This document summarizes a research study presented at the International Conference on Business Management in 2014. The study examined factors that influence a recipient's intentions regarding permission-based email from the recipient's perspective. It developed a theoretical model and hypotheses regarding a recipient's intentions to open, read, click links in, and forward emails. A survey was conducted of 150 MBA students, and data was analyzed using factor analysis, reliability analysis, and correlation analysis. The findings provided insight into how email characteristics like relevance, creativity, incentives, and integration influence recipient intentions.

1. PERMISSION-BASED ELECTRONIC MAIL FACTORS
FROM RECIPIENT’S PERSPECTIVE
Saeid Torkaman (Presenter) &
Norshidah Mohamed, PhD
International Conference on Business Management (ICBM) 2014
Kuala Lumpur
18-19 August 2014
International Business School
http://www.ibs.utm.my
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

2. 2
OUTLINE
• Introduction
• Literature review
• Methodology
• Findings
• Conclusion

3. 3
INTRODUCTION

4. 4
INTRODUCTION
• Electronic mail (e-mail) as promotional
marketing tool
o Less expensive
o High ROI
o Instant , fast and traceable (cookies)
• Permission marketing
o Introduced in Godin (1999)
• Permission based e-mail

5. 5
LITERATURE REVIEW

6. 6
LITERATURE
• Prior researches on e-mail used in marketing
focused on :
oTime and frequency of the email (Merisavo
& Raulas, 2004)
oEntertainment and informativeness
(Jamalzadeh et al., 2012)
oUser’s characteristics: gender, age and
attitude (Grimes, Hough & Signorella, 2007).

7. 7
RESEARCH QUESTION
What are permission-based e-mail factors
from a recipient’s perspective ?
• The characteristics of e-mail is in focus
• The e-mail must be permission-based
• Recipient characteristics is not the concern
of the research

8. 8
METHODOLOGY

9. 9
THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
• Creativity – attractive overall design
• Relevance – relates to customer’s needs
• Incentive – offer, promotion or discount
• Timing – time of the day, week or year which the e-mail is
received
• Integration – message, design, header and subject, and time
that aligns with the business brand
• Copy-writing – structure of e-mail content
• Attribute – subject line, From address, To address, date or time
of receipt and technical format of the e-mail (HTML, mobile
compatible etc.).
• Landing page – Web page displayed to recipient when a link in
the e-mail is clicked
Source: Chaffey (2003; 2007)
(acronym : CRITICAL )

10. 10
RESEARCH MODEL
H1: Recipient who intends to open an e-mail intends to read the e-mail.
H2: Recipient who intends to read an e-mail intends to click a link in the e-mail.
H3 : Recipient who intends to read an e-mail intends to forward the e-mail to others.

11. 11
POPULATION & SAMPLING
• Population – active MBA students at an
institution of higher learning in Malaysia
• Estimated number of population: 500
• Sample size: 150
• Convenience sampling approach

12. 12
MEASURES
Construct Measures Code
Recipient
intention to
open an e-mail
Factors affecting recipient to open an e-mail
 I will open an e-mail that has an attractive
subject line to me.
 I will open an e-mail that has a subject line
relevant to my needs.
 I will open an e-mail that has an attractive offer
in the subject line. .
 I will open an e-mail on a specific time of the
day or day of the week.
 I will open an e-mail that shows integration
between the sender’s name and subject line.
 I will open an e-mail with properly written
phrase in the subject line. (i.e. language use)
OQ1_5
OQ2_6
OQ3_7
OQ4_8
OQ5_9
OQ6_10

13. 13
MEASURES .. cont’
Construct Measures Code
Recipient
intention to
read an e-mail
Factors affecting recipient to read an e-mail
 I will read an e-mail that has an attractive
design to me.
 I will read an e-mail that has contents relevant
to my needs.
 I will read an e-mail that has an attractive offer
in it.
 I will read an e-mail on a specific time of the
day or day of the week.
 I will read an e-mail that shows integration
between the sender’s name, subject line and
contents.
 I will read an e-mail with properly written
phrase in the contents (i.e. language use).
RQ1_12
RQ2_13
RQ3_14
RQ4_15
RQ5_16
RQ6_17

