Social Event Conversion Report

]]> http://www.realmagnet.com/2012/05/social-event-conversion-reporting/feed/ 0 http://www.realmagnet.com/2012/02/san-jose-state-university/ http://www.realmagnet.com/2012/02/san-jose-state-university/#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:27:29 +0000 malmegdad@realmagnet.com http://test.realmagnet.com/wordpress/?p=1208 San Jose State University

Objective: San Jose State University needed to increase deliverability for its Alumni Membership initiatives, and also sought a platform that would provide centralized support for the school’s many departments.

Results: SJSU saw deliverability rise to 98%, and the Real Magnet platform is now used to drive communications from over 30 departments across the university. In the process, the school made some eye-opening discoveries about its mobile audience and developed processes to spot new trends as they emerge.

Deliverability challenges diffused

In the summer of 2008, San Jose State University re-assessed its growing email needs and decided to conduct a competitive review in search of a new email partner.  Brian Bates is SJSU’s Associate Director of Alumni Relations by title, and the university’s chief email officer by function. He identified some deliverability issues that were the catalyst for the review. “We were having a terrible problem with Yahoo! chronically soft-bouncing us,” he said. Because the university relies heavily on email to support its dues-based Alumni Association membership initiatives, he saw that those soft-bounces were costing the school hard dollars. Worse – the undelivered email was severing ties with alumni.

SJSU selected Real Magnet from the competitive review because he was sold on the company’s approach to deliverability, the learning possibilities through its reporting, and the intuitive interface. “Plus, they account managers were great. They seemed to really want the business and were very responsive. With the other companies we were considering, I got the feeling that they could take us or leave us.” The decision paid off for SJSU. Within a short time, Brian was seeing a remarkable lift in deliverability. “They got our Yahoo! issue ironed out. Now we’re seeing deliverability rates of 98% for most of our groups.”

Centralized email management; Distributed learning

Brian is SJSU’s email power user, but the Real Magnet platform is used to support “between 30 and 40 different departments.” The interface makes it easy for new users to start on the application quickly, and the richness of features encourage different departments to dive in and study response rates and other analytics. “It’s remarkably reliable, consistent and easy to use,” said Brian. “I’ve shown colleagues how to use it in no time. And I think the reporting is outstanding. It’s really helped us learn who is using the program and when are subscribers opening messages.”

SJSU also makes a point of sharing internal learning across departments. Brian explains, “For example, yesterday we did an email for our Annual Fund, and we shared the results with them afterwards. We showed them where we tested different subject lines and how it affected open rates across different groups. We were able to compare the difference in gift giving from the messages as a result of the improved open rates.”

Today, the Inbox. Tomorrow, the phone.

Like most email power users, Brian has learned a few shortcuts to reading the analytics. He reviews reports not so much to find success stories and reward himself with “attaboys,” but rather to spot problems and trends as soon as they start to emerge. Recently he was astonished to realize just how much of his audience was reading messages on a mobile device. “The mobile data is eye-opening. I saw in one of the tracking reports on a message that 34% of opens were from a mobile device. 4 months earlier we were not aware of our mobile audience at all. “

Brian didn’t sit idle with this revelation. He quickly began tailoring messages for the mobile audience, by modifying the design and the content. “We now create a mobile-specific version of our messages, with shorter copy and the links showing up earlier in the message. We know we have to be succinct with our copy because people aren’t going to scroll as far on a mobile device. So we rely more on online information instead of putting it all into the newsletters.” To make sure the messages display as intended, Brian makes sure to send test emails to an account he can read from his own iPhone as well.

What’s next?

Now that SJSU has tackled deliverability and is getting ahead of the curve on mobile, Brian is already thinking of the other high-impact improvements he can make. “We would like to drive more click-throughs and get our online content in front of more of our audience. Click-through rate is a constantly moving target. The Google Analytics integration becomes important.”

Objective: Interstate Hotels and Resorts needed strict brand oversight across 170 different users, coupled with the flexibility of letting users within each group create messages autonomously.

Results: With Real Magnet, IHR is able to centralize all template construction and branding, and approve messages in the sending queue before they go out. Internal training webinars conducted by Real Magnet keep users at all 170 groups up-to-date, both on the Real Magnet platform and on the brand guidelines set by IHR.

Brand integrity to the 37^th degree

Interstate Hotels and Resorts manages 329 hotels in nine different countries, including properties in 39 states and the District of Columbia. Managing a brand’s identity across so many regions is difficult enough. But IHR’s properties are comprised of 37 different brands, including Westin, Hilton, Crowne Plaza, Best Western, Sheraton, Marriott, Doubletree, Wyndham and many others. As a steward of so many other organizations’ brand identities and trademarks, vigilant adherence to brand guidelines and style manuals is as necessary as it is complex.

IHR has a corporate marketing group, but the communications for its properties are managed by the staff at the properties themselves – 170 different communications teams, to be precise. So not only does IHR’s corporate communications need to accurately represent the brands of 329 different properties across 39 brands; it also has to ensure that all of its 170 communications teams do the same.  Jen Chauvin is IHR’s Director of Brand Marketing. “We consider the brands we represent to be as important as our own,” she said. “We needed a solution that created a seamless brand experience for consumers, but still gave our properties the freedom they needed to communicate with their customers.”

An enterprise solution

Jen found the solution she needed in Real Magnet’s Enterprise features. IHR is set up as a master account, where Jen and her team manage the billing, administration and – importantly – brand identity and templates across all the properties. Each of the 170 properties is set up as a sub-account within the master account, and can only mail to their own lists and use branded templates pre-approved by Jen’s team and the brands themselves. The messages created by the properties automatically enter a sending queue, giving Jen and her team a chance to approve them for design, content, pricing and other elements of brand consistency before releasing. “The sending queue allows us to make sure that everyone is on the same page as the brand, but it’s also a very important safeguard to the brands themselves. It makes them more willing to trust that we’ll represent them accurately, and to work with us.”

Turning templates into assets for the brands and the properties

Much of the identify of the 37 brands represented by IHR is carried within the email templates. Some were created by Real Magnet’s designers, some by the design staff or the agencies of the brands themselves, but all have been approved by the brands. The properties simply have to choose one of their brand’s templates and create their message. To further customize a template, the properties can swap in images of their own hotels from the image library.

Each property has many different templates to choose from. In addition to standard templates for each brand, the library contains seasonal templates, special event templates such as weddings or corporate events, and promotional templates. “We wanted to give the properties as many choices as we could,” Jen said about the templates. “They know how to drive business in their local markets better than we do – what will bring people to their restaurants, or what big events are drawing tourists or business travelers into their cities.”

Internal webinars train, educate and empower

Real Magnet is also helping IHR educate the property managers, through a series of internal webinars. “We’re adding new properties all the time, and with new staff joining our current properties we have new users of the Real Magnet system each month,” said Jen. “The webinars Real Magnet does for us make it a lot easier to get people up and running on the system.”

The webinar series at IHR runs monthly and focuses on the fundamentals of the Real Magnet system. Jen’s team also uses the opportunity to communicate the importance of the brand style guides, the process of the sending queue, the many template assets available to the properties, and the need for brand integrity. The series has been so successful that IHR is adding a webinar on metrics and analytics to the curriculum, to help the properties better analyze their results and create even more effective messages.

Switching Accounts

Objective: The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan sought an email service that could handle its growing monthly volume, provide analytics unavailable through its in-house system, and that integrated with their NetForum database.

Results: Real Magnet met each of the University of Michigan’s requirements, and now the Alumni Association can create custom newsletters targeted by attributes in the NetForum database, and tailored with dynamic content. The email analytics not only improve the University of Michigan’s email program; the integration with NetForum uses the analytics as well and gives telemarketers added insight on alumni engagement right from the database, allowing for more targeted and effective membership campaigns.

NetForum Integration and Dynamic Content collaborate on Targeting

Janice Sigler is the Vice President of Innovation and Technology at the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan. Her team had been managing email in house until 2005, when she realized that the volume was more than their servers could readily handle and the task of managing subscribes, unsubscribes and bounces was growing too onerous. She also sought greater customization capabilities. “Our goal was to try to make the enewsletter that someone receives feel like it was meant for them – has their name on it, contains information based on their market segment, and information based on their geography,” Janice said.

She learned about Real Magnet through NetForum, the CRM database the university had been using since 2005, and an integration partner with Real Magnet. Now the university sends out newsletters using Real Magnet’s Dynamic Content feature, which inserts copy blocks targeted to recipients based on the attributes Janice and her team select. And through the NetForum integration, these attributes come straight out of the database, including geography, interests, history and other data the CRM system captures.  Janice remarks that this level of personalization has changed the way her team creates newsletters. “We have 70 clubs around the country and one of our blocks is Events,” she explains. “If you live in a particular zone you get the events from the clubs in your zone.”

The use of Dynamic Content not only allows greater targeting; Janice reports that it dramatically reduces her staff’s workload as well. “We used to send 17 versions of the newsletter. Now we send one, but it’s tailored with the Dynamic Content so that it does the work of the 17 we used to send. But it also allows us to expand and target by other demographics – to both members and non-members.”

Email Insights for Telesales Programs

The integration between Real Magnet and NetForum pulls data the other direction as well, porting analytics from Real Magnet emails directly into NetForum, providing even deeper insight to the Alumni Association for their database marketing and sales initiatives. “So a rep who is talking to an alum who says, ‘I didn’t get the newsletter,’ can see if it bounced right within NetForum, or see if the person did or did not open it,” says Janice. “The alum’s email address can also be updated within NetForum and the next time a list is uploaded for the newsletter the correct address is uploaded.”

The university is also using Real Magnet data within NetForum to classify alumni even more narrowly for better targeting, which Janice believes can make outreach and annual giving programs more personal and effective. “Our telemarketers can see that this person participated in athletic events, received a newsletter, clicked through on links for athletics – that way we can gauge their interest in topics without even asking them.”

