What is a brand? It is the identity of your company or product as it is perceived by your customers and the wider marketplace. It covers the cultural, emotional and behavioural responses to a company by its customers.
With careful deployment, a brand can be crucial to a product earning and retaining a loyal customer following. It's more than just a great logo, it's about creating a powerful idea that gives a brand it's identity and encompasses the brand name, position, associations and personality. Essentially it is a promise - a good brand should generate instant recognition and positive associations for customers. A successful brand delivers on that promise.
An established brand is a very valuable corporate asset. Although it is common to make subtle tweaks to a company brand, a total revision of the brand can be devastating to the company if not approached strategically. Additionally, a purely aesthetic re-brand can earn your company a place on the 'phantom brand' list - reserved for companies who delegate the management of their brand to the marketing department rather than viewing each and every employee a 'brand embassador'.
Far from being about superficial 'label' changes, re-branding presents an opportunity to enhance, or even overhaul perceptions from the ground up. It is about reflecting a positive client experience derived from real value rather than modern colours, logos and clever slogans. Moreover - company's brand should reflect its vision and the values of its shareholders. To be successful, it must be supported by the business culture and be validated by all staff. It is about realising a philosophy of how a business should operate, and developing an ethos around which client relationships can be built.
So what is your company's brand promise? Does your perception of the brand align with your customers perceptions? Have you asked them?
Many companies launch into a re-branding project without adequately defining the brand promise. Many more are unaware that they have a brand to begin with.
Before undertaking to re-brand or re-position your company, investigate how your customers view your company and most importantly, why they are your customer rather than your competitor's. You may be surprised at the results, and have a whole new basis for differentating yourself from your competition.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Email Measurement
One of the key benefits of digital communication is the ability to measure it’s impact. While there are many elements of email communications that can be measured, it’s a good idea to look at the aims of your communication and focus on measurements that relate specifically to your objectives.
Standard email measurements include:
- Deliverability rates - these give you insight into the cleanliness of your database – see article ‘Maintaining your email database’, and how SPAM friendly your content is. It’s a good idea to run each email through a SPAM checker before each send
- Open rates - open rates give you an indication of how interested your audience is in the content you are sending, how effective your subject line is, and when is the best time to send an email to your database
- Clickthroughs - give you an indication of which information your audience is most interested in
- Unsubscribes - it’s beneficial to monitor unsubscribe rates when you vary your communication in any way, including content or frequency – spikes may indicate your customers don’t like the change!
- Forwards - if your email content is compelling, people are more likely to send the email to a friend!
Other things that you can measure to maximise your email communications are:
- Offers – A/B testing different offers to a small sample of your email database prior to a promotion can highlight which offer is most effective and increase your overall uptake rate.
- Conversion rates – measure the number of customers that went on to complete a specific action after clicking a link in your email (updating their profile, registering interest in a new product, downloading a product brochure, or signing up for an event just to name a few examples).
- Subject lines – do an A/B test using different subject lines to see which achieves a higher open rate. Learn about what motivates your customers to read your emails!
- Best send times – review when emails are opened after a send to see when the majority of your customers are receptive to receiving your communications. You can also do A/B testing by send emails on different days of the week to see when the highest open rates are achieved.
- Email design – does a short, sharp newsletter perform more effectively than an eNewsletter style communication? Be mindful that shorter emails may get higher clickthrough rates because less information is presented on the email.
Standard email measurements include:
- Deliverability rates - these give you insight into the cleanliness of your database – see article ‘Maintaining your email database’, and how SPAM friendly your content is. It’s a good idea to run each email through a SPAM checker before each send
- Open rates - open rates give you an indication of how interested your audience is in the content you are sending, how effective your subject line is, and when is the best time to send an email to your database
- Clickthroughs - give you an indication of which information your audience is most interested in
- Unsubscribes - it’s beneficial to monitor unsubscribe rates when you vary your communication in any way, including content or frequency – spikes may indicate your customers don’t like the change!
- Forwards - if your email content is compelling, people are more likely to send the email to a friend!
Other things that you can measure to maximise your email communications are:
- Offers – A/B testing different offers to a small sample of your email database prior to a promotion can highlight which offer is most effective and increase your overall uptake rate.
- Conversion rates – measure the number of customers that went on to complete a specific action after clicking a link in your email (updating their profile, registering interest in a new product, downloading a product brochure, or signing up for an event just to name a few examples).
- Subject lines – do an A/B test using different subject lines to see which achieves a higher open rate. Learn about what motivates your customers to read your emails!
