Page Nine

Noise

There's a lot of noise out there, in blogs, forums, tweets et al. And clever companies are trying to find out who's saying what about them, their brand, current campaign, or whatever, so they can react and/or target their own communications effectively and in time. Just checking your own web metrics and click-through rates isn't enough, it's a small part of the whole picture.

There are companies and services now proliferating to help you cut through. Whether you call it CRM 2.0, or profiling, it's becoming very important. With email now near saturation point - the new DM, and more often deleted than read - isn't it time to figure out better ways of communicating? The tools and technologies are there, after all - as is the data. So, adding profiling makes sense.

But how about doing this yourself - starting at the best place - with your own clients? Extend your knowledge of their interests, preferences, focus and opinions. And create a dialogue. And put your brand in front of them 24/7, strengthening your position as trusted advisor and partner. And be the primary source of relevant news, opinion and commentary.

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.page9.co.uk

Business Apps

Have you seen how many Apps there are now 'for the latest business news and information'? There's Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, the WSJ, CNN Money, the FT, The Street and BusinessWeek to name but a few. Big brands publishing their existing content to a new platform. And they're all very good.

The question is, not 'will people use them?' because they will - the Smart Phone is the first point of information for most of us, in business or not; but 'do they really work for those users?'. I wonder just how reliant on any App will they become, and guess that they'll use several, and an RSS reader, and email, and iTunes, to get what they need to know. Like now on the desktop, visiting different bookmarked sites, subscribing to podcasts, and RSS feeds, and reading mail and clicking attachments and filling out forms.

There is a better way...

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.page9.co.uk

Six considerations when switching from DM to email

1. Deliverability

The key to a successful campaign, whether it's a newsletter, invitation, alert or update. First there's the art of getting past the ISP, the spam filters, the myriad of customisable security settings and the company's Mail Server Rules, so that the email you've sent even reaches the Inbox. A 90-99% delivery rate (making sure this is to the Inbox, not the Mail Server) is what you should expect from a company using whitelisted servers, and that knows how to overcome this multitude of hurdles. Second, there's the real test - the click-through rate. It's dependent upon the message type, of course, but if you're not getting 20%+ something's wrong. And most of the time this is about design. 

2. Design

Ensure your HTML is optimised and works across different software and platforms - test it rigorously, ensure too that a plain text version is sent alongside the HTML. Treat each like you would a campaign, with a single, clear message, with calls to action above the fold, preferably within the limited space of the preview pane. Make it engaging, and appealing, make sure the subject line is relevant and compelling. Keep it short - put all the content you were tempted at first to include on to a microsite page. Here's your opportunity to expand on your theme and explain, and all the links from it point to your web site.

3. Cost

The relative cost alone is compelling, with a typical invitation to an event, or an e-newsletter costing ten times as much to personalise, print and mail than an email campaign.

4. Time

The benefits of formal or informal commentary on events happening right now, are many. Your client knows you're on the ball, and it helps build the brand and reputation of your firm, and continues the relationship between sender and client. This is especially so if you personalise the message, not only in the salutation, but within the body of the email - reordering or including content according to their profile.

5. The Environment

For DM, most charities consider a 5% success rate a great result, that means 95% is binned, maybe recycled (but probably shredded). Whether you're achieving less or more success than this, your green credentials receive a significant boost when you stop posting and start emailing.

6. Analytics and data

Measurement is the cornerstone of delivering a campaign or message digitally - robust Analytics and Reporting allow you to gain deep insight into any campaign. From a single web interface, you can see click-through rates, who clicked what, and when, and you can even track the subsequent online journey, who's unsubscribed and which addresses bounced. And being an online campaign, you'll be collecting any recipient response immediately in a simple form, with an opportunity to collect more data too. You get a greater response versus someone having to fill out a paper form and post/fax it back.

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.broadcast-email.co.uk

Effective email design

You want to achieve the highest number of email views, and above all, clickthrough rate.

Before we even get to the email content, the Subject line needs careful thought (no more than 40 characters, make it relevant and engaging). The key to the success of any campaign HTML email design is to grab your recipients' attention. It seems obvious, but ensure the most important information is above the fold, preferably in the form of a compelling single message, and on-brand (but not necessarily to corporate template - in the same way as you wouldn't create all print ads in the same layout).

