likely to suffer from ‘e-‐mail overload’
(Vigden, Sims & Powell, 2011) as they are engaging with content which they are
interested in.
Opposing the notion of ‘e-‐mail overload’ (Vigden, Sims & Powell, 2011) is Arnold
(2011) who argues that ‘E-‐mail might seem like a cost-‐effective way to deliver your
marketing messages. For the most part, it is cost effective because you can send
personalized, targeted, and interest-‐specific messages to a large number of people’.
Arnold (2011) claims that email is particularly successful because of the data
companies already have on their database of existing, past and future customers. This
data provides them with the knowledge and opportunity to send extremely
personalised messages to people, which aims to engage recipients, as the content is
relevant to them and may encourage a more favourable response.
This personalisation is also offered by offline direct marketing. However, within
figure 2.1 above, offline direct marketing is considered to be significantly less
effective, with 18% less companies determining offline direct marketing to provide
‘Excellent’ return on investment, and 16% less determining it to provide ‘Good’
return on investment.
The expensive nature of direct mail is a contributing factor, as company mailing lists
are usually at least in their 1000’s, physically mailing out would be extremely costly,
compared with an email which can cost just pence to mail out via a web-‐based
application.
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2.3 Problems with the increase in use of Email Marketing.
Vigden, Sims & Powell’s (2011) comments regarding ‘e-‐mail overload’ have obvious
validity when researching into the success of email marketing. The rise in use of email
marketing has developed problems such as people receiving SPAM emails. Khanna,
Chaudhry and Bindra (2012) state that ‘Spam is a huge issue for most Internet users.
And despite the evolution of anti spam software, such as spam filters and spam blockers,
the negative effects of spam are still being felt by individuals and businesses alike’. This
directly impacts upon the effectiveness of some organisations email marketing
campaigns, as technologies outlined by Khanna, Chaudhry and Bindra (2012) such as
spam filters and blockers, could in fact not recognise the emails as being genuine, and
block the communications.
Assuming that the emails are delivered and reach the intended recipients, this does
not guarantee that the email is read. According to Tsai (2009) ‘71 per cent of survey
respondents say they will not open an email if they have doubts about the sender's
identity’. This is a problem for companies, especially ones which buy contacts to email
from an external source as a form of prospecting, as the results may be insignificant
and an inefficient use of budget.
2.4 Email Marketing as a standalone tool
McLuhan (2007) argues that email marketing is not successful as a standalone tool,
and must be used as part of a widespread marketing strategy. He states that ‘Email is
best used together with other channels, such as drawing attention to a piece of direct
mail. Using it in isolation may cut costs, but it also means cutting corners and, before
long, your profits’. Here McLuhan (2007) says that email marketing will only provide a
small amount of awareness as a standalone tool, and is more useful when combined
with other methods of marketing. Emails alone may not provide enough reach,
especially due to the increase in the amount of spam being sent, so combining this
with other methods which provide a similar message may increase awareness of the
emails, leading them to recollect the message when a suitable application is thought
of by the recipient.
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Adopting email marketing as part of a campaign, alongside other tools is one that will
be more costly to companies in the long term but may provide the company with
raised awareness that could not be provided by email alone.
However, this relies on the effectiveness of other marketing tools, which are likely to
not be as personalised or as measurable. It would be hard to measure which method
of marketing is responsible for lead generation or a possible sale if multiple tools are
being used that are sending out the same message. The only method of identifying
this would be to directly contact the customer or prospect, and to ask how they heard
of the company, which could be perceived by them as a lack of efficiency within the
company.
Tsai (2009) agrees with McLuhan (2007), stating ‘Many marketers believe email
should be used with caution, and that it often works better as part of a mix than as a
stand-‐alone medium. It is also valued more widely for raising awareness than driving
sales’. Email marketing does raise awareness, however it isn’t stated what mix email
marketing should be used with. This statement largely relies on the business, and
whether email is the only relevant form of marketing e.g. a purely online company
may deem email marketing to be the best way of reaching their customers and
increasing sales, and that other forms of marketing may be less measurable and not
as worthwhile in terms of sales income.
2.5 The different types of email marketing
Raising awareness is only one of many advantages that email marketing offers to
companies, and Chaffey (2007) outlines that there are many other types of email that
have been developed for different purposes. He states that ‘Many marketers
immediately think of e-‐newsletters and sales promotions as the main opportunities for
deploying e-‐mail, but the opportunities are much greater. Think about how many of the
following techniques you could deploy. Acquisition tool, Conversion tool, retention tool,
awareness raising tool, brand-‐building tool, research tool, research tool, viral tool,
service delivery tool’.
Chaffey (2007) outlines that the use and results of email marketing can differ
depending on what you wish to achieve from the email itself. These different formats
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of email allow a company to contact their customer base on a mass level but for very
different reasons, and will provide different responses as a result. These email tools
may even be controlled by separate departments within organisations, meaning the
message will differ and the company will have to ensure that branding and other
messages are consistent throughout to provide the most effective service to the
recipient. Mullen and Daniels (2009) agree with Chaffey (2007) to an extent,
however they narrow down the uses of email to 5 specific applications, ‘We believe
that out of all the thousands of types of emails you can design, or hundreds of thousands
of permutations of creative i.e. images and marketing copy, for your messages, you will
ever create only five key types of email messages: Awareness, Consideration, Conversion,
Product Usage, Retention & loyalty’. The focus of Mullen & Daniels (2009) is the
different permutations that will allow a company to create a particular type of email.
This indicates that email is restricted to a certain number of uses. These uses are
widespread, however this statement backs up what Tsai (2009) and McLuhan (2007)
state earlier, that email marketing should not be used as a standalone tool throughout
acquisition, conversion and retention.
Companies may go into email marketing for purely promotional and sales oriented
results, rather than wanting to integrate email marketing into their other functions to
provide a more cost-‐effective, successful approach. O’Connell (2012) identifies this,
stating ‘We do a lot of database mail shots, letting people know about new products and
offers. It works. Whenever we put one out we see a direct spike in sales’. However, this
may only be successful for companies have a small amount of people in their database
and will have a more personal connection with the people they send out email to.
2.6 The use of email marketing within companies and email marketing
integration
Use of email marketing within real companies will most likely differ from what
Mullen & Daniels (2009) and Chaffey (2007) state. In reality, companies may not
employ a marketing expert capable of either identifying what type of email is
appropriate for different situations, or even be aware of the different format of
message at all. Because of the rise in use and widespread knowledge of its
effectiveness in raising awareness and sales, companies may have invested into email
marketing without the defined skills required to run successful campaigns.
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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When email marketing was
first introduced, companies
had to have in-‐house systems
developed capable of sending
emails to a mass audience.
However, Econsultancy
(2012) now shows within
figure 2.2 that the use of
these systems is diminishing
in favour of Internet based
software systems.
20% of companies still use in-‐house systems as shown in figure 2.2, however these
companies will have had to make a considerable investment into the software for it to
work exactly as specified. It could be the case that systems developed in-‐house were
created many years ago, when there was a lack of web-‐based email applications
readily available to companies.
In-‐house systems are in a steady decline, with its usage dropping 10% over 5 years.
The most interesting development however is the increase in use of web-‐based
application service providers, nearly doubling over the same period of time.