- Best send times – review when emails are opened after a send to see when the majority of your customers are receptive to receiving your communications. You can also do A/B testing by send emails on different days of the week to see when the highest open rates are achieved.
- Email design – does a short, sharp newsletter perform more effectively than an eNewsletter style communication? Be mindful that shorter emails may get higher clickthrough rates because less information is presented on the email.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Managing your email database
By maintaining your database you can improve your open rates, increase deliverability and reduce sending costs. Email database maintenance includes a number of factors.
Managing Unsubscribers
It is a legal requirement that all emails have an unsubscribe function to allow your customers to opt-out of receiving communications. Many email broadcast systems manage this automatically for you by adding an unsubscribe link to each email and allowing your customers to send their unsubscribe request directly to the database.
You can keep track of the number of customers that unsubscribe after each email send, so it is good to keep an eye on this - watch for any spike in unsubscribe activity and look for possible reasons behind it.
While the facility to unsubscribe is often available via the email, some customers will choose to ring the contact centre or hit the ‘reply to’ button to unsubscribe – so ensure that your contact centre knows how to unsubscribe people from the database as well.
Managing Bouncebacks
Bouncebacks are emails that are rejected after being sent. These can be for various reasons, and most programs will distinguish ‘hard’ bouncebacks and ‘soft’ bouncebacks. Hard bouncebacks are emails that are rejected because there is a permanent error with the email address – i.e. the account does not exist. ‘Soft’ bouncebacks are when an email is temporarily undeliverable, caused by things such as a Hotmail account being full, or out of office reply.
Some email broadcast systems will automatically try and resend ‘soft bounce’ emails after the first bounce. Some also allow you to deactivate and/or delete both hard and soft bounces in bulk. How often you need to do this is determined by the cleanliness of your database and how often you send email communications.
Update Profile link
A great way to keep your database up to date is to add an ‘update profile’ link to your emails, so your customers can modify their own information in your database. This is a great way of not only allowing your customers to keep their information current, but it also allows you to see who your most engaged customers are - they are updating their information because they want to continue to hear from you!
Managing Unsubscribers
It is a legal requirement that all emails have an unsubscribe function to allow your customers to opt-out of receiving communications. Many email broadcast systems manage this automatically for you by adding an unsubscribe link to each email and allowing your customers to send their unsubscribe request directly to the database.
You can keep track of the number of customers that unsubscribe after each email send, so it is good to keep an eye on this - watch for any spike in unsubscribe activity and look for possible reasons behind it.
While the facility to unsubscribe is often available via the email, some customers will choose to ring the contact centre or hit the ‘reply to’ button to unsubscribe – so ensure that your contact centre knows how to unsubscribe people from the database as well.
Managing Bouncebacks
Bouncebacks are emails that are rejected after being sent. These can be for various reasons, and most programs will distinguish ‘hard’ bouncebacks and ‘soft’ bouncebacks. Hard bouncebacks are emails that are rejected because there is a permanent error with the email address – i.e. the account does not exist. ‘Soft’ bouncebacks are when an email is temporarily undeliverable, caused by things such as a Hotmail account being full, or out of office reply.
Some email broadcast systems will automatically try and resend ‘soft bounce’ emails after the first bounce. Some also allow you to deactivate and/or delete both hard and soft bounces in bulk. How often you need to do this is determined by the cleanliness of your database and how often you send email communications.
Update Profile link
A great way to keep your database up to date is to add an ‘update profile’ link to your emails, so your customers can modify their own information in your database. This is a great way of not only allowing your customers to keep their information current, but it also allows you to see who your most engaged customers are - they are updating their information because they want to continue to hear from you!
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Email database recruitment
So you have an email communications plan, and you’re ready to think about recruiting customers to your database.
Here are some points for consideration:
- Who will you aim to recruit for the database? How will you recruit them? Can you add a subscribe function to your website, or will you develop a sales promotion where the consumer must subscribe to enter? Can you ask your sales force to collect email addresses for an incentive? Be mindful that the recruitment method you use may influence the quality of the database – i.e. how interested the customers are in your brand and how valuable they are to your business. Sales promotions may generate large number of subscribers, but are these customers all within your target market?
- What different segments will your database include? Will you want to send specific messages to customer groups? If so, what information do you need to collect from them when they sign up? i.e. If you want to be able to send out a message to Victorian customers about a sale or a stock shortage etc, you’ll need to know either their state or postcode information.
- What will encourage people to subscribe? What does your audience want to hear about? Will you allow people to sign up to hear about specific topics – i.e. subscribe to hear only about new clinical trials, or webinars, or promotions, or will you send all communications to the entire database?
