Should You Sign up for Ruffles’ Emails?
An evaluation of Ruffles’ email subscriptions:
Do you enjoy subscribing to emails? Personally, I don’t enjoy receiving these emails, I find them annoying and don’t like how they fill up my inbox- yet I always find myself subscribing only to receive that sign-up discount offer!
How many times have you actually read these subscription emails though? I don’t think I ever have- therefore, I decided to subscribe to Ruffles’ emails, and evaluate how effective they are towards the audience and for the company since an email subscriber is 10x more likely to connect with the brands content than a social media follower.
The first steps to subscribing:
Signing up for Ruffles’ email list was easy- with the convenient UX design of their webpage it was simple to navigate and locate their subscription tab. Additionally, I think it is effective that the brand has included a subscription tab at the bottom of its webpage as well. However, I believe adding this link to their contact us page might make it even more effective as consumers will continuously be exposed to subscribing. The contents required to sign up were the usual fields including name, date of birth, gender, and zip code.
The Welcome Email:
After signing up for the email it took around half day to receive the first welcome email- I was surprised by this time frame as usually after subscribing a welcome email is sent immediately. The welcome email was very eye-capturing with bold colors and images of their products to capture your attention. The subject headline also included party emojis such as streamers- I found this a great way to get the audience to open up the email and be exposed to it.
Furthermore, the welcome email included a series of coupons to clip- these offers attract consumers and are usually the main reason why one signs up. Therefore, I think it is beneficial that discount offers were included in the welcome email as this is what will influence the consumer to open up further emails and continue their subscription. The email also included recipe ideas- I find this content great to include as it targets their audience, such as parents with children or cooking lovers who enjoy creating homemade snacks. The welcome email is a good way to showcase who your audience is. Perhaps it is one’s who enjoy cooking or ones who are looking for discount codes. Regardless, there is something for everyone in the welcome email.
Evaluation:
Whilst I only received one email, I believe Ruffles can improve on their email marketing in terms of frequency and the time taken to send the welcome email. The brand can also implement some email best practices such as sending email surveys to its customers, this will help the brand learn what products their audience likes, and what flavors their customers would like to see. Furthermore, Ruffles should start linking their social media pages within their emails as this will increase their CTR by 115%. By personalizing their emails and creating a tailored experience for each consumer 80% of customers are more likely to purchase Ruffle’s products. Therefore, through the use of personalization and frequent emails I believe Ruffles will be able to improve their email marketing.
