Putting out a welcome mat in the digital world

"Hello. Welcome. Good to meet you. I hope you enjoy your time with us." These phrases are regarded as a common courtesy in daily personal interactions, yet they are not carried over into the digital space. In a virtual world, where people are 'meeting' and engaging with brands for the first time, it has become imperative that brands 'set the stage' by initiating an email welcome campaign for new customers. This establishes trust, expectations and communicates important information about the brand.

What happens when a customer signs up for a service or purchases a product from your organisation within an ecommerce environment? In many instances they are sent a proof of order or purchase. When signing up for regular newsletter communications, an online confirmation is also sent, followed by an email requesting that the customer confirm their registration. These transactional notifications serve an important purpose, but cannot replace the value of providing a customer with an orientation on what to expect of future interactions with your company.

An email 'welcome' communication series is vital, as it opens a dialogue with your customers and is an opportune time to gather feedback on their preferences. This can be done through surveys, polls and setting up of online preferences, enabling targeted communications that will keep your customers engaged in the future.

More than just a welcome...

Welcome campaigns should be designed according to the complexity of your service offering. As an example; I recently signed up with a popular rewards program for an international airline. After initiating the relationship, I received a 6 part welcome series. The series was sent to me over a 20 day period with each email addressing a different aspect of the service - thus orienting me one step at a time.

If a customer has registered for a service that includes multiple communication types from your organisation like an eBill, transactional mail, newsletters, special offers etc, inform your customer about these communications and when they can typically expect to receive them.

Failing to address these important areas is a lost opportunity at a time when a customer's engagement with your brand is at a peak – it is now that they are more likely to open and click-through.

 

Basic rules to remember when introducing a welcome campaign to your customer communication lifecycle:

• Use a clear, branded 'from' address
• Demonstrate how to add your 'from' address to the safe sender's list
• Include the word 'welcome' in the subject line
• Get the information needed to personalise the salutation - it's a fact that personalised welcome emails are more effective
• Send your welcome mail as soon after registration / interaction with your company as possible - the more time left between the initial customer contact and the welcome mail, the lower the open and click through rates
• Use this opportunity to engage with your customer through other channels e.g. following company on social media, downloading mobile applications etc

Without a warm welcome and a friendly tour of your home, your new guests may feel lost and not stay very long – in fact, they will probably find the back door and make a quick exit. Don't let the same thing happen to your new customers.

Nicola Els
striata.com

It's all about the data!

The European Email Marketing Conference highlighted the same themes as every other email marketing conference over the last year: the importance of data, relevance, targeting and customer engagement. So I have to ask the question - if we all understand that these topics are important, why are so few companies making significant inroads in these project and process areas?

When I considered why companies aren't progressing to a greater extent in these areas, the answer was simple: data is at the core of every one of the issues highlighted and getting relevant data is easier said than done.

Without the correct data, embarking on a successful email marketing programme is impossible. You need the data in order to remain relevant, target your customer base and to trigger communications - not only when an action is taken, but also based on matching preferences against upcoming events.

What data do you have?
Getting the required data out of company legacy systems can be tough. Add to that the challenge of dealing with people who might not understand the requirement (ever tried explaining to the IT department why it's important that you have all the data?) Once you have the data you need to start slicing and dicing it - a task that could require the skills of a data and/or business analyst, which is a resource that most email marketing departments just don't have available to them. It doesn't end there - the task can get increasingly complex.

Do you have all the information?
Of course the above assumes you have all the data required. For the most part, databases have the bare bones when it comes to information, creating the need to launch campaigns, in order to augment the data on the database. It takes time to get the required information and of course there will be some customers on the database that just won't supply it.

Is the data current?
Another problem is that data ages. For example, preferences could have changed over time or - if your database makes use of age ranges as opposed to birth date - eventually you will no longer know the age of your base. Added to that, people move around and so contact details change. This creates another requirement to launch database updating campaigns.

So what is the solution?
Take it one step and one day at a time. Work with your email service provider to map out the actual data required for your triggered and targeted email campaigns and roll out projects to augment and update the data needed.

Implementing a successful email marketing programme that is relevant, targeted and triggered at customer touch-points takes time. Plan your strategy and focus on the data. Once you have the data, the rest will start falling into place.

