Julia Erbe:Online-Marketing
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Persuasive Strategies in Commercial E-mails Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: In the 1990s, people are being more and more confronted with the rapid developments in the information and communicatio… Meer...
Persuasive Strategies in Commercial E-mails Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: In the 1990s, people are being more and more confronted with the rapid developments in the information and communication technology sector. Computers seem to be indispensable not only in professional areas of life, but also in educational and private contexts. The Internet, which started as a small network of students, academics, and researchers, has developed into a global network, linking millions of people in countries all over the world. This enormous increase in information flow which is facilitated by Internet services, such as the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail (e-mail ) or Usenet news appears to have an influence on communication processes and on the way in which we use language. The fact that the new media are becoming more and more popular has also been realised by marketing specialists. Due to the large number of users and the enormous growth potential of the Internet, the sector of electronic commerce is booming. The formerly anti-commercial values of the original Internet community seem to have drastically changed. Today, electronic commerce is a rapidly growing area, and numerous companies are beginning to position themselves on the information superhighway in terms of providing hardware, software, information content or services. Because of the fact that the Internet presents a fundamentally different environment for marketing activities than traditional media, conventional marketing communications need to be transformed in order to meet the requirements of such an information-intensive medium. On the Internet, the search for and the acquisition of relevant information, for example, takes up a great deal of time, since there is no general index of all existing Internet sites and services. As a consequence, companies have to find other ways of drawing the users¿ attention to their offers. One means of achieving that goal might be the distribution of commercial e-mails. Commercial e-mails can be classified as a form of advertising, which is considered to be a type of persuasive discourse. Due to the fact that advertisers are supposed to be striving to alter behaviour, awareness, knowledge, and attitudes in a way that would be beneficial to them, advertising is informative only on the surface. Therefore, no more distinction between informative and persuasive advertising is made. Accordingly, commercial e-mails are expected to have a persuasive intent which is assumed to be mirrored in a number of persuasive strategies. The aim of this paper is to analyse which persuasive strategies occur in the commercial e-mails of the corpus. It will be shown how the communication variables communicator, message, receiver, and channel may affect the persuasion process. In addition, it will be examined whether some of the persuasive elements in the messages can be attributed to the new medium Internet. For this reason, characteristic features of this kind of communication will be analysed in the commercial e-mails of the corpus. The paper will begin with a description of traditional direct marketing since commercial e-mails can be categorised as a form of direct marketing in a new medium. In the subsequent chapter, a short overview of the history and development of this new medium and of the functioning of the Internet services e-mail and news will be given. After that, the Internet as a marketing platform will be considered. The rapid development of the Internet and its consequences for advertising communication will be outlined, before advantages of online marketing and electronic mail as a new direct marketing medium will be discussed. Chapter 4 moves us to the analysis of the macro-structure of the commercial e-mails in the corpus. The factors message length, frequency of links to Internet sites, occurrence of response elements and notes saying that it is possible to be removed from the advertiser¿s mailing list will be considered. In addition, graphic particularities will be examined. In chapter 5, the concept of persuasion and different theoretical approaches to persuasion will be introduced. On this theoretical basis, the persuasive strategies in the commercial e-mails of the corpus will be studied in chapter Fehler! Verweisquelle konnte nicht gefunden werden.. We will see in detail how the communication variables communicator, message, receiver, and channel may affect the persuasive success of a communication. In addition, the special role of the subject lines will be considered. In chapter 7, the findings will be summarised. Tendencies for future developments will be shown and suggestions for potential areas of interest for additional research will be made. Object of the analysis is a corpus of 69 unsolicited commercial e-mails which are included in an extra volume added to this paper. These messages were initiated by my posting an article in 15 different newsgroups. Some weeks earlier, I had already received several unsolicited messages which could only be connected with my participation in a newsgroup. I thus participated in other newsgroups with the purpose of receiving advertisements for my corpus. Due to the fact that my e-mail address was not given to any of the advertisers, it must be assumed that they extracted my e-mail address from the newsgroups in which I had posted my article. Some of the commercial e-mails I received offer a special e-mail distribution software by means of which e-mail addresses of newsgroup users can be extracted. The 15 newsgroups (listed in the appendix on page i) were chosen from the top-level hierarchy alt. (alternative topics), because it was assumed that these discussions are mainly led by ¿ordinary¿ people and not by experts like, for example, in the newsgroups on scientific topics. As a consequence, I hypothesised that advertisers might consider this audience more susceptible to their offers and might hence increase their marketing efforts in these newsgroups. The subject line of my article included the text: Test - please ignore, and the message body consisted of the word Thanks!. This text was employed because of several reasons. First of all, it was intended to find out if the advertisers refer to the subject line and the content of the e-mails to which they respond. In addition, by adding please ignore to the subject line, I wanted to avoid disturbing other participants of the newsgroups, since I am aware of the fact that they do not approve of postings which are not topic-related. The language used for discussion in the selected newsgroups was English so that the commercial e-mails which make up the data for analysis are also in English. The individual topics of the newsgroups were arbitrarily chosen. It is important to mention, however, that in all newsgroups - apart from those on business related topics, which were not included for the gathering of the data - advertising is considered to be unacceptable since it is a breach of Netiquette, the politeness conventions on the Internet . Nonetheless, I received 69 unsolicited messages offering money-making schemes, software, or information