Integrating email marketing
within other digital channels
may be one of the reasons for
companies adopting web-‐
based email application
software, such as integrating
with social media. However,
many companies see both of
these channels as separate
tools, as shown in figure 2.3.
Figure 2.3 -‐ Source: Econsultancy 2012
Figure 2.2 -‐ Source: Econsultancy 2012
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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Implementing solutions such as this to increase engagement may increase the
performance of marketing as a whole, and allow customers to increase awareness by
engaging with the company.
Brown (2012) identifies that 64% of companies within the B2B audience currently
use social media. Facebook is the most commonly used, with 80% of companies using
social media having a Facebook page, 78% of companies having a Twitter page, and
51% of companies having a page on LinkedIn. However, Econsultancy (2012)
identifies within figure 2.3 above that companies which currently engage in email
marketing have a much higher use of social media, with only 4% of companies
responding to the question ‘Which of the following best describes the relationship
between your email and social media activity?’ with the answer ‘We don’t do social
media’. As many companies are not using email marketing and social media to
complement each other, this may mean that they are not fully utilising the benefits of
email marketing campaigns and are missing the opportunity to convert customers
and ensure a consistent message is conveyed across all digital marketing channels.
This is something that Tsai (2009) outlines, expressing that ‘There are several layers
to effective email messaging. Delivery is the first one, but getting customers to open and
act on emails is what matters’. Getting customers to open and act on an email may be
more achievable for small companies, where customers will have direct contact with
management and people who may even send out the email itself. Therefore social
media integration may also be more effective, as customers may be advocates for
small companies and want to help them, and the company is more likely to retain
their business over a longer period of time. However, with large companies there will
be less of a personal connection, and the recipient is much more likely to understand
that the type of email being sent to them is one to illicit a sale, or a response which
could lead to a sale. Therefore the only integration into email marketing expected is
the ability to go to the website and buy a product, as larger companies know that
many customers may only buy from them once, and the company will not retain their
custom easily.
This directly affects the open rate of emails, and could lead to a decrease if the
company sends out information to its database on a frequent basis, meaning the
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recipients could become alienated towards the company as a whole, decreasing the
chances of both an online and physical sale in the future.
2.7 User disengagement and email acquisition
Due to the nature of email marketing, if the recipient believes they will never act on a
company email then it is easy for the recipient to simply choose to not receive emails
from the company anymore, which means the prospect of them buying in the future
has all but disappeared. A recipient unsubscribing is a problem for businesses, as they
are bound by law to remove them from their database and to never contact them
again in a similar way to why they unsubscribed.
Herschell Gordon (2002) identifies three email address acquisition sources: ‘The
three major sources are: 1. Acquisition of online names and addresses of existing
customers, clients, or inquirers. 2. Recruitment through media advertising, public
relations and news releases, and telemarketing. 3. Rented names from list brokers’.
These three methods of acquiring email addresses each contribute in their own way
to the results of email marketing, some more effectively than others. The first method
that Herschell Gordon (2002) outlines may only be useful to companies that are in the
initial stages of setting up email marketing. The success of this first approach relies
heavily on the efficiency of staff that have input data into the company database and
records of all previous customers being kept. As the method of acquiring their email
would involve contacting the company directly e.g. by either phoning them or writing
to them requesting their details, then the success of this relies on the respondent of
the other company.
The second method of collecting email addresses is a more natural process, and
further backs up the argument of Tsai (2009) & McLuhan (2007), that email is most
effective when used with other marketing tools. The second point is one which relies
on creating awareness through other mediums to drive traffic either to the website,
where they will be offered the chance to sign up to email communications, or to email
the company themselves which will provide the email address directly and will also
provide some information on why they have responded. This method could be much
more costly however, as it relies on people becoming aware of the company or a
particular product via another marketing tool. It may not be as easy to identify what
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aspect of the company the people acquired are interested in however, or even where
the person responding has seen a message from the company which has provoked a
response to sign up, meaning the chances of them receiving an email which isn’t
relevant to them is much more likely than those acquired from other sources, which
could lead to them subsequently unsubscribing.
The final method that Herschell Gordon (2002) outlines is the most likely to result in
poor results for the company. Due to the amount of people unsubscribing from
databases, companies may use this method of purchasing contacts from list brokers
to ensure that their emails are seen by a considerable amount of people, who may or
may not be interested in the products that the company offer. Mullen & Daniels
(2009) state that ‘Paramount to your email marketing success is balancing the quantity
of the email addresses that you will acquire with their quality. Simply acquiring or
renting a large list of email addresses may not deliver the return that you are seeking
compared to methodically growing your list over time’. This argues that companies
who simply buy lists never know exactly which type of contact they are going to
receive, and especially within the B2B environment, contacts need to be of a specific
quality for them to yield any result.
However, in both B2B and B2C emails, if people are sent emails that are not relevant
then it is extremely easy to unsubscribe, which again is a cost to the company, as they
haven’t acquired the address themselves. Companies may expect to receive a certain
amount of enquiries or orders per amount of emails sent out, but this expectation
needs to be contained depending on the quality of the actual email address itself. It is
possible that a company will
send an email to a contact on
a rented list which returns a
huge investment, however as
Mullen & Daniels (2009)
state, prolonged financial
return is much more likely to
come from contacts that are
actually interested in the
products or services
Figure 2.4 -‐ Source: Econsultancy 2012
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provided, with email content personalised to their needs at a certain moment in time.
Once an email address has been acquired and added into a company database, it
should not be forgotten and added to a mailing list that is sent many unsolicited
emails. Econsultancy (2012) outline in figure 2.4 that only 52% of companies are
currently active in regular list cleansing.
The Information Commissioners Office (2012) outline that ‘The most important thing
to remember is that you can only carry out unsolicited electronic marketing if the
person you're targeting has given you their permission.’. Many companies want to
expand their database of emails to allow for more people to see their products or
services. However as noted by the Information Commissioners Office (2012),
companies can only contact people who have given their consent. Frequently these
permissions will change, as recipients sometime ‘unsubscribe’ from receiving emails
from particular companies. This increases the importance of regular list cleansing, as
if this is not done each time email marketing is used, then emails may be being sent to
recipients who have previously unsubscribed from the messages.
This could result in the company’s IP address being ‘blacklisted’. Keller (2011)
describes this as: ‘The blacklist represents one of numerous mechanisms that have been
introduced to fight spam and identify the parties who distribute it. A blacklist may come
in many forms, but it is basically a master list that ISPs can reference to determine
whether or not a given message is spam’. Being blacklisted means email marketing
messages will no longer get to the majority of recipients and will reduce the
effectiveness of email marketing.
Chaffey (2007) identifies that there is a trend emerging for email marketing as a
whole, and lists that are bought or rented. He states: ‘As experienced with banner
adverts, there has been a decline in the average clickthrough rate for e-‐mail,
particularly from those from rented lists’. Clicks through to a website, responding from
a call-‐to-‐action within the email itself is the main reason why email marketing is
deployed. If click-‐through rates are falling, especially within contacts that have been
bought by a company, then companies may seek to either develop their own lists or
decrease their use of email marketing.