14. 14
MEASURES .. cont’
Construct Measures Code
Recipient
intention to
click on a link in
an e-mail
Factors affecting recipient to click on a link in an e-mail
 I will click on a link in an e-mail that has an
attractive design to me.
 I will click on a link in an e-mail that has
contents relevant to my needs.
 I will click on a link in an e-mail that has an
attractive offer in it.
 I will read an e-mail on a specific time of the day
or day of the week.
 I will read an e-mail that shows integration
between the sender’s name, subject line and
contents.
 I will read an e-mail with properly written
phrase in the contents (i.e. language use).
CQ1_19
CQ2_20
CQ3_21
CQ4_22
CQ5_23
CQ6_24

15. 15
MEASURES .. cont’
Construct Measures Code
Recipient
intention to
forward an
e-mail to others
Factors affecting recipient to forward an e-mail
 I will forward an e-mail with attractive design.
 I will forward an e-mail that I think is relevant
to my recipients’ needs.
 I will forward an e-mail that has an attractive
offer in it.
 I will forward an e-mail on a specific time of
the day or day of the week.
 I will forward an e-mail that shows integration
between the sender’s name, subject line and
contents.
 II will forward an e-mail with properly written
phrase in the content. (i.e. language use)
FQ1_26
FQ2_27
FQ3_28
FQ4_29
FQ5_30
FQ6_31

16. 16
MEASURES .. cont’
Construct Measures Code
Recipient
intention to
forward an
e-mail to others
Factors affecting recipient to forward an e-mail
 I will forward an e-mail with proper
attributes(i.e. subject line, date/time and
header)..
 I will forward an e-mail that has a link to an
attractive Web page (also known as landing
page).
FQ7_32
FQ8_33

17. 17
DATA ANALYSIS APPROACH
• Tool: SPSS version 21
• Procedure: Descriptive analysis and inferential
analysis using factor analysis, reliability analysis
and correlation analysis.

18. 18
FINDINGS

19. 19
PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS

20. 20
FACTOR ANALYSIS

21. 21
FACTOR ANALYSIS .. cont’
• Factor 1 : Forward : Attribute, Landing page,
Copy, Offer and Integration.
• Factor 2 : Open & Read : Integration, Copy-writing
and Attribute
• Factor 3 :Open : Creativity and Relevance
• Factor 4 : Open, Read & Click : Time
• Factor 5 : Read & Click : Incentive
• Factor 6 : Click 1 : Creativity
• Factor 7 : Click 2 : Relevance

22. 22
REALIBILITY ANALYSIS

23. 23
CORRELATION ANALYSIS
* Correlation is significant at 0.05 level (2-tailed)
** Correlation is significant at 0.01 level (2-tailed)

24. 24
CONCLUSION

25. 25
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
Recipient’s intention E-mail characteristics
Check more often  open Relevance
Open Relevance and Creativity
Open and read Integration, Copy-writing and
Attribute
Read and click Incentive
Click and forward Creativity and Relevance
Open, read and forward Integration, Copy and
Attribute

26. 26
WHAT CAN WE LEARN
FROM RESEARCH?
• Theoretical contribution – This new knowledge
has contributed to Chaffey’s original theory in
that it has shown that a specific combination of
elements in an e-mail is important to recipient.
This is not necessarily covering all aspects of
CRITICAL as initially suggested by Chaffey.

27. 27
WHAT CAN WE LEARN
FROM RESEARCH? .. cont’
• Practical contribution – The outcome of this
research is important for marketers when
designing e-mail campaigns. They may pay
attention to these factors to ensure that the
message gets across to not only recipients but
also those connected to the recipients.

28. 28
THANK YOU