Centralized Email Operations Yields Sophisticated Analytics

The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan centralizes email within the Innovation and Technology department. The university’s magazine staff creates the content but Janice and her team are responsible for coordinating, tracking, scheduling, sending and analyzing all of the organization’s newsletters. Necessity being the mother of invention, it was the burden of all of the university’s many newsletters that compelled Janice to seek out the Dynamic Content solution to reduce the workload while lifting effectiveness. With the time the new newsletter process frees up, the department focuses more on email analytics and insights – not just to evaluate the email, but to scrutinize the various programs email promotes. Says Janice, “We don’t just study how people respond to the content. We analyze entire programs with the email data. If no people click on a link promoting a program, we don’t just conclude the email wasn’t effective – we re-evaluate whether the program is worth continuing.”

They also use email data to shape web content and the alumni magazine. “We know that our newsletters drive our web traffic. We use email click analytics to shape future issues. If we see that people are clicking on research, we may add more research to future issues. Or if we see from the site analytics that people who visit the research pages follow a click-path to the Life Long Learning program, we might promote that program to people who clicked on the research links in emails since there is a correlation – they are often the same people.”

Analytics that Predict the Future

Centralizing email analytics within the Innovation and Technology department allows Janice and her team to plan even more sophisticated projects for the future. “We are looking at ways to use email tracking and analytics to create a data model,” Janice explains. “Something that we can use to be able to predict participation and engagement, that we can use as a sales tool.” Today, the Alumni Association is able to lift its sales programs through the insight afforded through email analytics. A data model would allow the university to identify the alumni most likely to contribute to an Annual Giving or other program, so that the telemarketers could focus on the alumni who would provide the greatest likelihood of helping the university reach its goals.

Objective: MTV Networks has a unique set of requirements for an email platform. Deliverability is critical, as a key part of their business is to ensure that their affiliate partners receive and read ad hoc and pre-scheduled programming alerts. Email supports sales and marketing initiatives, so is directly tied to revenue.

Results: With Real Magnet, MTVN gains improved deliverability, as well as reporting intelligence that supports its sales initiatives. Bounce reports allow the company to determine when contacts churn.  Salespeople then know when to find a new contact at key accounts, and keep the internal database current.

Distributed messaging with centralized management

MTV Networks (MTVN) is one of the world’s leading entertainment companies with over 150 television channels and 400 digital media properties worldwide. The company’s brands include MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, CMT, Epix, VH1, Spike and many others. Sitting in the middle of the sales and marketing teams of all these brands is MTVN’s Content Distribution and Marketing Group, responsible for B-to-B electronic communications, including the MTVN.com website and all business email communications. Sitting in the middle of the Content Distribution and Marketing Group is James Cole. His job was to select the email platform that would allow his group to best support the many MTVN brands.

James chose Real Magnet in part because of its flexibility in determining which functions are centralized, and which are distributed. “We don’t want to be in the middle of every communication,” James said. “The brand groups need to be able to send out their own messages. But we take care of all the billing, template design, lists and other management functions for them.”

Revenue-driving deliverability

MTVN’s email communications are between the internal MTVN brands and the local affiliates that manage ad insertion within the MTVN content. One of the most critical messages that MTVN brands send is called an “Avail Alert.” These are sent to the local affiliates to let them know about the availability within the content for a local ad spot to run, and so are tied directly to revenue. If the Avail Alerts are not delivered, the affiliates do not know when to run ads, so the ads do not run. Real Magnet’s emphasis on deliverability was a key component to MTVN’s decision.

Deliverability reports keep the sales database current and content protected

MTVN uses Real Magnet deliverability reports not just to see who received the Avail Alerts, but also who didn’t. They look closely at bounce reports to identify when a contact has left the company, so that a salesperson knows to find a replacement contact to maintain the relationship. “The bounce reports let us keep on top of people moving around the industry,” says James, noting that contacts often end up at other affiliates where they re-connect with MTVN. James’ group runs these reports for many of the brand groups, and is working with Real Magnet to develop a custom report to make the process even more efficient.

Staying on top of the bounce reports also adds a measure of internal control to MTVN’s unique content. Once MTVN realizes that a contact has left the company, they know to shut down that person’s access to the protected content on the MTVN website. Theirs is a unique application of bounce reporting, but certainly appropriate for any organization with members-only or clients-only web content or permissions.

Specialization where it matters

Like all companies, MTVN operates in an industry where specialization is important. Internal expertise in the media and entertainment landscape, and understanding the revenue drivers of their customers are critical for their success. So are mastering email rendering, bounce reporting and negotiating blacklists, but MTVN realized a strong email partner would better serve them than trying to grow functional expertise in email in-house. “A few years ago, email was easy,” James remarks. “You choose between plain text and rich text and off it goes.” The modern email landscape is much more complex, and continues to evolve. Real Magnet lets MTVN focus on its own industry, armed with communication capabilities that enable greater efficiency and accuracy in all its sales and marketing communications.