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2.8 The design and visual aspect of email marketing
The design and copy within email marketing is something that is important in
attracting attention and making the email stand out. Chaffey (2007) outlines creative
and copy within his ‘critical’ factors: ‘Consider my mnemonic of the 'CRITICAL' factors
for e-‐mail marketing success. Critical represents: Creative, Relevance, Incentive,
Targeting and timing, Integration, Copy, Attributes, Landing Page’. There is great
emphasis placed on these as they will have to relate to the recipient, e.g. copy will be
completely different if you are targeting the B2C environment compared to B2B.
However, the successfulness of implementing attractive looking email campaigns
depend on the level of investment the company has been willing to make, and in what
format they are sending out emails. HTML is increasingly used within email
marketing as it allows for a much more attractive design, as well as much more
flexibility in hyperlinks and calls-‐to-‐action. Ryan & Jones (2012) comment that ‘HTML
e-‐mails can tie in with the look and feel of your website, providing a consistent look and
great brand continuity when your prospects click through to your landing page’. This
will be a significant benefit to companies with the increase in digital marketing, as
companies may have invested heavily in their website but their brand value was
diluted when sending out emails because they didn’t match the design or tone that
the website set.
Ryan & Jones’ (2012) point is challenged by Bird (2007) where he states that ‘E-‐mails
should be short and eye-‐catching. Quite frankly I could never believe this to be true.
Time and time again, whenever a client has been willing to test a short message,
perhaps with a very eye-‐catching graphic -‐ against a long, relevant and interesting
message, the latter has performed better’. Bird (2007) states that as long as the
content within the email itself is relevant to the recipient then it will perform much
better than ones that may be designed nicely but are irrelevant.
Messages which are designed in HTML that contain a lot of graphic content also affect
the performance of the email itself, as McLuhan (2007) states: ‘Images can also hit the
number of successful deliveries, as big emails are often blocked by internet service
providers and company firewalls trying to stem the flow of unsolicited mail. IT vendor
RM discovered that as many of a quarter of its communications were failing to reach
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inboxes because of its heavy use of graphics, even if recipients had opted in’. Chaffey &
Ellis-‐Chadwick (2012) agree with this, stating ‘Often images are blocked by readers in
an effort to defeat spammers who use the fact that images are downloaded as the user
views the email to detect that the e-‐mail is a valid address. So e-‐mails that are only
made up of images with no text are less likely to be effective than hybrid messages
combining text and images.’ Here McLuhan (2007) and Chaffey & Ellis-‐Chadwick
(2012) show that even if recipients have opted-‐in to email communications from the
company, if the size of the email is too big because of large image files placed within
the body of the email, then it can fail to even get to the intended recipient. Tsai (2009)
reports that ‘A very small percentage of emails the ISPs [Internet Service Providers]
handle is legitimate -‐ 90% of it is spam. Of the ones that are legitimate, email
deliverability vender Pivotal Veracity reports that roughly 20 per cent don't even get
delivered’. This shows that email marketing still has problems to overcome, including
one major problem in that emails are simply not being received even though the
email address is valid.
2.9 Summary of Literature Review
By investigating into the different theorists surrounding email marketing and the
increasing adoption rates within companies, the researcher has identified there are
several conclusions to be made:
• ‘E-‐mail overload’ (Vigden, Sims & Powell, 2011) needs to be considered by
companies considering undertaking email marketing. Clear, concise emails
sent to relevant target groups reduce this effect, however ‘e-‐mail overload’
remains a significant challenge in increasing open rates.
• The increase in adoption rates of email marketing is a result of more
companies realising they can communicate with many different markets at
specific times at the same time as receiving a highly measurable return on
investment. This is in addition to the advancements of email marketing
technology, as it is now accessible for the vast majority of companies relatively
cheaply via web based email software applications.
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• Email marketing is still relatively unreliable in its delivery, as many factors
such as Internet Service Providers not delivering the mail, poor content or
subject lines not attracting attention, and the senders email address all
considered to be valid reasons contributing to poor email marketing
performance.
• A debate exists over the success of email marketing as a standalone tool, with
theorists questioning email marketing’s validity to raising awareness and sales
figures without integration into other online and offline marketing tools.
• Companies are now aware that having their domain blacklisted or listed as
SPAM is incredibly damaging to the success of their marketing in addition to
their brand image and amount of people unsubscribing from emails.
• The design of emails impact upon their success and finding a balance between
graphics and text remains an issue.
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3. Methodology
3.0 Introduction
The methodology chapter will outline which research methods have been chosen to
provide data and attempt to answer each of the research objectives. In order to
describe the structure of the research being undertaken, the research onion shown in
figure 3.1 below will be used as a framework.
Figure 3.1 -‐ Research onion -‐ sourced from Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009)
3.1 Research Philosophy
Interpretivism is an extremely important concept when carrying out research.
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009) explain that ‘Interpretivism advocates that it is
necessary for the researcher to understand differences between humans in our role as
social actors. This emphasises the difference between conducting research among
people rather than objects such as trucks and computers’. As this research will
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predominantly involve human reaction and engagement, it is important to
understand that not all the people who take part in this research will view the
research, in addition to other factors such as the company (Unibox) in the same way.
This will allow the researcher to interpret some of the complex behaviours and
results that may occur as a result of human interaction and engagement.
3.2 Research Approaches
There are two research approaches outlined by Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill
(2009), Deduction and Induction, however it is the latter that lends itself to the
Interpretivism concept. Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009) define the ‘Induction’
research approach as where ‘you would collect data and develop theory as a result of
your data analysis’. This ‘Induction’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009) approach
will be much more relevant for the study being carried out, as it will allow the
researcher to ‘get a feel of what was going on, so as to understand better the nature of
the problem’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). This approach relies on the
collection of both quantitative and qualitative data, however Maxwell (2005) believes
that the process of data collection isn’t as linear as Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill
(2009) suggest, Maxwell (2005) states ‘The activities of collecting and analysing data,
developing and modifying theory, elaborating or refocusing the research questions, and
identifying and addressing validity threats are all going on more or less simultaneously,
each influencing all of the others. This process isn’t adequately represented by a linear
model, even one that allows multiple cycles, because in qualitative research there isn’t
an unvarying order in which the different tasks or components must be arranged’.
Therefore, although the researcher will use the Induction approach as a framework
for investigation and developing conclusions, Maxwell’s (2005) non-‐linear approach
will be taken into account and will allow for the evaluation of each step of the
research.
However, the research collected will not be solely based upon the Induction
approach. Certain elements of the Deduction approach will be relevant, leading to a
mixed research approach. Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009) highlight that one of
the key emphasises of the deduction approach is the collection of quantitative data.
Due to the nature of email marketing and the analysis leading thereafter, quantitative
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data will provide the most in-‐depth findings, which is why these two research
approaches must be mixed to gain a full perspective of the situation.
3.3 Research Purpose
Research purpose is not included within the onion that Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill
(2009) state, however they outline elsewhere that the purpose of the research can
either be exploratory, explanatory or descriptive, and defining the purpose of the
research in this manner will be important as the researcher begins collecting data.
As the main purpose of this research is to highlight how successful email marketing is
within Unibox, a specific company and not as a marketing tool in general, the purpose
of this research will be exploratory. Robson (2002) defines this as a means of finding
out ‘what is happening; to seek new insights; to ask questions and to assess phenomena
in a new light’. With an exploratory purpose the researcher can find out exactly how
successful email marketing is for the company in question, which should uncover
some theories which challenge those already established within marketing, allowing
for people to see this tool differently than before.
