Brand Control to Major Tom..

There are several technological innovations in email that are worth writing about. Any topic from deliverability, design, automation, customer segmentation, are worthy enough to focus at least one article on. However, I am a marketer at heart and I love the idea of branding. Digital marketing has provided us significant improvements in relation to customer tracking, profiling, and ROI analysis. But with all of our big data and metric, marketers are shifting too far away from the importance of brand recognition and consistency. In the following paragraphs, I am going to highlight some technologies that for the most part are new to FireDrum’s email system and that have allowed our clients the ability to control their brand in the most efficient and cost effective ways possible.

Hello, my name is…
Personalizing an email using a recipient’s information is a great way to establish a relationship that goes beyond just order taking or business as usual. Email systems like most marketing tools are essentially databases storing information related to specific contacts or users of a system. Data Tags are an ideal way to incorporate this information in customer correspondence so that your communication and most importantly your brand stand out. Name use in the subject line increases opening rates, buying preferences can be used to customize content, and birthdays or sign up dates can be used to reward loyal customers. Your organization has taken the time and effort to capture this information from your customers, why not use it to benefit both your recipients and your brand?

“To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.“
– Winston ChurchillChanges or modifications to your messaging can be the difference in if a consumer engages with your communication and call to action or not. One of the most difficult obstacles for companies that represent multiple business units, brands, or locations is the ability to localize and personalize their messaging. All email systems will allow you to create separate communications so that your messaging, contact information, and branding align with your goal. The issue is not, can your communications be branded correctly? It is, if it can be done in a time and cost effective manner? An Email administrator can spend hours and even days versioning out communications one by one. If these marketing tasks are shared by multiple users, a company needs to rely on the fact that the scheduling and proofing of these communications must be done almost simultaneously. The use of an approval or notification process can help immensely when looking to make your brands messaging consistent across the board and be sent in a timely fashion.
At FireDrum, we had a number of clients with issues in regards to brand control and complex sending’s, we needed a solution that was easy to implement and cost effective. Therefore, we developed the “Versioned Template”, combined with our private label system, the template can version itself by pulling customer or account information during the sending process. This could include the injection of a franchise owner’s website specific links and contact information, a sales reps photo, or a logo image inserted in the header to convey a unique product or service. The user fills out the content needed to be sent and the template does the rest to control the brand.

The “One” Template – The Template to bind them all
Building off the need for certain emails to be versioned by an account, we created the “One” template. This template provides all the benefits of versioning above but allows for a couple of key time and cost saving differences. It addresses the issue of franchisees or local marketing coordinators not being willing or able to send from their account. Our private label system can “push” a versioned email through their account and recipients would not know the difference. This not only keeps the timing and branding of large email campaigns consistent but provides reporting on a local account level so the history of that account stays intact.
If your business has unique brand and communication needs, we would love to hear from you. Email me at josh@firedrum.com. It is from the unique needs of our customers and partners that we can innovate and provide the best product and service possible.

What’s in a Brand?

Everyone knows that branding is an important part of any business so why should your email communications be anything different? Utilizing a custom template not only reinforces your brand, but it is an easy way to update your content while also using a clean, professional design. Many of our clients have benefitted by incorporating elements of their website and other marketing materials and have seen some of their largest ROIs by using email marketing.

Some recent templates to come out of the FireDrum Design Studio include: