Email marketing is a specialisation

It amazes me that I still receive email marketing from large organizations with basic errors. How is it that they ignore well-documented research and experience about how consumers read and interact with an email?

In the past week I have received emails that may as well be posters, because they are one big image, emails with the logo at the bottom of the template, calls to action hidden within text and at the bottom of the email and subject lines that give no indication of content.

So I ask the question... are these organisations embarking on self-service email marketing without the crucial knowledge around what works? Or is this a case of believing that above the line marketing is unchangeable when it comes to online? Either way, this is a massive error on the part of these organisations.

Debunking some myths

• MYTH: We have the software, so it’s just a matter of sending an email to our database
  
  FACT: Anyone can send out an email, however, there are basic principles that need to be adhered to: from testing the HTML in various email environments to see how it renders, monitoring deliverability, creative layout for best results to consistent reporting to improve results. If you don’t have the experts on hand to help out, you could be failing at one or more of these points.


• MYTH: Our logo must always appear at the bottom of any communication as that is part of our CI
  
  FACT: Simply put, if you look at your web-site you’ll notice that the logo is placed at the top. Email is no different. People read from the top to the bottom when it comes to online pages and as such, your branding should always appear at the top.


• MYTH: We need to keep the same creative we have used in our print direct marketing campaigns
  
  FACT: Keeping the creative identical to your direct mail pack is a mistake. Consumers react differently to email therefore the way an email is designed and laid-out is crucial to meeting the goals of the campaign. Rather aim to keep creative elements and adapt them to email best practice.

Why does this matter?
The biggest reason this matters is that our communications are a critical tool in building a community with our subscribers. And unlike smaller communities which are inherently more personal; large organizations cannot simply rely on the good will of their subscriber base.

Email marketing as a discipline has been around for the better part of 10 years and its evolution is largely due to testing, reporting and customer interaction. The discipline is still evolving as consumer behaviour, and how they engage, keeps adapting to the online world. You need to keep abreast of these trends and monitor reports to constantly improve your communication.

If your communications become a burden, a hassle or a complication to consumers, they will switch you off, by unsubscribing, marking your email as junk, complaining or simply ignoring all future emails. And the quickest way to make your emails such a burden to your customers is to ignore basic, well-documented best practices, learned through years of hard knocks.

Ultimately, handling your own email marketing without the assistance of real experts – whether they be hired into your own organization or hired as outside service providers – is detrimental to your communication strategy as a whole.

If you’ve recently ‘switched off’ a supplier’s email I’d love to hear your reasons...

Mia Papanicolaou
Head of eMarketing
www.striata.com

Why I love and hate HSBC

When I moved to the UK I needed to open a bank account. So began a rigmarole that circled back into a catch 22 situation; you can't rent a property without a bank account and you can't open an account without a local address.

Bank after bank transferred my call to different departments; none of which could assist me in opening an account until I had formally arrived in the UK and lived at one address for more than a month.

HSBC rescued me with a limited function account that I could open with just a passport. I still needed to go to a branch to complete the paperwork, but I could evade the circular reference of not yet having a fixed address.

Falling in love with HSBC

But this is where I started to fall in love with my bank – the branch manager needed authorisation on the process and came down to meet me – I explained that I was moving to the UK and from that point on she took away all the bureaucracy and red tape. I communicated by email, scanned documents and as soon as I had a permanent address, my accounts were automatically converted to standard accounts without the limitations.

People often say that when dealing with their banks, they have just become a number. They call distant call centres and don't have access to a traditional bank manager. I guess this is true in many instances – banks have to be efficient and maintaining high touch, personal relationships is expensive.

I guess it depends on your branch, the manager and your circumstances, however I love HSBC.

The balance of love-hate

But I'm incredibly frustrated at the amount of paper that my bank produces. I hate that they say, "Go Green", but then send me paper for every transaction. I admit that I am not a 'run of the mill' client – but every foreign transfer into my account results in a letter confirming the funds. Every change of terms and conditions results in a small forest being sent through the mail.

I realise that the Royal Mail needs the work – but there are far more convenient ways to do this – secure electronic document delivery is no longer a black art.

Hands up everyone that would rather receive most of their post in an email ? Countless studies have shown that consumers, SMEs and businesses prefer email to paper.

Come on HSBC – put my email address as my primary contact point and just email it.


Michael Wright
Global CEO
www.striata.com

The World Cup of eBilling

With all eyes on South Africa as the Football World Cup moves into top gear, the buzz in our Johannesburg office is spreading to our global offices, even as far as here in Hong Kong! And it’s got me thinking - what it would take to win the eBilling World Cup if there was such a thing? Who would you need in your team and what game plan/strategies will work best?

The defence is in the delivery
Well, you won’t even reach the second round if you don’t have a strong defence. For eBilling, we’re defending against the customer’s resistance to accept change. So, the fundamental requirement is to deliver the invoice or statement information to the customers in a clear, concise manner quickly and conveniently. But be warned - making the customer remember new id/password combinations and search a portal for this month’s bill is a definite own-goal!

Fancy footwork, like one-click payment, adds sparkle!
Once we’ve got a good, strong defence in place, we can move on to the mid-field. This is where a bit of fancy footwork and showboating is allowed, adding a bit of sparkle to the game and giving the punter more than they were expecting. Personalized eMarketing shows the customer that you really know what their needs are. Link-tracking feeds back into this - like a half-time locker room pep talk - ensuring the team learns from experience and plays better, game after game. One-click payment from within a PDF eBill will have the fans cheering! Update forms keep track of any team-changes. And if you’re looking for really flashy footwork, then why not use ‘Flash’ to slice and dice data and create dynamic user-defined graphs, giving the fans exactly what they want!

Paper turn off scores the winning goal...
To win the game, you need strikers to get you goals! And the goal for any eBilling solution is paper-turn-off , which provides both environmental and financial benefits . Registration-free sign-up and creative adoption strategies are key here. Look to the professional strikers; 97% of customers who start receiving Striata’s eBills end up turning off paper – each one like a ball in the back of the net! Now there’s a strike rate that even Cristiano Ronaldo would be proud of!

So, while Striata’s office football team may never trouble Brazil or Spain on the pitch, it may just be that we have the Ultimate Team for the inaugural eBilling World Cup.

What is your paper turn off ‘strike rate’?

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