What happens when companies don't invest in Direct Customer Communications?

I would love to be a fly on the wall when marketing departments are thrashing out plans for their marketing campaigns at the beginning of the new financial year.

I am willing to take a bet that in general, direct digital communications - considered the ginger-headed step children of marketing disciplines - receive mere scraps of the budget pie, whilst the glamorous fat cat traditional and significantly more expensive media channels take the lion's share. This translates into a minimal requirement for a comprehensive digital communication strategy, as there is relatively little money left to allocate to it. And this is where it all goes wrong.

I do admit however that this strategy is slowly changing, as social media is gradually being included into marketing strategies, but frankly it is not happening fast enough.

To illustrate my point…

I believe most companies' marketing strategies look something like this:

A couple of big campaigns are planned for the year. The objective: drive as much brand recognition as possible using a number of marketing channels; TV, Radio, Print, Trade Shows, PR, Internet Ad spend and perhaps throwing in an Email Campaign. No direct communication plan. No social media strategy.

The problem…

If one had to measure the effectiveness of these campaigns over time, it will be noted that the brand recognition curve peaks midway through the campaign and then decreases rapidly into that "quiet" period in between campaigns, until a new campaign kicks in again. Assuming that brand recognition translates into sales, this does not deliver a constant flow of sales. A fairly simple analogy, but I think you get the point.

The solution…

Marketing strategies should look like this:

This translates into the following:

• Spread the budget across slightly smaller campaigns and constant direct communication
• Effectively reduce specific campaign budget spend, whilst shifting resources to a direct customer lifecycle communication programme that is targeted, relevant and cost effective throughout the entire year and not just once off 'spray and pray' blasts
• Invest in a social media programme to monitor conversations in the social space, and drive a loyal brand following

The cost of delivering direct digital communications programmes is far less and arguably achieves a better ROI.

To sum it up - By reducing specific campaign budgets and allocating additional funds in a constant direct communications programme throughout the year, while supporting it with a social media strategy, you mitigate the "quiet" periods and drive the brand recognition curve higher.

Always communicating. Always top of mind.

Assuming again that brand recognition translates into sales, to ensure consistency, use direct communications and social media constantly throughout the year, in conjunction with smaller more targeted campaigns. This is a far better marketing strategy.

For more tips on how to harness the power of digital communications, chat to an eMarketing Specialist.

Part III: Why & how email delivery is succeeding, where eBill Consolidators are failing:

My first two blog posts on this subject dealt with why consolidators here in the US will never work. In today's post, I cover the comparison between eBill / eStatement consolidators and true electronic delivery solutions:

There are five primary areas where email delivery of bills and statements succeeds, where consolidators have and will continue to fail.

1. Biller and consumer critical mass:

Why consolidators fail: To benefit consumers; consolidators should have the majority of a customer's bills in a central location. Due to the size of the US biller market this is simply impossible.To date, even mature consolidators that have been building a base for several years, have failed to exceed 20% of the average household's bills. The new entrants to this segment are yet to realize the futility of this endeavor.

On the flip side however, biller's won't subscribe to a service without a significant percentage of their consumers already enrolled. A true chicken and egg scenario.

Why email delivery succeeds: As the bill is delivered directly into the customer's inbox, it makes no difference whether it is one email bill or several a month. Just like in the physical mail scenario, getting one bill or many is just as convenient for both biller and recipient. Most importantly, it gives each and every biller the ability to deliver bills to their customers, without the need for a location to gather a critical mass of consumers.

2. Registration / enrollment:

Why consolidators fail: A recent survey conducted by InfoTrends showed that of the 1,042 consumers surveyed, 61% said that remembering multiple unique usernames & passwords remains a significant barrier to paperless adoption. Convincing the majority of consumers to register on biller's websites has proven to be an insurmountable marketing feat. For the consolidator however, it's even worse, as the customer has to have many pieces of information at hand for each biller at that location. Add to this the fact that consumers do not want another mailbox nor to have to choose and remember yet another username and password.

Why email delivery succeeds: Quite simple - there is no registration process. The bill arrives in the customer's existing email inbox and is opened using a secure 'shared secret' (not a password, rather personal details known to the biller and the recipient). There is no need to choose or remember anything. There are also no marketing dollars required to drive the customer to sign up for anything.

3. Paper suppression:

Why consolidators fail: For a consolidator website to be considered successful at paper suppression by any biller, they will need to achieve suppression rates in excess of 10% per year, per biller. Currently statistics show that less than 5% of consumers enroll at consolidator websites and 50% of those still don't go paperless - the math cannot hope to add up.