3.4 Research Strategy
In an effort to improve the validity of results, more than one of the strategies outlined
in Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill’s (2009) research onion will be implemented.
Survey, case study and action research strategies will be employed, in order to gain
quantitative and qualitative (although this will be minimal) data from both the
sending company (Unibox) and the recipients who engage with the company’s email
marketing.
The survey strategy will allow for the collection of quantitative data via the form of
questionnaires, case study strategy will allow the researcher to focus on the company
and gain employee insight into current practices, and finally action research will be
implemented to allow the researcher to collect extremely relevant primary
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quantitative data. This mixed strategy approach will result in numerous sources of
information that should provide a clearer investigation into email marketing.
3.5 Research Choice
In order to complement the approaches outlined above, the researcher will
implement a multi-‐method mixed-‐model research approach. This will allow the
researcher to gain the appropriate data and then combine ‘quantitative and
qualitative data collection techniques and analysis procedures as well as combining
quantitative and qualitative approaches at other stages of the research’ (Saunders,
Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). In addition to this, the multi-‐method mixed-‐model
research approach will allow the researcher to take ‘quantitative data and qualitise it,
that is, convert it into narrative that can be analysed qualitatively. Alternatively, you
may quantities your qualitative data, converting it into numerical codes so that it can
be analysed statistically’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009).
This will allow the researcher to gain a full understanding of current practices within
the company, as well as an understanding of how effective it is currently perceived to
be by staff and recipients.
3.6 Time Horizons
The researcher will use a cross-‐sectional approach towards this research project. This
method involves ‘the study of a particular phenomenon (or phenomena) at a particular
time i.e. a ‘snapshot’’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009). This is more relevant
than implementing a ‘longitudinal’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009) approach
because of the time constraints the researcher will be placed under. However, a
further reason for choosing to use a cross-‐sectional approach is that as the study
involves a single company, certain developments in email marketing may not be
implemented for some time due to cost or time it would take to retrain staff,
therefore studying the incremental changes within email marketing itself may take a
significant period of time to evaluate.
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3.7 Research Techniques and Procedures
As this research focuses on Unibox employees, they are the most suitable candidates
to choose as a sample. As of February 2013, Unibox currently employ more than 40
people who have an office-‐based role within the company. Using employees outside
of office-‐based roles within the sample for questionnaires may be unrealistic as some
will have very little to no knowledge about email marketing and work in departments
that have no involvement with marketing e.g. factory supervisors. Therefore the
sample will be chosen from within the marketing, accounts, sales, design, admin and
purchasing teams, who have all received responses in the past from email marketing
campaigns. This will allow the researcher to assess a sample in which the data will be
entirely relevant, making it easier to come to conclusions about the effectiveness of
email marketing.
In addition to this, the sample will be expanded externally for the action research.
Currently each mailshot Unibox sends out is sent to 8,604 contacts, which is a
database consisting of past and existing customers as well as prospects. To achieve
the most realistic set of results, each time an email that is being researched is sent
out, it will be sent out to the whole list so that there are no disproportional biases
towards certain types of recipient. Ideally the size of this sample would be smaller,
however the database system that Unibox currently uses doesn’t allow for a
proportional separation of the database, and running this manually would take too
much time.
In total, around 30 questionnaires are expected to be collected from 40 in total,
allowing for 25% of recipients not to respond. This is a high response rate, however
as the researcher remains in contact with the company then this should increase the
amount of completed questionnaires. The questionnaire has been designed by the
researcher to enable response from all areas of the company, which will allow for
further analysis between different departments and how beneficial they believe email
marketing to be in their specific job role.
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Following this, an element of action research will be implemented, where the
researcher will specifically be involved in the sending out of 3 email campaigns with
the co-‐operation of the Unibox marketing team. The topics of these emails will be
defined by the marketing team and be sent to the entire database of contacts,
allowing for an equal number of recipients for each email. These will be sent out via
the company’s existing web based email application, to ensure that the deliverability
is constant and emails are sent via the same server.
3.7.1 Questionnaires
The researcher will design ‘internet-‐mediated’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009)
questionnaires and send to all recipients via Survey Monkey, an online survey design
system. However to increase the response rate, a covering email (Appendix G) will be
sent personally from the researcher with a link to the online questionnaire, which is
designed to illicit a personal connection between the email and the resulting
completion of the questionnaire.
Using this method will save the researcher the time it would take to personally give
out a large amount of questionnaires and then collect them when each individual has
finished, time allocated for analysis and collection of results (as Survey Monkey has
built in analytic solutions which will allow the researcher to simply export the
collected results, and further analyse these in an excel spreadsheet) and finally
money (most notably the cost of paper and printing). Roche and Allen (2007) also
explain the importance of good design, highlighting that ‘A professionally designed
questionnaire that is appealing, easy to read and spacious can improve response rates
by up to 20%’. This was a further reason for choosing an online delivery method, as
the appearance is easily editable and will look much more professional than if
produced in word processing software and printed out.
The questionnaire will be sent to, as noted above, the marketing, accounts, sales,
design, admin and purchasing teams. This sample equates to around 40 people.
Ideally the questionnaire would be sent to more people, however the relevancy of the
results gathered may suffer as a result if the questionnaire was sent to all employees
of the company, as many have little to do with marketing or the results of marketing
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on a day-‐to-‐day basis. The company employs over 30 factory workers and
supervisors, each with their own individual company email address, therefore
sending the questionnaire to these employees who have little to do with the Unibox
offices and lead generation would be inappropriate.
Figure 3.2 below summarises how many questionnaires will be sent out to each
department:
Department Questionnaires sent in total
Marketing 5
Accounts 3
Sales 17
Design 5
Admin and Purchasing 10
As the researcher is involved with the marketing team, recipients of the email may try
to provide answers which do not reflect their own personal opinions, as them deem
them to be more socially acceptable in the workplace. However, it will be stated
within the initial cover email that this is not a desired response and that any response
given must reflect their own personal opinion. It will also be noted that this piece of
work will be completely anonymous, and is not sent in conjunction with the
marketing team, as respondents may believe that if they are too critical of the subject
then this may cause some disruption or ill-‐feeling within the workplace.
When carrying out questionnaire research the researcher may find some limitations
when collecting the results. The most influential limitation of this research is that
response rate may be low. This is heightened when the questionnaire is not given out
personally to all respondents in physical form, however as the email containing
information will be sent to all recipients when the researcher is within Unibox’s
offices, this email can be backed up by verbal communication outlining the purpose of
the questionnaire and the significance of its completion. However, the researcher
expects that there will be an amount of questionnaires not completed, but has
allowed for three quarters of these (30 in total) to be completed.
Figure 3.2 : Questionnaire Summary
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A further limitation would be the possibility of the researcher/designer and the
recipient seeing different emails, as Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009) outline:
‘Although the covering email and good design will help to ensure a high level of
response, it must be remembered that, unlike paper questionnaires, the designer and
respondent may see different images displayed on their monitors. Alternative computer
operating systems, Internet browsers and display screens can all result in the image
being displayed differently’.
The questionnaire will be sent with the permission of both Managing Directors of
Unibox, at an arranged time with the Managing Directors and Marketing Manager to
minimize disruption of work and to increase chances of completion.
