The impact of incentive framing format and language congruency on readers’ post-reading responses to email advertisements
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
ISSN: 0959-6119
Article publication date: 26 June 2019
Issue publication date: 4 September 2019
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how incentive framing format and language congruency interactively influence readers’ post-reading responses to hotel-related email advertisements.
Design/methodology/approach
A 2 (incentive framing format: amount-off versus percentage-off) × 2 (language congruency: use of readers’ native language versus use of readers’ foreign language) between-subject experiment was conducted with 233 bilingual speakers from China.
Findings
The findings unveil that readers are more likely to be enticed to search for more information about the promoted hotel restaurant, click the call-to-action button and share the promotional message with friends and families if an email advertisement presents the incentive of a price promotion in the form of amount-off (versus percentage-off). The indirect impact of language congruency is also verified. Specifically, the impact of incentive framing format on readers’ post-reading response is more salient when information is communicated using readers’ native (versus non-native) language.
Practical implications
The findings provide actionable clues for hoteliers to optimize their email marketing campaigns. If hotels want to publicize a price promotion for their high-priced service (e.g. hotel restaurant dining) via email advertisements, marketers should present the incentive in the form of amount-off. Hotels should also personalize the language used in the email advertisements according to readers’ native language.
Originality/value
This study enriches the literature on email marketing by explicating how hoteliers can improve the efficacy of email marketing via personalizing the incentive framing format and language used in the email advertisement according to the readers’ preferences.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Editor and the four anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on improving an early version of this paper. This research is partly supported by a research grant funded by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Citation
Leung, D. and Tsou, M. (2019), "The impact of incentive framing format and language congruency on readers’ post-reading responses to email advertisements", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 31 No. 8, pp. 3037-3057. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-06-2018-0514
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited