Author: Sally Hooton

If 2013 was the ‘year of mobile’, are companies now ready to enter the age of the customer? Steve Denner (pictured) explores how email marketing can lead the way.

Last year was all about mobile, as email marketers really turned their attention to exploiting M-commerce. Around a fifth more companies took a more strategic approach to incorporating mobile optimisation into their email activities, reveals The Adestra/Econsultancy Email Marketing Industry Census 2014 (based on a survey of some 1,100 marketers).

The Census indicates that mobile email has become the new reality, and marketers are integrating it into their workflow. As new technologies become mainstream, the hype dies down, and they are perceived as just another standard channel in the mix. The same happened with social media.

The Year of the Customer

Where 2013 was the ‘year of mobile,’ could this year be dubbed ‘year of the customer?’ If Forrester is correct in predicting that we are entering the ‘age of the customer,’ 2014 may well be the year marketers start to truly focus on the end-user. And what better place to begin developing a culture of customer obsession than email marketing? Email is a mature channel delivering proven results. To successfully use it you need to combine the available technology and human insight, and also take advantage of the email provider’s advice and support. Not convinced? Read on for key insights from companies that are getting it right.

In terms of Return on Investment, research shows that there is no better digital communications channel than email: 68% of companies rated it good or excellent. This marks a 3% increase since last year, surpassing search engine optimisation for the first time since 2009. Furthermore, email is also the best channel on which to focus your budget, as companies attributed 23% of their total sales to this channel. This is despite the fact they only spent 16% of their marketing budget on email.

And there are still significant areas for improvement in this mature channel. Such areas are campaign performance and automation, with over half of email marketers rating their own performance as average or poor. Implementing marketing automation is also considered a struggle as half deemed it unsuccessful.

Achieving results with automation

Companies understand the opportunities of automation, with 83% of companies declaring ‘more relevant communication’ as one of its main benefits. More than 70% of organisations are also aware that it can help ‘increase customer engagement’ and facilitate ‘more timely communication’ with customers. Nearly all companies have access to marketing automation capabilities provided by their email providers. So what’s the problem?

Despite the widespread availability of automation technology, most companies appear to be taking a timid approach towards it. Around half use ‘subscription or sign-up to website’ and ‘automated response to website visit/sign-up’ triggers, yet no more than 27% of companies report using other triggers or behaviours. This may well be affecting the success of automation programmes, as only 4% of companies have described their automated campaigns as very successful.

Finding the time to make it happen

Companies must make sure they are resourcing themselves effectively for email marketing. Planning, optimisation and reporting are all critical to ensure marketers understand buyer behaviour and improve response. Yet it appears marketers are spending too much time on the creative elements of their campaigns. Nearly two-thirds of companies are spending 2-8+ hours on design and content for a typical campaign. In comparison, around half as many are spending at least two hours on strategy and planning, and data quality. Worryingly, nearly one third admit to spending no time at all on optimisation.

Email’s role in the future

Marketers appear optimistic that email marketing will survive the supposed threats to its existence. Not only that, but they believe it will thrive in a fully integrated, personalised, yet not completely automated ecosystem. What’s more, two-thirds believe email will continue to be one of the highest channels for delivering ROI.

The vast majority of companies agree that email will be fully integrated with other marketing channels, and that all email communication will be completely personalised by 2019. However, marketers appear undecided as to what this integration will look like.

In summary

Accepting that we are entering the ‘age of the customer’, email marketing can point the way. Yet there is still a long road to travel to optimise its efficiency, interpret and use all the valuable data available. Equally, the ‘age of the customer’ is difficult to define. Which means companies must do a lot of work to implement strategies for exploiting their new customer obsession.

Steve Denner is a director at Adestra. Read the full results by downloading the census here. 

International marketer James Thornton died at the weekend. A memorial service is to be held today in Taguig City, Philippines.

James was held in high esteem by global marketers and will be missed.

He wrote for DMI magazine many times and, more latterly, the Global Marketing Alliance. As a mark of respect, and to recall his words of wisdom, here is the link to a recent post, when he shared his knowledge of successfully going global – here.

On a personal note, I always enjoyed his ‘old school’ good manners and twinkling smile. Alongside this gracious charm, he was keenly aware of how to pull off a cracking deal and he put this flair for business to good use over many years, on an international scale.