3.7.2 Action Research
The researcher has chosen to carry out action research, to allow the investigation into
how effectively email marketing truly is for a company currently operating and
successfully trading. McKenzie, Powell and Usher (1997) define the process of action
research as ‘researchers test and refine principles, tools, techniques and methodologies
to address real world problems’. It will offer the researcher the opportunity to see the
advantages first hand and collect data which will enable the triangulation of results,
providing a much more reliable set of data which the researcher can analyse. The
research will adopt an adaptation of the ‘Participant as observer’ (Saunders, Lewis
and Thornhill, 2009) role, where it is outlined that ‘both you and the subjects are
aware of the fact that it is a fieldwork relationship’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill,
2009). This role will allow the researcher to gain the trust of the company, but will
take this role one step further in actually carrying out some of the email marketing
activities to fully understand its use and immediate results.
Calhoun (2009) states that the researcher needs to ‘carefully collect data to diagnose
problems, search for solutions, take action on promising possibilities, and monitor
whether and how well the action worked. The cycle can repeat itself many times,
focusing on the same problem or another’. The researcher will send out three emails of
a similar nature in accordance with what Calhoun (2009) states above, however due
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to time constraints the researcher cannot fully comply with what Calhoun (2009)
outlines.
Email marketing is currently used within part of Unibox’s extensive marketing
strategy, and is planned for months ahead of the scheduled sending date. As Unibox
send out email marketing messages so frequently, this will allow the researcher to
work with the marketing department to collect results from three separate
campaigns, to ensure a fair reflection on email marketing as a whole. The researcher
could carry out this research on a single date, however the subject of the email will
appeal to different amounts of the Unibox database, leading to data that is unusually
varied. Allowing for the collection of three sets of results will provide the researcher
with enough information to obtain an average, gaining a snapshot of the
successfulness at one point in time.
In an attempt to further consolidate the information that will be collected by the
researcher, each element of the action research will be sent to the same number of
recipients. Unibox’s database currently contains 8604 entries, each of which will
receive an email once the research has begun.
The emails will be sent out via an online email marketing software system. This
automates the process of sending the emails out to the entire Unibox database, in
addition to having the capacity to analyse all of the collected data within the Unibox
account page on the website, saving the researcher a considerable amount of time.
The researcher will have access to the same designer that has designed email
campaigns for Unibox over the previous two years, allowing for a consistent message
to be displayed to the recipients that will prevent any varied reactions to the content
once the email has been opened.
A key limitation in using action research is that the results of the emails sent out will
have a direct effect on the performance of Unibox. This may be a positive response, as
the emails may encourage potential sales to contact the company, although there may
also be negative effects, most notably people unsubscribing from the mailing list.
However, as the emails being sent out were planned with the Marketing manager and
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have been designed by the same designer, this impact would be expected anyway and
would not be heightened as a result of this research.
A further disadvantage outlined by Anderson (2004) is that ‘The action research
methodology requires continuous involvement in planning, taking action, observing the
effects and reflecting’. As the process of creating an email and sending this to a large
number of people is relatively quick, this limitation should not present itself within
this research study.
3.8 Research Ethics
The researcher has completed an ethics checklist (Appendix I) and provided the
university as well as supervising tutors with a copy. This is in compliance with
Manchester Metropolitan University submission guidelines.
As outlined above, one of the most important aspects of participants responding to
the named methods of data collection is confidentiality. However this isn’t because of
confidentiality reasons, it is to ensure that responses are entirely personal and have
not been biased towards the perceived response they expect the researcher wants. To
ensure that participants of questionnaires fully understand the reasoning behind
their involvement, a cover email will be compiled with all available information
detailing why they have been chosen and the importance of their participation for the
researcher.
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4. Findings and Analysis
4.0 Introduction
This chapter will present the findings and analysis of the primary data collected to
allow for a detailed discussion into the research objectives. This will involve
quantitative data from questionnaires and action research, and information will be
provided in the form of graphs.
Both elements of quantitative data were collected electronically, via an online
questionnaire system Survey Monkey, and a web based email application.
4.1 Questionnaires
Questionnaires were sent to the marketing, accounts, sales, design, admin and
purchasing teams which includes recipients at Director, management and non-‐
management levels. Appendices A to C show an on-‐screen example of what the
recipients will have received, however as mentioned within the methodology chapter,
this view may have been different for recipients depending on what size their screen
is and what operating system they are running on.
4.1.1 The Success of Email
Marketing
Questions 1 -‐ 4 focus on how
successful Unibox employees
believe email marketing to be.
Figure 4.1 to the right is
question 1, which shows that
all of the employees that
responded believe email
marketing has an impact upon
how well the company performs.
Figure 4.1 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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It would appear that current practices of email marketing are working well, as the
most common answer was that email marketing had contributed to the success of
marketing and Unibox as a whole, which shows that its increase in adoption has
resulted in it being accepted as a successful marketing tool across many different
departments, but also contradicts what Tsai (2009) and McLuhan (2007) state, as this
suggests email marketing is successful as a standalone tool.
However, 12.9% of
employees still believe that
email marketing only slightly
contributes to the success of
Unibox, which shows that
email marketing may still not
be benefitting every
department within the
company, and only focuses on
sales and lead generation
which agrees with what
McKay, Musico and Tsai
(2009) state.
Figure 4.2 shows the funnel
of question 1, which required
respondents to go into more detail about why they had chosen their initial answer.
Interestingly, increasing awareness received the largest percentage of all of the
answers. However, as emails are currently only sent to people who have had some
direct involvement with Unibox, either an enquiry, purchase or requested
information, this means that of the people who receive the email there must be a high
percentage who share the information with colleagues or friends who work with
other companies, as this would be the only significant way of increasing the
awareness of Unibox as a whole, which Arnold (2011) identifies within the literature
review.
Figure 4.2 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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86.67% of employees in question 1 believe that email marketing has contributed to
the success of Unibox, however only 10% feel that email marketing has made a
contribution to increased sales figures. This may not be the fault of email marketing
alone, as enquiries may be generated without sales staff asking where the potential
customer had heard of Unibox meaning the success of email marketing isn’t
accounted for and employees may believe that these enquiries are as a result of other
marketing endeavours, which lends itself to what Tsai (2009) and McLuhan (2007)
argue.
Although there are only 10% of people who believed email marketing increased sales,
it is important to remember that selecting this option meant the employee believed
email marketing increased sales figures alone. 36.67% of employees outline that
email marketing contributes to sales, awareness as well as increasing the value of the
Unibox brand as a whole, contradicting what McLuhan (2007) states earlier.
Question 3 was designed to explore why employees had responded with ‘No’, the
question 1, however there were no instances of this therefore the question has been
omitted from analysis.
4.1.2 Targeting and usage
Questions 4 and 5 were
designed to investigate into the
use of email marketing, and
whether employees felt that
the email marketing strategy of
Unibox was currently effective
in targeting a specific sector of
Unibox’s market.
It appears in figure 4.3 that
employees believe Unibox’s
email marketing is only
relevant to the audience and
Figure 4.3 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
42
increases sales ‘frequently’. This identifies that there could be an improvement in the
targeting of email campaigns, as employees believe that sometimes people who are
on the database receive emails when they have no relevance to them or their line of
business. This could result in a higher level of people unsubscribing from future
emails, meaning a possible loss of revenue from fewer generated enquiries. Therefore
although Unibox are complying with the Information Commissioners Office (2012),
they may be losing the quality leads that Mullen & Daniels (2009) refer to.
