The impact of incentive framing format and language congruency on readers’ post-reading responses to email advertisements

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.