Although apparently an archetypal Englishman, he truly preferred sunnier climes – he once told me that the first time he got on a plane to the Far East, he felt he was going home.

Home, you are. RIP James.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Luke Mitchell (pictured), of youth insights consulting business Voxburner – which is running Youth Marketing Strategy in New York on Thursday June 12 – looks at how the British Red Cross charity harnessed YouTube for greater good and shares their tips on using video to engage the youth market.

Since 2010, the British Red Cross has been running an ongoing behaviour change campaign aimed at teaching young people first aid skills. Things are going pretty well.

The campaign’s objective is to increase the number of young people who are confident, willing and able to help in a first aid emergency. It targets young people aged between 13 and 24 because, says campaigns manager Paul Donnelly: “We we have an ambition to build a generation of life-savers.”

The work was born out of the Red Cross’s corporate strategy which states they will increase the resilience of the UK population and make first aid easy to learn and easy to use.

What did the campaign look like?

Aware it might struggle to engage young people directly, the Red Cross decided to find influential YouTube vloggers who would be willing to talk about first aid to their audience. It looked for vloggers who had large natural fan bases within its target youth demographic, guaranteeing that they would reach their audience and minimise wastage.

“The vloggers are the messengers who carry the first aid learning to their audience and deliver it in their individual style,” says Donnelly, “which is often quirky with a bit of a twist. It’s entertainment but with an educational message. We did put advertising money behind some of the videos where we wanted to increase target particular interests or groups, but advertising costs were kept at a minimum.”

The British Red Cross researched issues that are relevant to young people and used them as the hook to talk about first aid. For example, when talking about putting someone in the recovery position, they talk about being unconscious as a result of alcohol. “Because we know that people aren’t going to want to watch a first aid film, we aim to make the subject matter – and the style – more relevant and engaging to the audience.” Vloggers went away and created their own videos according to a brief, for example this ‘Fireworks Fail’ bonfire night safety tips video.

What did the campaign achieve?

Donnelly used videos and issues to generate PR hooks in mainstream media. A very successful example was activity conducted on the subject of swallowing a harmful substance. “We used self-harm as the vehicle to talk about intentional self-poisoning and the subsequent first aid. We took National Health Service data to create a PR hook that we could use beyond the sphere of YouTube and this generated widespread coverage in mainstream media, including coverage on the UK’s Radio 1, Sky News, ITN, Daybreak morning TV show and BBC news.”

Collectively, the films have been viewed more than 7.5 million times, to date. They’ve achieved strong levels of engagement, between 2.4% and 6.4%. What’s more, engagement has allowed British Red Cross to respond to people’s questions or to correct misinformation in real time.

“This strategy has proven hugely successful,” says Donnelly. “First aid is an incredibly difficult subject to get the general public interested and engaged in, let alone young people. It has a reputation for being old-fashioned and is often associated with health and safety. We wanted to drag it into the 21st century and give it a makeover.”

But it’s not just about the big numbers. Demonstrating impact and changing behaviour is British Red Cross’s main priority. “Our campaigning work aims to achieve a wider benefit to society. And we’ve taken research and evaluation incredibly seriously. This has included evaluating whether the films have shifted key metrics including confidence and willingness to respond in a first aid emergency as well as whether people have taken up the first aid learning.

“All the films have significantly increased these measures, but as an example the film featuring how to treat a bleed from a knife wound increased confidence from 20% to 80% when rated on a scale of 1-10.”

The campaign won a major award in the UK, the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s third sector campaign of the year award, and was also chosen out of all of the winners on the night to win the chairman’s award: a recognition that marketing isn’t just about making a profit there is a wider benefit to society.

What can brands learn?

• Recognise your perception among young people and don’t be too proud to allow influencers to carry your message
• Give YouTubers the creative freedom to work out what their audience will respond to and don’t expect them to compromise their principles or style
• Leverage the media’s interest in YouTube celebrities to gain mainstream PR wins for your campaign.

Voxburner is running Youth Marketing Strategy in New York on June 12, bringing together the top thought-leaders, brands and agencies driving today’s fast-moving world of youth marketing and communications. Speakers include Spotify, MTV, Facebook / Instagram, TUI Travel, Tumblr, Mixcloud, Group Y, Econsultancy and more. For 10% off the registration fee, use discount code GMA10 when registering your place.

Luke Mitchell is head of Insight at Voxburner.