Figure 4.3 also however displays more positive information in agreement with what
was revealed in question two. Employees believe that email marketing has an effect
upon sales figures and not just awareness alone. Although this could be improved by
targeting email campaigns more effectively, Unibox may not have the budget to carry
this out as it would require storing lots of information within the email marketing
software system itself, so generating the current amount of enquiries may be effective
enough for Unibox compared
to the spend required to
increase this.
This figure, compared to the
data of the previous two
questions, outlines that
employees are happy with
the usage of email marketing
and believe that it is
generating enough enquiries
to be worthwhile planning
for. It is interesting however, that only 16.13% of employees believe that more emails
could be sent out. This may therefore mean that there are only certain departments
of the business that feel the need for an increase, most likely the marketing
department as they have seen positive results from its implementation. Almost
double the amount of employees believed that email campaigns are going out too
frequently, which may be a true representation of people who are receiving emails
that aren’t entirely relevant to their line of work (e.g. many emails being sent
promoting a particular product and significantly fewer being sent for another).
Figure 4.4 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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Unibox may benefit from adopting Chaffey (2007) and Mullen & Daniels (2009)
points, creating many types of email seen to benefit the whole company rather than
simply increase sales.
4.1.3 Social Media Integration
Integration of social media within
email marketing was also
investigated.
Made clear from the response to
the initial question in figure 4.5,
83.33% of employees believe that
email marketing should be
integrated. However despite this
large percentage in favour of email
marketing integration, a small
number of employees still believe
that the two channels should not
be integrated, in agreement with
52% of companies identified by
Econsultancy (2012).
However, the reasons behind this
are made more obvious once the
employees who had chosen this
option completed the funnel
question. As seen in figure 4.6,
40% of the employees who felt
email marketing and social media
should not be integrated decided
to include a descriptive answer.
Figure 4.5 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Figure 4.6 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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Both of the responses given raise concerns about the use of social media at all, and
whether Unibox’s markets have a real need for the company to have a presence on
social media, even though Brown (2012) discovered over 75% of companies are on
Facebook and Twitter. This may be an accurate view of the market, however as
Unibox are primarily a manufacturer and many of the clients Unibox supplies are
companies which then complete the job for the end-‐user. This means Unibox may not
have enough content regarding projects due to privacy agreements to keep a social
media page interesting and up to
date, which could damage the
brand.
However, as seen in figure 4.7, the
majority of employees felt that it
was appropriate for Unibox to
integrate social media, with 44%
explaining that they feel integration
allows for greater conversion and
consistency of marketing messages.
This shows that the employees who
are dealing with customers every
day in the sales, accounts, admin and purchasing departments have identified that
there is a demand for social media and that it can be used effectively to help them
direct their leads and current customers to content they might be interested in
without having to sign up on the
website or having to download
images from an email, which
further reiterates Tsai (2009) and
McLuhan’s (2007) argument about
using email as a standalone tool.
4.1.4 The design of emails
The final section of the
questionnaire was a single
Figure 4.7 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Figure 4.8 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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question, which aimed to gain information on how important Unibox employees
believe the design of emails to be. As highlighted by Chaffey (2007) within the
literature review, the development of web based email applications has allowed for
many companies to create HTML email campaigns which can include separate images
perfect for directing customers to various sections of their website or other various
online links.
As Chaffey (2007) highlighted, figure 4.8 clearly shows that the design and
appearance of emails impact upon how successful they are. As many of the employees
are not involved with the marketing department, this shows that they believe clients
need to see images of what Unibox offers rather than simply telling them about it, as
people outside of the business will be much less aware of the capabilities of Unibox.
Adding images and creating more visually pleasing email campaigns therefore will
have a direct impact on how successful the campaigns are.
4.2 Action Research
This section of research was collected by sending three Unibox branded mailshots,
which were all based on different products to accurately show the effectiveness of
Unibox email campaigns.
Appendices D to F show the
design and topic of each of
these mailshots, however as
stated for questionnaires
above, the appearance of these
may be different depending on
the recipients screen size and
operating system. The
recipients of all three mailshots
will be the same, and range
from company directors to
administration staff.
Blue: Emails Sent Red: Emails Delivered Figure 4.9 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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4.2.1 Email Deliverability
What is made clear from the data in figure 4.9, which compares the amount of emails
send and the amount of emails delivered, is that what Tsai (2009) outlined within the
literature review is accurate as many emails fail to get through to the recipients as a
result of problems within the ISP's own systems or the email addresses being used
are no longer in use. This is a problem for small companies such as Unibox, as
companies pay per email sent, not per email delivered, therefore budget is being
wasted on prospects or existing customers who will not see the email campaign. Also
there is no level of consistency
in this figure of undelivered
emails, as the number of
undelivered mail is
significantly higher in mailshot
1.
As demonstrated in figure 4.10,
there are also inconsistencies
within the email campaigns
regarding bounce rate.
The amount of emails bounced was significantly higher in the first mailshot sent, with
the second two mailshots both averaging around the same. As the bounce rates varied
so much, this may suggest that an exploration into the Unibox database is needed,
with all emails being personally validated.
Although the amount of bounced emails may be seen to be negative, the positive that
can be drawn from this is that the amount of bounced emails and emails delivered
both equal the amount sent, therefore there are no emails being listed as SPAM and
Unibox is avoiding the danger of being ‘blacklisted’, identified by Keller (2011).
However as Unibox emails contain many images (Appendices D to F) this may be the
reason for so many bounces, as identified by McLuhan (2007) and Chaffey & Ellis-‐
Chadwick (2012).
Blue: Emails Sent Red: Emails Bounced Figure 4.10 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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4.2.2 Email Engagement
The pattern outlined in the
previous section regarding
inconsistencies between
mailshot 1 and mailshots 2 and
3 are again apparent within
email engagement. Mailshots 2
and 3 performed significantly
better in terms of both opens
and views in total, as
demonstrated in figure 4.11.
On average 28.36% of emails are opened by the intended recipients. However the
most interesting statistic from figure 4.11 is that many recipients are opening the
emails more than once.
In all mailshots the 'views' category is at least double that of the unique opens, which
means Unibox must be targeting and timing their emails effectively, in addition to
creating content that is raising awareness within customers and clients. The email
marketing software that Unibox uses doesn't allow you to see what time of the day
the emails were opened, however if the emails have been opened at different times
throughout the day (as well as sent at ‘asynchronous’ (Mullen & Daniels, 2009)
times), or even on days following when it was sent, the awareness of Unibox products
must be increased as a result as the recipients have remembered Unibox may be able
to provide something they need and have actively searched for this information.
However, these figures may be less positive than they seem, as one person may have
opened the email many times to show different people within an organisation e.g. if
they are contemplating making an enquiry which is related to the sent email and
different departments have to see the product. Although this is still a positive
reaction, it detracts from the thought that the increase in views were spread out
equally over the majority of unique opens.