Single message emails have higher clickthrough rates, text links score higher than graphic links, and we'd recommend a maximum of three links to find out more or contact for more information.

There's a significant difference between what looks great and what works - and you need designers and coders experienced in the latter. Consider the view your user is going to get in their preview pane (let alone above the fold if they open the email to view it)... and think about creating a new template for each campaign. Make sure too that your designer is thinking about how it's going to look in Gmail, Yahoo, Lotus, on a BlackBerry and in Outlook 2007 which doesn't like CSS a lot, and has that 'Don't Download images' option checked more often than not. Alt tags are therefore really important, as is putting your message in text. Getting the message right is paramount.

Designing for Newsletters is the same but different, you're going to want to follow all the rules above except you'll probably want three or four main stories to feature.

We find that creating micro sites to support campaigns and regular communications works really well. Here you can include all the detail you wanted to put into the email itself, whilst retaining the campaign style, reinforcing the message, and then linking back to your web site for further information.

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.broadcast-email.co.uk

Getting through

The Journey to your Inbox

The barriers in the way of you receiving an email are considerable. Consider an email's typical journey after you press 'Send': even the first step after it has left your own mail server - negotiating the cloud - is problematic - ISP tools like StreamShield can track, report on and dynamically block traffic. Then it reaches your recipient's firewall, filters and mail server, each with its own hardware configuration and software version (not forgetting service packs, patches and updates). Then there are all those checkboxes, with, more often than not, high security and very high anti-spam settings (filters are increasingly defensive and sophisticated by default). Spam blockers look at all sorts of variables, like the area of the email used up by images v text, disallowed keywords, your Subject title, and the originating mail server.

That's before it reaches your email client on your desktop. Taking Outlook as the default example, it's really no different from the above. The myriad of choices in the form of checkbox customisation and in the name of security make it challenging, to say the least, to predict why mail will or won't reach the Inbox. As well as the hurdles to overcome listed above, there's Outlook's own proprietary set of rules, updated whenever the software is. Legitimate emails can easily end up in the Junk Folder.

You can ask the recipient to make you a trusted sender, by including your 'From' address in their contacts list. You can also make sure you use a reputable broadcast email service provider implementing best practice (like us), who knows how to format both the HTML and the plain text parts, can advise on deliverability in terms of design and the words you use, and can achieve 99%+ success rates.

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.broadcast-email.co.uk

Broadcast emails - viewing images in Outlook

Here's one of the most common questions we get... "How do I make it so I don't have to right-click to view images in Outlook [2003 or 2007]?"

Outlook ships with an option checked for your security (and presumably "convenience" - I haven't met anyone yet that would rather this was unchecked on install), so all you have to do is turn it off. Here's how:

In Outlook 2003, under Tools > Options > Security, in the 'Download Pictures' Panel is a button labelled “Change Automatic Download Settings...“. Click this and you will see checkboxes allowing/disallowing automatic viewing of images.

In Outlook 2007, under Tools > Trust Center > 'Automatic Downloads'. Click this and you will see checkboxes allowing/disallowing automatic viewing of images.

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.broadcast-email.co.uk

Everyone Joins In

You're a leading provider of a product or service in your field. You're regarded as such, and you want it to stay that way. It's an important part of your brand. You've got User Groups whom you consult every so often and you're getting useful feedback. You're utilising the web too - with demos and training and support online. 

How do you stay ahead in times of economic uncertainty and with increased efforts by your competitors threatening your position?

Simple. Invite everyone to contribute. The benefits stretch far beyond 'just' more regular feedback from more users. Customers, partners, targets and employees all have something useful to tell you. 

By creating communities - in the shape of a forum/discussion site - you'll reinforce your ‘thought leadership’, gain advance market research, foster innovation amongst the community which can feed straight into your roadmap, speed time to market, increase your audience's exposure to other products and improve customer service and support by (and this is a really good bit) getting your users to generate a really useful knowledge base. Its also a great way to elevate your brand visibility and increase brand loyalty. 

So, facilitate interaction through discussion and add a 'Social Network'. Then consider hosting events (live and using the likes of Webex). And don't forget the other Web 2.0 tools, especially updating by blogging and RSS. Then continue the process of getting closer to your users by personalising your messaging through broadcast emails tailored to their profiles. 