Here are some tweet takeaways from the European Email marketing Conference from @tamaragielien: http://www.b2bemailmarketing.com/2010/11/main-takeaways-from-the-european-email-marketing-conference-2010.html

Mia Papanicolaou
www.striata.com

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.

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

The all important welcome email

We often say in sales and marketing that first impressions count. But no less important than first impressions are lasting impressions.

I am in the process of immigrating to the UK and have taken up services with a bank, as it is the most pressing need – I cannot get an apartment or anything else for that matter without a bank account. I have been less than impressed with the correspondence that has followed my engagement with the bank and unfortunately this is going to be the lasting impression I have of them.

Not a very memorable experience
I gave the bank my email address, but at no point was I welcomed as a new client, nor given the step-by-step guide on what to expect. To be fair I was given brochures regarding the account I opened, but they were promotional, so my immediate reaction was to throw them away as I knew what account I had opted for. Some simple, personalised emails would have made the experience a more memorable one for me and possibly created a customer for life. Here are some emails I would have been happy to receive:

• Welcome – we're so happy you've joined us. Here are the numbers you need to keep close by...
• Your card has just been dispatched
• You haven't logged into Internet Banking yet. How can we help you?

the beginning of my lifecycle with the bank. Understanding Lifecycle Messaging is key to creating masterful relationships with your clients as well as new opportunities for sales.

Simply put, a Lifecycle Messaging strategy is one that looks at key milestones in the relationship you have with your client and structures messaging to occur on those milestones. By ensuring your messaging has a clear purpose, you are able to drive your point home more effectively.
The alternative – which many companies still consider to be the norm – is to communicate only when it is convenient for you, which has no relevance to clients. No wonder clients tire of receiving most communication that comes their way.

And what are those milestones? The anniversary of the day they bought your product or signed up for your service, an upgrade notification, a birthday trigger for example. The most important thing to remember when using these triggers is to personalise and make your first communication special, rather than just sending the normal business-like email message.

The welcome message marks the start of the conversation (and there is nothing like an unexpected introduction to help move things swiftly along.)

As the start of the conversation, a welcome email is also far more likely to be opened. This gives you the perfect opportunity to get your email priority placement in the inbox, with the introduction of the smart inbox within the web email environment. Once the client has interacted with that email (opened / clicked / replied), future emails are likely to get priority placement, rather than being categorised as graymail or unimportant.

Amongst other things, the welcome message should:

• Give your clients information on what they've just signed up for and what they can expect
• Give them contact details and service details where applicable
• Serve as an instant confirmation that the email address exists and is
  valid. Should the email bounce, this is a perfect opportunity to gather
  an updated email address by sending a text, calling the
  member/subscriber or ensuring that a notification appears next time they
  log into your site

Also, since this is the first interaction with your client, you could use the opportunity to get more information from them, such as their desired frequency of communication and their likes and dislikes (depending on the communication you're sending out).

The welcome email isn't only about the start of the relationship, it also encompasses any new services the client has signed up for and should know more about. These include when and how to expect their bills, the process for insurance policies and what can be expected, etc.

These first impressions all form part of the customer's lifecycle with your company and are just as important as the live conversation you have with them. Isn't it time you thought more about making your first impression a lasting one?

I'd love to hear about a proper welcome you've received – or not!

* P.S. Google's new priority inbox is going to affect the way all your client communications are prioritised, so making sure your welcome email gets read is now going to affect the way all your client communications are prioritised...look out for a follow up blog to find out how you can get priority status for your emails.

Mia Papanicolaou
Innovative messaging specialist
striata.com

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

Is your email marketing relevant enough to make you stand out?

Consumers and businesses are so suffocated by competitive messaging that the only real winner is utter confusion. A recent report in Fortune Magazine suggested that individuals are subjected to 30 000 brand messages per day, making it nearly impossible for any brand to stand out.

It stands to reason you’ll overlook, ignore or discard generic messages about products or services you aren’t ever likely to use. This is most certainly the case when it comes to email marketing , which is not only competing for a customer’s attention against other brands, but also trying to stand out through the clutter and spam.

Is your message getting lost in the noise?

Consider this: an estimated 88% of emails sent in 2009 were spam messages. So, your email marketing campaigns need to speak to the consumer on a personal level. Now is the time to change. Everyone is receptive to information about things that specifically interest them and in fact, rather than merely tolerating that sort of information, it is the sort of thing they actively seek out.