Why email delivery succeeds: By delivering the bill or statement as a securely encrypted email attachment, the recipient can opt to go paperless with just one click - no form to complete, no website to visit, no username & password to complete, in fact, nothing to do at all except simply receive an email.

4. Bill stuffers / electronic marketing:

Why consolidators fail: Due to the website nature of viewing bills at a consolidator, within a multi-biller environment and along with the fact that the biller does not have any ownership of the viewing real estate, marketing to consumers at consolidator websites is a considerable challenge, if offered at all. There is certainly no advanced personalization possible.

Why email delivery succeeds: It is automated and extremely cost effective to insert and overlay marketing messages into the body of an email, the white space of the bill and entire pages inserted into the secure attachment. Furthermore, this can be personalized down to the individual recipient, resulting in a bill marketing tool that is significantly more powerful than the paper bill, the biller's own website and definitely any consolidator.

5. Mobile:

Why consolidators fail: Navigating a mobile website or downloading an app is just inconvenient, a poor user experience and requires pre-registration. In addition, paying through a mobile website is an even worse experience than just viewing it. (To date no consolidators have offered a mobile option, but we believe that in 2011 there will be a first attempt.)

Why email delivery succeeds: An email attachment can be opened on any email capable device, without the need for the recipient to do anything. In addition, the same email will be waiting on the recipient's computer for viewing later. Payment can be initiated with just a single click.

And finally it is relevant to point out that where new consolidator entrants are in start-up / concept stage, secure electronic document delivery via email has been successful in 14 countries (including the USA) for 12 years, for more than 250 large Billers and Financial Institutions, including 3 of the top 10 banks).

When considering your paper suppression strategy, do you go with a new idea that has never worked before, but is at best a 'nice' idea, or do you chose a direction with a decade of referencable, proven success stories?

Garin Toren
striata.com

Don't forget the basics when testing email campaigns

Email marketing is constantly evolving and a focus for many companies is split testing to ensure relevance and understanding of customer behaviour. However, it's easy to forget the basics and that's when mistakes creep in.

I have received numerous marketing and notification emails in the past few weeks which have the basics wrong: referring to me by my surname rather than first name (no title), reply not working and an unsubscribe process that requires multiple clicks to remove me from the list.

There is basic testing that needs to be carried out on every email campaign before distribution. If you have automated campaigns going out, test them every 6 months, even if they were correct when you launched them. Things change and anything can affect your campaign.

So what are the basics?

An email is the sum of its parts. You need to test every one of those parts. Don't assume that any part of the email works if you haven't tested it.

Here are a few quick tips:

General

• Check your email in the major browsers. Different browsers will render the email differently, so don't assume that because you checked the email in Hotmail it will look the same for everyone. Check that same Hotmail email in Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari, etc. as each of these may render the email differently.
• Check your email in the major email clients. HTML renders differently in different email clients. Where it looks perfect in Outlook for example, the text that should be black is purple in Gmail, so check your email in every email client possible.
• Remember that more and more people read these emails on the go, so test how the email looks on mobile devices and how easy it is to read, click and navigate through it.
• When last did you test the reply? Finger trouble when setting up the campaign could mean that your reply address isn't working. This is damaging to your brand and will impact on deliverability.
• The most basic, but far too often forgotten test, is to check your grammar and spelling.

Data

• Don't lose your customer at the salutation. Check that your personalisation and customisation match what is in your database. Always check random customer email samples against the original data.
• Is your unsubscribe working? All too often this link goes unchecked and if it's not working, not only are you contravening a few laws across various countries, you're damaging your brand.

Images

• Make sure your image sizes are specified. If they aren't, older versions of Outlook will stretch the images - forcing recipients to scroll left and right as well as up and down unless they download them. Newer versions of Outlook make the images 1 pixel high and wide before download.
• Have you included alternative text behind the images? A recipient should understand the email and see all the call to action buttons without having to download the images.

Landing pages

• Does your customisation and personalisation pull through to the online version? If you're making the effort to be relevant and customise communications, then ensure that the online version mimics the email.
• Make sure that the online version link does not appear on the online version.
• If you're logged into Skype, telephone numbers will be converted to a specific style with a flag, which could break the template so check your email and the online version whilst being logged into Skype.
• Are your landing pages named correctly? They should have the name of the campaign or the subject line.

Testing email campaigns is vital to ensure their success and to preserve the reputation of your brand, so ensure you are testing thoroughly before distribution. If you still aren't sure whether or not you are covering all the basics, be sure to chat to an eMarketing specialist…

Mia Papanicolaou
striata.com