Hand in hand with recruitment is a plan for maintaining your email database. Having a database of 5000 customers only to receive 2000 bouncebacks each time you send an email is costly and inefficient. To read more see article: ‘Managing your email database’.
Here are some points for consideration:
- Who will you aim to recruit for the database? How will you recruit them? Can you add a subscribe function to your website, or will you develop a sales promotion where the consumer must subscribe to enter? Can you ask your sales force to collect email addresses for an incentive? Be mindful that the recruitment method you use may influence the quality of the database – i.e. how interested the customers are in your brand and how valuable they are to your business. Sales promotions may generate large number of subscribers, but are these customers all within your target market?
- What different segments will your database include? Will you want to send specific messages to customer groups? If so, what information do you need to collect from them when they sign up? i.e. If you want to be able to send out a message to Victorian customers about a sale or a stock shortage etc, you’ll need to know either their state or postcode information.
- What will encourage people to subscribe? What does your audience want to hear about? Will you allow people to sign up to hear about specific topics – i.e. subscribe to hear only about new clinical trials, or webinars, or promotions, or will you send all communications to the entire database?
Hand in hand with recruitment is a plan for maintaining your email database. Having a database of 5000 customers only to receive 2000 bouncebacks each time you send an email is costly and inefficient. To read more see article: ‘Managing your email database’.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Email Design
An important element to any email communication is the look and feel of the email.
There are a number of factors to consider when developing your email template/s:
- What are the objectives for your email communications? What information should always be displayed on your email, and incorporated into the template (logo, contact number, a prominent send to a friend button, links to specific sections of your website, and mandatories such as link to privacy policy and an unsubscribe facility)? How prominent will each of these elements be?
- Do you require one or multiple email templates? This depends on the type of information you want to send, as well as the aims for each communication. An eNewsletter style template with multiple articles is common, but requires more work due to the amount of content. A short postcard email can be effective if there is only one message to communicate, such as an event, promotion or a sale, and/or if you want your customer to simply click through to your website.
- Will your template be viewed well in different email clients? How does your design look in Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo… or via Outlook or Lotus Notes?
- How does your email render on mobile devices? A recent report by MarketingSherpa, in partnership with SurveySampling (2007) states that 64% of key decision makers view email on their BlackBerrys and other mobile devices.
- Is your design SPAM friendly? Most email broadcast systems offer the capability to run your email templates through a SPAM checker to see if there are any elements that trigger SPAM filters. There are also some free SPAM checkers online.
Remember that not everyone views emails with images – ensure that you develop a text version of your email and pay attention to how this is formatted – it’s important that this version is also easy to read.
There are a number of factors to consider when developing your email template/s:
- What are the objectives for your email communications? What information should always be displayed on your email, and incorporated into the template (logo, contact number, a prominent send to a friend button, links to specific sections of your website, and mandatories such as link to privacy policy and an unsubscribe facility)? How prominent will each of these elements be?
- Do you require one or multiple email templates? This depends on the type of information you want to send, as well as the aims for each communication. An eNewsletter style template with multiple articles is common, but requires more work due to the amount of content. A short postcard email can be effective if there is only one message to communicate, such as an event, promotion or a sale, and/or if you want your customer to simply click through to your website.
- Will your template be viewed well in different email clients? How does your design look in Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo… or via Outlook or Lotus Notes?
- How does your email render on mobile devices? A recent report by MarketingSherpa, in partnership with SurveySampling (2007) states that 64% of key decision makers view email on their BlackBerrys and other mobile devices.
- Is your design SPAM friendly? Most email broadcast systems offer the capability to run your email templates through a SPAM checker to see if there are any elements that trigger SPAM filters. There are also some free SPAM checkers online.
Remember that not everyone views emails with images – ensure that you develop a text version of your email and pay attention to how this is formatted – it’s important that this version is also easy to read.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Trigger-based / Scheduled emails
Are you interested in the idea of communicating to your customers via email, but have concerns with maintaining a regular email communications program? If you have information that is not time specific, you should consider trigger-based or scheduled email communications.
How do Trigger-based / scheduled emails work?
Trigger-based or scheduled emails are simply email messages that are sent based on an action or a specific time. Triggers that can be used to send the automated emails can include:
a. Signing up to/unsubscribing from a database
b. Submitting a form
c. Updating their profile on your website
d. Time-related (i.e. 1 month after subscribe)
e. A specific time (i.e. 25th December 2010).
