Wednesday, October 20, 2010

If you’re already talking, why not make it more worthwhile?

To be honest, I never really saw the point of blogging. Writing random pieces to relate a topic back to my everyday life was a notion I didn't buy into at first. But our website stats and the feedback that we've received from our partners, customers and prospects in response to our regular blog posts has proven me wrong.

Pushing the blog has increased readership

The fact is that everyone in Striata and on our mailing list has a common interest – electronic document delivery – and this type of regular, informal communication helps to build a stronger relationship between us. Each week some new ideas or a different perspective on accepted views are put out there to hopefully get people thinking and maybe inspire changes to the way things are done. But mainly, it lets everyone know that we're passionate about what we do, that we have opinions and ideas and that we are keen to share our passion with our clients, partners and other contacts. Plus of course "pushing" our blogs out to you dramatically increases the readership. I mean, you're not going to visit striata.com every week just for fun to check and see if I've written something interesting/witty/useful, are you?

This all got me thinking about other companies' regular communications with their customers. We often hear that the bill is the only regular touch-point between a company and the customer. But, standing alone is it a good customer touch-point? Does it add value to the relationship? Generally, the best you can hope for is that the customer isn't upset at the amount due of their bill. No-one will ever look forward to receiving their bill.

What if your eBill could add value to the relationship?

So, why not use this regular communication to expand the relationship to something that isn't just money-focused? Why not include a blog or newsletter with each eBill? It may be obvious, but every company has something in common with their customers. It shouldn't take much to come up with something to tell your customers each month that will show you're interested in more than their money. Depending on the type of company, there are all sorts of things you can discuss. Product reviews eg. the iPhone vs. the latest Samsung smartphone. Tech/green updates like the latest scrubbers in your power-station chimneys or femto-cell roll-out to boost mobile coverage. Or perhaps even charitable work your company or employees are taking part in? Anything that shows your customers that you're more than just a faceless corporation only interested in the bottom line.

Of course, with paper-based billing, the cost of this sort of newsletter/blog sent with each bill would be prohibitive. But with eBilling, the cost of an additional page is negligible if anything at all. And of course you can also include a call-to-action such as a link to your website to pre-order the iPhone 5 or whatever else works for you. It's about giving your customer informative, unbiased and engaging information or offers. Just a thought, chew on it!

Keith Russell
Sales Director, Asia Pacific
www.striata.com

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

What the new era of "Smart" inboxes means for email delivery

As eMarketers and eBillers, we are constantly fighting the battle of getting every email to its destination through clever, practical design and delivery methodologies. We've had to overcome many barriers – strict spam filters, a myriad of different email software and web browsers and not to mention design and copy layout challenges to achieve maximum open rates. If that wasn't hard enough, we are now faced with another hurdle to overcome:

Inboxes that are automatically able to distinguish between important email and email that should safely be ignored. Introducing the "Smart" inbox.

"Smart" inbox - sounds so sophisticated but so what?

Inboxes are becoming more and more intelligent thanks to new features that allow users to automatically sort and manage incoming mail more effectively. The "Smart" inbox uses a range of variables and filters from sender recognition to user interaction to determine what email is deemed important and what email can be discarded or filed into an "unimportant" folder somewhere or even worse, deleted!

Take for example Google Mail, who just recently launched their Priority Inbox feature.




Priority Inbox

The Priority Inbox is segmented into the 3 clear categories of mail:


  • Important and Unread – The heading says it all. This is where you want your marketing messages to be delivered automatically, and where you could expect far greater open and click through rates.

  • Starred – This section is marked as important and requires follow up. You can reasonably expect that emails will be opened from this section as they have been marked by the user for follow up.

  • Everything Else – This really means, "unimportant and I'll get to it whenever I can email". Not the kind of place you want your marketing communications to end up. Chances are it is less likely that these will be read.

Using a smart algorithm, Gmail Priority Inbox analyses information, such as the addresses that you mail the most and your email usage behaviours – what emails you click on and which ones you discard without reading.

Also, when the user marks messages important or unimportant, the algorithm adapts itself as it learns and understands what type of mail they deem as important and what is generally not. Plus future messages will be treated in the same way, without the user having to do anything.

What does this mean for you?

The "Smart" inbox has major implications for marketers and companies wanting to communicate with their bases. Gone are the days where we can assume that emails are generally going to appear in an inbox sorted by date received. Now more than ever we should be applying best practice to email design and delivery.

On the plus side, the rewards for delivering wanted, relevant messages are that your emails get priority positioning in an uncluttered inbox.

Conversely, the penalties for getting it wrong result in poor inbox positioning or worse, it may never reach the inbox at all.

What then should you do to ensure priority positioning?

Here are a number of things you should be doing:

  • Segment and profile your base so you can tailor your communications to be more relevant to your customer. The more relevant the communications, the greater the chance of it being opened and/or marked as important

  • Send effective welcome messages – there is no better time to tell your customers to add your sender address to their contacts list and describe what communications they can expect from you. Also, use it as an opportunity to educate them on the importance of marking messages as important or "starring" them for later reading

  • Review the design and copy of your communications ensuring you have included strong subject lines and pre-headers. Also ensure you find a good balance between text and images so your email can be scanned quickly in the preview pane when images have not been downloaded yet.

  • Drive meaningful interaction with your customers by ensuring you have strong, visible and readable calls to action. Include social media sharing capabilities and where possible include features such as call-me-back's and polls

  • Introduce a lifecycle communication programme - Where you have a number of critical triggered transactional messages and important scheduled communications such as electronic statements, all sent from the same address. Due to their nature these messages will most likely be opened or marked as important by the user. So your marketing communications sent from the same address will be recognised as relevant and important too.

While "Smart" Inboxes are relatively new and may represent a small percentage of your database, the point is, the email landscape is changing. You should be changing your thinking too.




(P.S. – We used Gmail as an example to highlight "Smart" inbox concept – the other email service providers do have similar features built in as well, so this concept is not unique to Gmail. Where smaller service providers may not have this feature now you can reasonably expect that they will follow.)

Haydn James
Head of eMarketing
www.striata.com

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Dispelling the myths around email security

In previous blogs I addressed the benefits of presenting electronic documents via self service portals / Internet banking websites vs. their inability to achieve paper suppression.

Whether you choose to deploy a 'Push' or a 'Pull solution; security and risk are key to determining a successful strategy. Today I want to address what makes a "push" eDocument delivery approach the better choice when weighing up the risk and security factors. But before I do that, let me dispel some myths about email security that I've recently heard mentioned.


Email security myths dispelled:

MYTH 1: Email can be stolen en-masse at an ISP: I've heard some winners in my 15 years in this industry but this takes first prize. Yes, email can be stolen at ISP's in the same way your money can be stolen at the bank by bank employees. I know a few ISP Executives who would take some affront at this accusation.

MYTH 2: Email can be stolen en-route: Email can be stolen en-route in the same way a USPS vehicle can be hijacked and your physical mail stolen. It’s possible but incredibly difficult, expensive and most importantly, a serious crime. Unlike a USPS truck however, for a fraudster to locate a specific email would be like finding a needle in a haystack the size of Montana. On top of which they then have to brute force attack the encryption (more time & money.) The result of which is then a PDF copy of one consumer’s bill or statement. The reality is that even if one knew how, it is simply commercially unfeasible to do so (far easier to simply hijack that truck or steal your mail from your postbox.)

MYTH 3: PDF attachments trigger spam filters: Simply not true. Spam triggers spam filters. And if you send spam with PDF’s then these will also be blocked.

'Push' eDocument delivery - the better choice

Striata has delivered billions of secure electronic documents for over 11 years, in 14 countries and for over 250 major Financial Services, Telecommunication, Utilities and Corporates, including 3 of the top 8 banks in the world.

From a security and risk perspective, 'Push' eDocument delivery is the better choice. As major players in this field, this is how we address it:

The Striata eDocument Delivery process has four security areas:

  1. Email Address Verification – Explicit knowledge that your customer email addresses on file are accurate and current. For those who aren't; we have the Striata Email Address Verification program, which uses email and mobile phone text messaging to confirm and gather email addresses.
  2. Striata eConsent – The process of gaining intelligent & compliant consent to go paperless, with just one click. Once the sender has an accurate and current email address, a highly personalized and Sender Authenticated eConsent email is sent to the consumer. There are two buttons in the email body, one to consent to go paperless and one to decline to do so – the recipient just clicks on one of them. There is no website to visit, no enrollment form, no choosing & remembering of usernames & passwords
  3. Striata Sender Authentication – The recipient has intuitive knowledge that the sender is who they purport to be. Other than the various technology elements like SPF Records. DKIM etc, Striata utilizes a multi faceted approach to creating this intuitive trust. These include:

  • Actual sender’s domain: The message comes from the sender’s address: for example. This should always be the actual address and not a spoofed one (if you had to do a reverse DNS lookup you would find the sender’s verifiable domain.)
  • Subject line: We include the recipient's name in the Subject line
  • Salutation: A full greeting is used: Dear Mr. John Smith
  • Striata Authenticated: In the body of the email is a highlighted area which contains two to five partial pieces of information about the consumer. This may include physical address, account number, primary phone number etc.

  1. Recipient Identification – The sender is assured that only the intended recipient has access to the secured Document content. There are two major ways (levels) that the sender is ensured that only the intended recipient can gain access to the secured information (bill, statements etc.)

  • Access to the email inbox: Email accounts are very well protected by physical access to a device or in most cases through a username & password.
  • Knowledge of a 'shared secret': In addition to the previous layer, Striata Secured PDF's are encrypted with a minimum of 128 bit RC4 encryption. The PDF is decrypted through recipient knowledge of a 'shared secret'. This is a partial piece of information known only to the sender and recipient. (Last 5 digits of a Social Security Number is a good example of this.)

It is very important that these two security layers are viewed hand in hand. The PDF is not in a publically accessible location and can only be decrypted by somebody who has BOTH access to the email account and who knows the 'shared secret'.

Peace of mind that the message is genuine

The combination of all of the above is what gives consumers explicit and intuitive trust (without any education) that the message is genuine.

In conclusion – when executed correctly, the processes and methodologies described above result in a security landscape that is significantly more secure than a two field password protected website. Most importantly however, is that these processes are many, many times more convenient for the end consumer, and, as we all know, convenience equals customer satisfaction.

Garin Toren
Chief Operating Officer, America
striata.com