It’s about being relevant, to get your email marketing messages not only delivered, but read and actioned by your customers, you just have to start being relevant to them again.

Consumers are asking: do you understand me? Do you know what I want? Do you care to get it to me in the way that I want it? If you can answer yes to these sorts of questions, you have a real chance at gaining that consumer’s attention.

If you do not, you’ll struggle to gain readership for your messages and may see your unsubscribe rates begin to climb.

What you need to bear in mind:

• Listen to your customers: ask them what information they want to receive by posing questions that determine their life-stage and interests, right at the start when they sign up for email marketing. They’ll tell you what they’re interested in or want to buy if you care to listen to them.


• Segmentation and targeting: start segmenting your customer base, not only on their interests, but also on their purchase behaviour, demographics, life-stage, activity on previous emails and activity on your site. Then you can start targeting messages that are relevant to each customer, based on all the information you have in their profile.


• Content: make sure what you’re sending to them matches their interest. This is about what they want, not what you want to send them. Get this right and you’ll grow a willing and interested reader base.


• Timing: think about the optimal time to send your messages. This will depend on your audience and their daily and weekly habits.


• Using the right channels: what’s best, email? SMS? Something else? Know your audience and how they work and you’ll significantly increase your chances of reaching them.

To sum up

The right content, at the right time, using the right channels and all based on customer feedback will enable you to be relevant to the target audience for your products or services. In the end, that’s the ideal position for a marketer to be in.

Mia Papanicolaou
Head of eMarketing
www.striata.com

Transactional email: have you considered the opportunities?

When it comes to email marketing we often overlook some of the less-obvious touch points because we are so focused on the bigger campaigns.

We compile brilliant email newsletters, to which we dedicate substantial amounts of time and energy, ensuring that the branding is exciting, consistent and aligned with the CI, while still providing relevant content. It goes without saying that we want our customer communication to be fantastic.

You are however probably unaware that some of your email communication to customers is poorly structured, almost never updated and usually not tracked at all.

Consider the following very important question: when was the last time you gave any serious consideration to your transactional email strategy?

We define transactional email as that which is automatically generated in response to an action. Examples of such messages are ‘thanks for subscribing’ or ‘your details have been updated.’

Transactional email provides fantastic opportunities for you to engage with your customers again, within an environment that is totally acceptable to them. And the word fantastic doesn’t overstate it. By applying a great design and accompanying the message with complementary messages – about new products, upcoming events or special offers– you create brand new opportunities to connect and sell. Coupled with transactional messaging, that includes tracking, you can also measure your upsell opportunities on these mediums, which could yield better results than traditional marketing mediums.

Examples of transactional email can be found everywhere. Browse a product set at Amazon.co.uk and you will be sent an email detailing specials and other options, based on the product category you were looking at. These emails usually consist of a single line of text, in a simple, text-based email though - when you think about it, that’s a massive opportunity lost!

As marketers, we’re always looking for great opportunities to extend our brand. How exciting to discover that you may have many unexploited ones in your portfolio right now.

Mia Papanicolaou
Head of eMarketing
www.striata.com

Rising postal costs result in increased online usage, which again causes rising postal costs.

The United Kingdom (Dec 2008) and the United States (May 2009) both 'suffered' at the hands of their national mail carriers, as costs of first class mail increased.

Why the increase? The National Carriers are suffering revenue losses, as a result of the increased use of email and social networking. The postcard is a quaint relic from the past; pen-pals from even further back in time; love letters have become text messages; event invitations have become the doyen of Facebook, Google forms and the like.

The recent global financial strains have also forced organizations that communicate with their customers via 'snail' mail to investigate alternative channels of communication

The Striata Solution set is ideal for the abovementioned scenarios.

The eMarketing Suite provides significant functionality, which effectively facilitates the distribution of various communications to the client database. Provision is made for the collection of data at each point of contact, while the email content can be tailored to the particular client’s profile. Furthermore, the Striata Application Platform provides significant deliverability features and benefits.

The eBilling Suite is usually used to attach an encrypted document to an email. The encryption is built by either the Striata Encryption Engine, which stores the designated file in the proprietary Striata Reader (a file with the following file extension: .emc); or the Striata PDF engine, resulting in an encrypted PDF.

While these solutions do not assist the mail carriers in limiting their price increase, they do provide organizations that distribute paper based communication with an alternate delivery channel – one which is cost efficient, immediate, trackable and environmentally friendly (green).