What about within your organisation? The above affects Development, Sales, Marketing, Operations, IT, Training and Support. All of whom can gain immediate reaction to ideas and new developments, and can monitor and measure responses, react and respond quickly and directly, and report on success. And every employee should be encouraged to join in too. 

However you choose to formulate your online communities, you'll gain a competitive advantage, instead of missing the opportunity at a cost to the business you can only guess at.

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.page9.co.uk

Employee Communities

Over the past eight years, we've created Knowledge Databases for clients, we've designed and implemented HR intranets. Each was a bespoke piece, or a Sharepoint design project. Each took some time to get right and deploy. Now it's much quicker than that, and there are added benefits.

So, how about using Social Networking tools to bring your staff closer together? Create a community inside your company, across your locations, and for staff off-site. Watch them start project groups, interest groups and communicate with each other more. You may be concerned about access to, and the use of, sites like Facebook. You can take all the positives, and make them available only to your employees.

How about a Knowledge DB where each and every user keeps their skills up-to-date? Someone in your organisation may have just the right skill-set to fit the client's requirement, or sector experience to help win the pitch - and now you know who they are.

It's now easy to deploy SN tools. You choose which options to include. You can design it to fit with your internal messaging. IT can install it as part of your intranet if you want, or you can securely host it externally as a service, with administrative privileges, moderation and permissions. Whichever option, it's fast to implement, and it's going to benefit the business.

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.page9.co.uk

The mobile web

It's right around the corner.

We can't wait for the opportunites offered by location-specific push marketing. As long as you can choose to opt out of course. Take the 3G iPhone with GPS - just how far away from what it already offers is live Google satellite mapping? Or ads tempting us from the retailers as we pass them walking down the High Street? Some might see this as a nightmare, or an intrusion. After all who wants some database, or someone, knowing your whereabouts or recording your habitual day-to-day movements? But, the possibilities are immense, and the opportunities for a killer app to make it broadly accepted are right there right now, only waiting for the rapidly growing user-base of smart phones to reach critical mass.

We think there's also a fantastic opportunity for business too. While Safari and other browsers on phones are great, they're still mostly showing web sites designed to be viewed and navigated on a monitor. Even if the content has been repurposed and reduced to suit the smaller screen - the least you should do - it's still not utilising the user interface as well as it could.

So, make your web site, or rather, make your message, into an app. That way you're structuring the content, protecting your brand image, and making it as easy as possible for your user. That has to be good. We can see this working for the simplest brochure sites, as well as those driven by databases. But, the best thing is it will work for you because it works for your audience.

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.page9.co.uk

"We are better than me"...

We agree. Businesses in the UK are now realising that the tools Generation Y are so used to using; facebook, myspace, YouTube, flickr, all kinds of messaging/messangering, forums, blogs, feeds, casts, tagging etc can be utilised as B2B as well as B2C tools and can bring significant benefits within the organisation itself too.

Now that real, useful Web Services are maturing - TypePad being an excellent example - you're free to think about how all the tools used so broadly as part of Gen Y's every-minute communication can become a valuable part of your Marketing Communications mix. And because they're configurable and properly customisable, you're able to protect your brand too.

Take a look at tripadvisor.co.uk, or what Amazon have been doing for so long now - users rating services and products and so providing really useful, informative, (mostly) genuine feedback - and benefitting commercially. That's Web 2.0 in the Enterprise (B2C) working really well. See how the media and sports teams utilise Social Networking tools in the US - creating fan sites for example - and think about the benefits of Customer Communities, User Groups, and the instant feedback on your product or service, and how that might help you stay in front of the competition. But most importantly think about the cost of not doing it when your competition is.

And how about a Social Networking, FaceBook like, app deployed within an organisation with multiple offices? The benefits derived from every employee creating their own profile, thus generating a really comprehensive knowledge, skills and experience database, constantly updated, could be pretty useful for Pre-Sales and proposal teams and for implementing projects requiring specialist knowledge. You may otherwise have only found out by chance, too late, about the expertise available.

We're involved in these types of project right now - for businesses in a broad range of sectors including Technology, Not-for-profit, Learning/Research and Professional Services. We have some great ideas as to how different parts of the SN toolset can work in the Enterprise, and we're going to use this blog to give you an overview of what we think is possible.

Posted by:
Peter Greatorex, Managing Director, Page Nine Ltd. www.page9.co.uk