Blue: Emails Sent Red: Unique Number of opens Green: Total Number of opens Figure 4.11 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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Similar to what was seen within
figure 4.11 above, figure 4.12
reinforces the suggestion of a
raising in awareness. As link
clicks in total are far higher than
unique user clickthroughs, this
suggests that people are
returning to the email on more
than one occasion and then
clicking one of the links within
the email, which will either take
them through to the Unibox website, a specific landing page or will allow them to
email a specific sales person.
Figure 4.13 (showing
averages for all three
emails) shows that the
majority of people
clicking on the emails as
demonstrated in figure
4.12, have responded to
links within the body of
the email. This suggests
that people are reading
the copy rather than
quickly scanning the
email for pictures of things they may be interested in, which highlights the need for
obvious calls-‐to-‐action that will capture as many recipients as possible and send them
to the website, and also reinforces what Bird (2007) states, that emails which are
interesting out-‐perform eye-‐catching ones.
As shown in figure 4.13 the email campaigns are driving traffic to the website. This
means that the email campaigns are working effectively in getting potential
Blue: Unique User clicks Red: Total Number of clicks Figure 4.12 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Blue: Unique clicks Red: Total Number of clicks Figure 4.13 – Source: Primary Data Collection
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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customers to the website, but unless the website works effectively and engages them
then many potential customers may be lost at this stage.
Therefore these figures are much more important than simply opening the email, as
they suggest direct involvement with the company and interest in the products they
provide. It is then the responsibility of other marketing tools e.g. the website landing
page the user has been directed to, to fully convert the email recipient into a sale,
which reinforces what Tsai (2009) and McLuhan (2007) state, that email marketing is
best used with other tools.
A more important form of engagement is a direct reply to the email, or clicking on a
link that is an email address and allows the recipient to contact the sales person
directly. Over all three mailshots sent out, there were only 2 direct replies registered
which came from the first and third mailshot.
The email marketing software Unibox uses forwards on any replies to a predefined
Unibox email address (which is usually a member of the marketing team so they can
register a response came from the email), however what the system cannot do is
predict any enquiries that have come in as a result of people seeing the email, and
rather than clicking on one of the provided email links within the email itself, typing
in the address in their own email software program and bypassing the system, which
disagrees with what Anderson (2013) states, as email marketing is not as measurable
or targetable as he believes.
As highlighted above, user engagement comes in different forms all of which can be
effective for the company. However, recipients can also choose to never engage with
the company again (at least in terms of email engagement) by unsubscribing from
future campaigns.
Although the first mailshot sent out was delivered to less people than the other two
mailshots, its unsubscribe rate was lower than the other two which were sent out.
This highlights that although the email delivery rate was poor, the people that
received the message were relevant and felt the message may be of benefit to them.
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5. Conclusion
5.0 Introduction
This study has revealed several key findings regarding the use and results of email
marketing, as well as the implementation of this and how in the future email
marketing could be improved. As discovered during the review of existing academic
literature, the development of email marketing is moving extremely quickly and
therefore this study has only provided a snapshot of practices being implemented by
Unibox at the current moment in time. This is a specific study into a single company
and conclusions made will apply solely to Unibox and cannot be generalised.
The researcher will conclude this study by answering the research objectives outlined
within the Introduction.
5.1 Objective 1
• To identify the strengths and weaknesses of email marketing in relation to
practices currently implemented by Unibox.
One of the most significant findings when carrying out the research was that the
development of web-‐based email applications has contributed extensively to the
widespread adoption of email marketing. Unibox recently began sending email
campaigns using this method and have been provided with measurable results that
can be analysed and bettered.
Unibox’s use of a web based email application has allowed for measurable results that
can be correlated towards sales enquiries. However, current systems are flawed in
accounting for all enquiries generated, but this may be a problem throughout email
marketing itself and not Unibox’s system alone.
Once investigated, however, it is clear to see that limitations of email marketing
outlined by industry experts and key theorists apply to Unibox very significantly. Tsai
(2009) outlines that delivery is one of most important areas of effective email
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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messaging, however as identified in Figure 4.9, Unibox’s delivery is extremely
unreliable.
In addition to this, as shown in appendices D to F, Unibox emails are sent with a high
number of images embedded. This is affecting the email delivery rates and is
therefore making Unibox’s email marketing less efficient, as McLuhan (2007) and
Chaffey & Ellis-‐Chadwick (2012) identified within the literature review.
Action research was incredibly important in assessing Unibox’s current practices and
allowed for the strengths and weaknesses outlined via the questionnaires to be fully
supported. Ideally the researcher would have investigated further into the sales
emails received that were not traceable to any marketing endeavour to try and
correlate these emails with email campaigns that had recently gone out. However as
the Unibox sales team receive hundreds of emails a day this objective would have
been impossible to complete within the allotted time period.
The investigation into the strengths and weaknesses of email marketing provided
information on improvements that can be made in many areas of the business, most
notably database cleansing and integration of systems. However the research also
made it very clear that the practices currently being used are sufficient enough for a
relatively small company to make significant returns on investment.
5.2 Objective 2
• To investigate how successful the sales, accounts and marketing teams within
Unibox currently perceive email marketing to be.
From the research gathered in Chapter 4 the majority of Unibox employees believe
that email marketing is a worthwhile. However, this majority was split when asked
about the ways in which they deem it to be successful, with it being established that a
small majority of people believe that email marketing is only successful in raising the
awareness of Unibox, and not actually contributing towards sales. This was
something identified throughout the literature review, with Tsai (2009), McLuhan
(2007) and Chaffey (2007) all arguing that email marketing is not suitable as a
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
52
standalone marketing tool. To some extent the Unibox employees agreed with this,
with a large majority stating they expected email marketing to be integrated into
social media. Therefore from the research gathered it seems apparent that although
the Unibox employees believe email marketing is successful, they also believe that it
should be integrated into other marketing tools and question the results of email
marketing as a standalone tool.
The researcher attempted to answer this objective using questionnaires as a research
method. Response rates were relatively high as the questionnaire being completed
involved the company the employees work for, however the researcher may have
attained a higher rate of response if the questionnaires were given out physically to
the employees rather than distributed electronically. This would also have allowed
for the separation of results according to department, as sending the questionnaire
out electronically provided the researcher with anonymous answers that could not be
separated and analysed further.
More extensive research may be collected if the researcher had time to carry out
interviews with a sample of Unibox employees, which would allow for qualitative
data to be collected in addition to quantitative. This would provide more information
on exact areas where employees feel there is room for improvement as well as
allowing for comparisons between the different areas of the business.
5.3 Objective 3
• To evaluate the implementation and results of email marketing to discover how
successful email marketing is in generating sales and awareness.
Tsai, McLuhan and Chaffey (2009) argue within the literature review that email
marketing should not be used as a standalone tool and it is most effective in terms of
generating awareness. The questionnaires collected as part of this research back up
this statement, as the majority of Unibox employees believe that awareness is the
main area of success regarding email marketing, however this was only a small
majority as a significant amount of employees believe that email marketing also
contributes to sales. The case may be that email marketing does lead to sales
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
53
enquiries and eventual sales, but as the customer goes through so many other
channels before the purchase is made e.g. visiting the website, speaking to sales staff,
visiting Unibox and then eventually placing an order, results may be distorted and the
origin of the enquiry may be lost.
The action research undertaken by the researcher suggests that this may be the case,
as there is a high percentage of people visiting the website and coming in contact with
Unibox many times as a result of email marketing (thereby raising the awareness of
the company, albeit only possibly in the short term) but a very little amount of direct
replies being registered through the email application.