provided on Internet sites. This paper does not claim to give a comprehensive description of persuasive strategies in commercial e-mails. It rather intends to show specific features of the e-mails in the corpus and to describe occurring strategies by means of typical examples. In addition, it has to be stated that it is beyond the scope of this paper, to judge how effective these persuasive strategies really are. It cannot be judged whether any receiver of these direct mailings would be persuaded to take the intended action, even if a number of persuasive strategies that were found to be effective in other contexts occurred in the corpus. Table of Contents: ContentsII List of AbbreviationsIV 1.Introduction1 2.Traditional direct marketing5 2.1Definition5 2.2The classical mail-order-package6 3.The Internet9 3.1History and development9 3.2Net jargon10 3.3Electronic mail12 3.4Usenet news network14 3.5The Internet as a marketing platform15 3.6Advantages of online marketing16 3.6.1Interactivity16 3.6.2Global availability17 3.6.3Efficiency17 3.7E-mail as a new direct marketing medium18 4.Macro-structure of commercial e-mails20 4.1Message length20 4.2Hyperlinks20 4.3Response elements22 4.4Option to be removed from a mailing list22 4.5The use of graphics22 5.Persuasion26 5.1The concept of persuasion26 5.2Theoretical approaches to persuasion27 6.Persuasive strategies in commercial e-mails31 6.1Communicator31 6.1.1Communicator credibility32 6.1.2Factors influencing communicator credibility33 6.2Subject line37 6.3Message39 6.3.1Structure40 6.3.1.1Number of arguments41 6.3.1.2Climax versus anticlimax order45 6.3.1.3Implicit versus explicit conclusions47 6.3.1.4One-sided versus two-sided messages50 6.3.1.5Sequential request strategies51 6.3.2Style54 6.3.2.1Elements of spoken language55 6.3.2.2Repetition58 6.3.2.3Verbal immediacy60 6.3.2.4The use of questions65 6.4Receiver70 6.5Channel73 7.Summary and conclusion76 References80 Appendixi Online-Marketing: Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: In the 1990s, people are being more and more confronted with the rapid developments in the information and communication technology sector. Computers seem to be indispensable not only in professional areas of life, but also in educational and private contexts. The Internet, which started as a small network of students, academics, and researchers, has developed into a global network, linking millions of people in countries all over the world. This enormous increase in information flow which is facilitated by Internet services, such as the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail (e-mail ) or Usenet news appears to have an influence on communication processes and on the way in which we use language. The fact that the new media are becoming more and more popular has also been realised by marketing specialists. Due to the large number of users and the enormous growth potential of the Internet, the sector of electronic commerce is booming. The formerly anti-commercial values of the original Internet community seem to have drastically changed. Today, electronic commerce is a rapidly growing area, and numerous companies are beginning to position themselves on the information superhighway in terms of providing hardware, software, information content or services. Because of the fact that the Internet presents a fundamentally different environment for marketing activities than traditional media, conventional marketing communications need to be transformed in order to meet the requirements of such an information-intensive medium. On the Internet, the search for and the acquisition of relevant information, for example, takes up a great deal of time, since there is no general index of all existing Internet sites and services. As a consequence, companies have to find other ways of drawing the users¿ attention to their offers. One means of achieving that goal might be the distribution of commercial e-mails. Commercial e-mails can be classified as a form of advertising, which is considered to be a type of persuasive discourse. Due to the fact that advertisers are supposed to be striving to alter behaviour, awareness, knowledge, and attitudes in a way that would be beneficial to them, advertising is informative only on the surface. Therefore, no more distinction between informative and persuasive advertising is made. Accordingly, commercial e-mails are expected to have a persuasive intent which is assumed to be mirrored in a number of persuasive strategies. The aim of this paper is to analyse which persuasive strategies occur in the commercial e-mails of the corpus. It will be shown how the communication variables communicator, message, receiver, and channel may affect the persuasion process. In addition, it will be examined whether some of the persuasive elements in the messages can be attributed to the new medium Internet. For this reason, characteristic features of this kind of communication will be analysed in the commercial e-mails of the corpus. The paper will begin with a description of traditional direct marketing since commercial e-mails can be categorised as a form of direct marketing in a new medium. In the subsequent chapter, a short overview of the history and development of this new medium and of the functioning of the Internet services e-mail and news will be given. After that, the Internet as a marketing platform will be considered. The rapid development of the Internet and its consequences for advertising communication will be outlined, before advantages of online marketing and electronic mail as a new direct marketing medium will be discussed. Chapter 4 moves us to the analysis of the macro-structure of the commercial e-mails in the corpus. The factors message length, frequency of links to Internet sites, occurrence of response elements and notes saying that it is possible to be removed from the advertiser¿s mailing list will be considered. In addition, graphic particularities will be examined. In chapter 5, the concept of persuasion and different theoretical approaches to persuasion will be introduced. On this theoretical basis, the persuasive strategies in the commercial e-mails of the corpus will be studied in chapter Fehler! Verweisquelle konnte nicht gefunden werden.. We will see in detail how the communication variables communicator, message, receiver, and channel may affect the persuasive success of a communication. In addition, the special role of the subject lines will be considered. In chapter 7, the findings will be summarised. Tendencies for future developments will be shown and suggestions for potential areas of interest for additional research will be made. Object of the analysis is a corpus of 69 unsolicited commercial e-mails which are included in an extra volume added to this paper. These messages were initiated by my posting an article in 15 different newsgroups. Some weeks earlier, I had already received several unsolicited messages which could only be connected with my participation in a newsgroup. I thus participated in other newsgroups with the purpose of receiving advertisements for my corpus. Due to the fact that my e-mail address was not given to any of the advertisers, it must be assumed that they extracted my e-mail address from the newsgroups in which I had posted my article. Some of the commercial e-mails I received offer a special e-mail distribution software by means of which e-mail addresses of, Diplomica Verlag<