So, it is inevitable, the mail carriers will continue to increase the postal rates to mitigate their loss, resulting in more and more organizations turning to electronic communication and delivery as an alternative option – this enables them to manage their communication initiatives, more efficiently and cost effectively.

The Advantages and Disadvantages of eStatements

For the purposes of this argument, the term 'eStatement' refers all documents sent by an organization to its customer base via email in lieu of a paper copy. This includes eBilling in all its variations: eBills, eInvoices, eDocuments, Pay Stubs, Electronic Notifications and Alerts. (Striata provides all of these electronic document solutions.)

We know that most organizations punt the use of electronic documentation, because it saves them money; and contributes towards their corporate social responsibility profile. But what are the benefits to the end user? What are the advantages? And what are the disadvantages?

I recently stumbled across this following post http://www.philforhumanity.com/eStatements.html. The issues raised by the author prompted me to react. The author suggests that eStatements are not a viable option for the end user. This is my response, which obviously suggests otherwise:

Firstly, I think it is important to note that the solution discussed by the author is that of ‘Pull’ eBilling. This means that the eStatement is made available through an online portal. While useful in many different ways, it is not necessarily the most convenient option. The Striata Push eBilling solution delivers the eStatement directly to the end user’s inbox. Our take on this is that this delivery mechanism is far more convenient for the end user. Please read this article on the Striata website: Push vs Pull.

Let’s return to the issue at hand. The advantages of eStatements are great - wouldn’t you say?
1. available instantly
2. accessible from any computer in the world
3. better for the environment
4. saves companies a lot of money
The advantages of Push eBilling differ slightly in that the eStatements are only available from any computer in the world if the end user has a webmail account. Typically this is Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, or something similar. Generally, people who require their information when they are away from their computer will have a method of connecting to their email. This could be through either their mobile device or laptop.

Let’s look at the suggested disadvantages individually:
1. not as private as regular mail
o I disagree with this statement - for both Push and Pull eBilling solutions. For Pull eBilling, one is required to login – usually on a secure site. Push eBilling methodology delivers the encrypted email into the recipient’s inbox. The email, even if undelivered, is rarely compromised prior to reaching the end user’s inbox. However, regular mail is handled manually and thus at risk of being tampered with. My intention is not to be derogatory of anyone in the postal service however, I am merely stating that the potential for misdemeanor is present.

2. email accounts are sometimes locked or lost
o People move. I am still getting mail from the people who lived in my house prior to us. We moved in three years ago. While this is a downside of electronic delivery, it is no different from any other form of communication delivery. Furthermore, with the advent of webmail services, many people have a work email address and another permanent email address. Also, with email, it is easy to tell if the message is not delivered. If that does happen, then an alternate contact method can be used to update the end user’s details.

3. eStatements will eventually expire and thus become inaccessible
o This is obviously a disadvantage of Pull eBilling. However, both Push and Pull solutions give the end user the opportunity to save the document on their local machine. It is a matter of having good filing practices – the same as paper based communications.

4. the lack of not having physical records
o All that is required is to save the documents that you require for future use onto your computer. Furthermore, make sure that you have provided access to the computer to a relevant person. Perhaps even state this in your will. This way (to respond to the author) the information that is relevant to your estate is still available and accessible.

I believe that the end user benefits in the form of convenience. The disadvantages mentioned above are avoided if email deliverability best practices are used by the sender, and improved technical administration by the end user.

Is eBilling Really the Green Alternative?

Turn off the paper! Stop getting paper invoices! You’re killing the trees!

Arguments we, as end users, have heard a thousand times in an attempt to encourage us to switch to eBills. The Biller hopes that by appealing to our conscious’s we will assist them in their plight to save the environment, and to save them money.

eBilling definitely saves them money, but is eBilling a green alternative? This is an unscientific view of this argument.

Assumptions

1. The following process is outsourced by the biller in both cases:
• Billing data is collated and electronically delivered to the vendor
• The vendor compiles the invoice
• The vendor prepares the communication to the end user
• The vendor sends the communication to the end user
2. A simple process by any ones terms; here are the two vendor specific processes in order to compare their carbon emissions:

Step by Step process Comparison

1. The vendor receives the data from the biller
   
• Both vendors require the use of electronic systems to receive and process the information.