Research also suggests that the design of Unibox’s emails is significant, and as a result
of the development in web based email applications, Unibox send out emails with
large graphic content to entice recipients to click. Ryan & Jones (2012) believe that
this will allow for greater success, but many authors including Bird (2007) and
Chaffey & Ellis-‐Chadwick (2012) challenge this point. As the amount of emails being
sent from Unibox is relatively small compared to multinational companies that send
out significantly more emails per campaign than Unibox, in addition to the majority of
products being offered by Unibox needing to be seen by recipients before they act
upon an email, generalisations made about large companies may not apply to Unibox.
Therefore this objective has only been partly completed, and to gain a full view of
how successful email marketing is for Unibox much more extensive research would
have to be undertaken, including contacting many past customers to establish
whether an email they received lead them to making a purchase. However it is clear
to see from the research undertaken that email marketing provides online awareness,
which offline methods and even some other digital methods of marketing does not
provide. However the problem with this is that email marketing relies on other areas
of marketing as well as the sales team to provide email addresses, and as more people
are becoming frustrated with the amount of emails received per day, these are hard
to come by in addition to Unibox not having the ability to register all leads generated
from email marketing.
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5.4 Recommendations
5.4.1 Use of Customer Relationship Management system.
As highlighted within the findings and analysis section of this study, it is incredibly
difficult to determine whether enquiries that come in to the sales team are as a result
of email marketing or they have decided to contact Unibox as a result of general
awareness and other marketing tools being utilised.
Therefore if Unibox were to implement a Customer Relationship Management system,
a much more informative view could be gained into how customers contact Unibox,
and if any of the marketing tools implemented have encouraged a direct enquiry.
Many web-‐based email software systems allow integration into some of the most
common CRM systems available, which would initially provide Unibox with
information on whether enquiries coming in are as a result of email marketing
campaigns, but also in the future would provide extensive knowledge of which
campaigns certain contacts responded favourably to, allowing Unibox to create much
more personalised email campaigns which would potentially provide greater return
on investment.
5.4.2 Increase in email address acquisition
As current rates of people unsubscribing are directly accountable to specific
mailshots sent out, an analysis into which emails return the highest number of people
unsubscribing may be worthwhile undertaking to identify why these emails have
performed so poorly, and whether it is advisable to carry on contacting this section of
the database.
Once a detailed review has been completed, with information on which types or
topics of email campaign work most effectively, Unibox could begin campaigns to
boost the amount of email addresses they have in these areas of the database.
Campaigns to boost subscribers would come from the implementation of a
combination of other marketing tools, such as optimising the Unibox website so it is
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
55
easy for people to subscribe, implementing search engine optimisation to allow for
greater visibility when people search for specific terms related to Unibox products
and online advertising which would direct people to the Unibox website or even offer
a subscription form within the actual advertisement itself.
If these tools were implemented then the quality of email address would be much
higher than that of one that is bought or rented, as the user has specifically chosen to
receive communications from the company.
5.4.3 Switch to a more integrated email marketing software system
A new email marketing software system could be employed, which would be
integrated into the CRM system allowing for extensive data to be captured on
potential and current customers.
Once the system has been set up email marketing can be automated for certain areas
of the database e.g. if a certain mailshot is planned to go out every two weeks then the
system will automate this, saving the time of the person controlling the system, plus
each time a recipient engages with the email, whether that be with a click or a reply,
this information is directly inputted into the CRM system as well as Google Analytics,
meaning all clickthroughs can be traced and the marketing team can see how effective
the mailshot has been at getting people to the website and converting them into
customers.
5.5 Research Limitations
The researcher has identified several limitations that affected the outcome of this
study. These will be listed below in order to aid future research and improve the
results seen.
1. Time constraints affected the amount of analysis that the researcher could
undertake in terms of action research. Further analysis could be conducted if
the researcher carried out a ‘longitudinal’ (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill,
2009) study that would allow for a broader perspective of email marketing as
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
56
more email campaign analysis could be collected, however as the researcher
could not define when campaigns would go out and had to adhere to the
Unibox email calendar this meant a limited number of campaigns could be
analysed.
2. The questionnaire and action research methods of data collection were
designed to provide mainly quantitative data. In order to gain a full
perspective of how successful email marketing is the researcher may have
considered gathering qualitative data in addition to this, however time
restraints plus the already high level of involvement from Unibox employees
did not allow the researcher to gather this data.
3. As the sample collected was all Unibox employees and contained nobody from
outside of the company, results found will not be able to be generalised in the
same way a standard study would.
4. For further investigation into the results of email marketing in terms of sales,
the accounts department within Unibox would have had to release financial
information which would have required extensive research to discover
whether sales made were as a result of email marketing. This data was not
given to the researcher as it is confidential information, plus it would have
taken a significant amount of time to research and as time was limited within
this study it was deemed by the researcher inappropriate to try to use this
method of data collection.
5.6 Future Research Recommendations
In order to gain a more informed view of this subject the following recommendations
for future research have been given:
1. Analyse the performance of Unibox email marketing performance against a
company operating within similar markets, or several companies.
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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2. Research further into the integration of email marketing and social media to
develop a wider understanding of combining digital marketing tools.
3. Combine the use of action research with Google Analytics data, to allow for
specific data to be collected on where website traffic has come from and
analyse the quality of visits to the website in terms of final enquiries.
Christopher Bardsley 09158058 BA Hons Business
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Appendices
Appendix A – Questionnaire Screen 1
Appendix B – Questionnaire Screen 2
Appendix C – Questionnaire Screen 3
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Appendix D – Mailshot 1
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Appendix E – Mailshot 2
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Appendix F – Mailshot 3
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Appendix G – Covering Email
Dear Unibox Employees, You have been chosen to participate in a questionnaire which is designed to gather information on the email marketing practices currently being implemented by Unibox. This survey is being conducted as part of my degree (BA Hons Business) at Manchester Metropolitan University, so therefore any research collected will be used solely for university research. This survey is in no way linked to the marketing department of Unibox. All results collected are anonymous, as I want to ensure that you respond to questions openly and as honestly as possible. Results such as this will make the research much better, and can go some way to providing solutions to better email marketing practices in the future. This research is primarily an investigation into the use and results of email marketing in Unibox, and you have been chosen to complete this questionnaire as you have come in contact with this marketing tool over a number of years. Your experience within email marketing is invaluable, and will give the research much more credibility and will provide an accurate view of current email marketing practices. There are 40 employees who have been chosen to complete this questionnaire, who all have an office-‐based role within Unibox head office in Manchester. All questions are designed so that every chosen employee can answer them. As mentioned above, your response will be strictly confidential, and I (or anyone else) will have no way of identifying who has completed the questionnaire. Results will be generalised and collected in Survey Monkey, the online questionnaire system used to send out this questionnaire. If you have any problems completing this, please reply to this email or phone me on 07951 555 010. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to complete this, it will help me greatly in completing my dissertation and your knowledge and experience will be of huge value to the research. The link to the questionnaire is below: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/M9GQ2CL Kind Regards, Chris Bardsley
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Appendix H – Two examples of completed questionnaires
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Appendix I – Ethics Form
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Appendix J – Turnitin Summary Page