Here are some exampled of how these emails could be used as part of your email communications activity:
- When a customer subscribes, send a welcome email with an overview of what they can expect to hear from the brand and links to the most frequently sought information on the brand’s website.
- 2 weeks after a customer subscribes, send a request for feedback via email – “How have you found the information on our site? How can we improve the content for you?”
- Send happy birthday emails if you collect this information about your customers - you could even include some special birthday offers
- When a customer signs up to an event or enters a competition, send a confirmation email that includes links to related information, and/or other upcoming events/competitions
- Send an email reminder 1 day before an event is due to commence with relevant details
- "We miss you" emails - send communications with special offers to/ask for feedback from customers who haven't made any purchases in the last 6-12 months.
- Send specific messages to customers who update their details online. These customers are saying "I want to keep on hearing from you" - think about how can you communicate with this highly engaged audience.
How do Trigger-based / scheduled emails work?
Trigger-based or scheduled emails are simply email messages that are sent based on an action or a specific time. Triggers that can be used to send the automated emails can include:
a. Signing up to/unsubscribing from a database
b. Submitting a form
c. Updating their profile on your website
d. Time-related (i.e. 1 month after subscribe)
e. A specific time (i.e. 25th December 2010).
Here are some exampled of how these emails could be used as part of your email communications activity:
- When a customer subscribes, send a welcome email with an overview of what they can expect to hear from the brand and links to the most frequently sought information on the brand’s website.
- 2 weeks after a customer subscribes, send a request for feedback via email – “How have you found the information on our site? How can we improve the content for you?”
- Send happy birthday emails if you collect this information about your customers - you could even include some special birthday offers
- When a customer signs up to an event or enters a competition, send a confirmation email that includes links to related information, and/or other upcoming events/competitions
- Send an email reminder 1 day before an event is due to commence with relevant details
- "We miss you" emails - send communications with special offers to/ask for feedback from customers who haven't made any purchases in the last 6-12 months.
- Send specific messages to customers who update their details online. These customers are saying "I want to keep on hearing from you" - think about how can you communicate with this highly engaged audience.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Developing an Email Communications Plan
So you’ve decided that you want to start building a database of customers to communicate to via email. Before recruiting any new customers, it’s a good idea to have a solid plan for your future email communications. There is no use in collecting lots of email addresses from customers and then only contacting them once a year!
Likewise, it can be detrimental send emails without compelling content, with many studies reporting that the main causes of opt outs are lack of relevant content and sending emails too frequently.
Here are some things to consider when developing an email communications plan:
- What do your customers want to hear about? Good email communications balance what the customer wants to hear with what the company wants to tell them.
- How often will you communicate with your customer base? Will yours be a monthly communication, or ad-hoc? How often do your customers want to hear from you – and how often is too often? It’s a good idea to set a minimum and maximum frequency for communications within a given period. It’s also best practise to give your customers a good idea about what they will receive by signing up to your database and how often they will be contacted.
- What resources are available to compile, develop, send and measure your email communications? Ensure that your plan is within your capabilities!
- Can email activity support your other marketing initiatives? If you contact your customers with direct marketing, can you do an email follow up to increase conversion?
- What other opportunities are there for communicating with your customers via email? It’s likely that they will be most interested in hearing from you when they initially sign up – so why not send a welcome email? Are there other times when you can schedule an email to be sent over and above your standard email communications plan? Learn more about scheduling emails is this article: “Trigger-based / scheduled emails”.
Likewise, it can be detrimental send emails without compelling content, with many studies reporting that the main causes of opt outs are lack of relevant content and sending emails too frequently.
Here are some things to consider when developing an email communications plan:
- What do your customers want to hear about? Good email communications balance what the customer wants to hear with what the company wants to tell them.
- How often will you communicate with your customer base? Will yours be a monthly communication, or ad-hoc? How often do your customers want to hear from you – and how often is too often? It’s a good idea to set a minimum and maximum frequency for communications within a given period. It’s also best practise to give your customers a good idea about what they will receive by signing up to your database and how often they will be contacted.
- What resources are available to compile, develop, send and measure your email communications? Ensure that your plan is within your capabilities!
- Can email activity support your other marketing initiatives? If you contact your customers with direct marketing, can you do an email follow up to increase conversion?
- What other opportunities are there for communicating with your customers via email? It’s likely that they will be most interested in hearing from you when they initially sign up – so why not send a welcome email? Are there other times when you can schedule an email to be sent over and above your standard email communications plan? Learn more about scheduling emails is this article: “Trigger-based / scheduled emails”.
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