2. The vendor compiles the message
• Both vendors have systems that extract the correct information in the correct manner and create the invoice / statement in the prescribed manner. The output is a document that will be identical in all mediums.


3. The vendor completes the message
• Paper Vendor: The message is printed. The bill stuffers are printed.
• Electronic Vendor: An email is created. The cover letter is compiled.


4. The message is prepared for sending
• Paper Vendor: The invoice and bill stuffers are placed in an envelope and prepared for postage.
• Electronic Vendor: The invoice is attached to the email.


5. The message is sent
• Paper Vendor: The completed envelope is delivered to the postal service.
• Electronic Vendor: The email is sent.

Carbon Emission Comparison

Steps 1 and 2 will provide similar carbon emissions.

Steps 3 through 5 is where the difference occurs. Step 3 for the Print Vendor is where the carbon footprint really grows: the paper manufacture, the ink manufacture, the machines that are required to print the invoices, and the bill stuffers. Step 4 introduces a machine (I assume) that places all the printed material into an envelope. And finally, the not insignificant carbon cost of the postal system. While the Electronic Vendor still incurs carbon cost in the process of creating and sending the email and its attachment, there is no separate infrastructure required for this over an above that used for Steps 1 and 2. This means that there is marginal carbon cost added in steps 3, 4 and 5 for the Electronic Vendor.

I am inclined therefore, in this unscientific, gut feel analysis, to recommend that we – as end users – believe the billers and sign-up for eBilling, the green alternative.

Outlook 2007 a challenge for e-marketers

Electronic messaging specialist Striata is advising digital marketers to increase planning and testing of e-mail marketing campaigns, following the release of Outlook 2007. According to Mia Papanicolaou, head of e-marketing at Striata, the enhancements included in the new Outlook version do have an impact on e-mail marketing campaigns.

Papanicolaou stresses that marketers should be aware of the new requirements for successfully displaying their communications in Outlook 2007. She indicates as an example, that Outlook 2007 does not display forms such as surveys in the same way as previous versions, and that animated gifs (used for creative effect) will appear as static images.

"What appears in a customer's Outlook 2007 inbox could be different to what the marketer intended if not tested correctly, and therefore the anticipated response or participation levels may be skewed. The end result is that the e-mail campaign does not reach its targeted conversion levels."

Striata recommends conducting extensive testing of e-mails through Outlook 2007, using various coding practices in order to gain a fuller perspective of the impact the new software version has on e-mail presentation.

"Because digital marketing is such a dynamic environment, this kind of testing will be an ongoing exercise for marketers and their service providers," says Papanicolaou. "As an e-marketing agency, it is our responsibility to monitor the effects of new software versions and to manage the possible adverse impacts on the effectiveness of the campaign."

A digital marketing veteran, Papanicolaou adds that there are many tricks to control the execution of an e-mail campaign, even when the 'goalposts keep moving' at the technology level. "For example, to conduct a survey using e-mail, place a link above the form that directs Outlook 2007 users from the e-mail to an online version. You can also track this link in order to start quantifying the number of customers on your database that cannot see forms in their e-mail client."

Papanicolaou warns that as security controls get tighter, graphical images should not be used to convey the message, but rather to support the message. "Not only will new software versions introduce new challenges for e-mail marketers, but system administrators are also increasing their control over what is allowed into their employees' inbox. Embedded images are often the first to be blocked, therefore customers receiving e-mails must be able to read the message without having to see the images."



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About Striata

Striata is the global leader in Secure eDocument Delivery.

Striata's Secure eDocument Delivery and Email Bill Presentment & Payment (EBPP) are solution sets - software applications and adoption methodologies - that deliver rapid reduction in operational costs, quicker payments and enhanced customer service by revolutionising the way bills, statements, contracts, policies, annual reports, payslips and other high volume system-generated documents are delivered and paid.

Unlike today's online presentment solutions, which insist on customers visiting and registering at a website, Striata’s complimentary solution (targeting customers still receiving paper) delivers feature-rich, registration-free, navigable and interactive secure email documents directly to their inbox and enables ‘one-click’ electronic payment without them having to visit a single web-page.

This innovative and strategic change from ‘pull’ to ‘push’ dramatically increases customer adoption of electronic communication, allowing Striata’s clients to achieve rapid ROI from their self-service and e-communication investments.

Visit Striata's Global Site.