Communicating using Digital Marketing/Sales Channels

 Understand how to plan the use of digital media for a specific message, audience and recipients

1.1 – Explain the selection of the organisation’s targeted customers

Gray Dawes is aimed at businessmen and businesswomen, who often seem to be in their 30s or above from what I’ve seen (though they can be younger). The service we provide is corporate travel, meaning there’s a chance clients can sometimes be fairly sophisticated  and interested in spending a decent amount on plush travel services – though this of course doesn’t apply to everyone. We also target a range of companies, ranging from very small ones to multi-million ones.

1.2 – Describe expected target audiences responses to different electronic media communication methods

We generally communicate to clients via emails or directly through the phone. Since we’re dealing with business travellers, these methods work very well from what I know – mainly due to them often carrying a phone, checking emails, working at a desk, etc. Clients seem to respond well to phone calls, due to our service being tailored to suit every client’s needs. They seem to enjoy having friendly people to chat to and organise their travel with, however they also seem to respond to emails well too. I think the online team also use video calls at times, to help clients with any issues when booking their own travel online. Again, this seems to work well, due to it being a quick way for the client to have issues resolved. We do have social media too, however clients don’t seem to use this as a method of communication.
I don’t personally deal with clients directly, my work is almost all internal – I’m discussing my observations over the year I’ve been working here.

1.3 – Describe the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of different software packages for presenting marketing information

In terms of marketing, we tend to do most of it through emails, sent out from the CRM. This is a tool that most of us can access, and create our own marketing with target lists, test lists, etc. The advantages of the CRM is that it’s quite self-explanatory when building a campaign design, with familiar features such as font choice, colours, etc. The other advantage is how we can have many different lists for various purposes, so it can be kept quite organised. There are, however, quite a few disadvantages with the system. It’s very clunky, and designing a campaign in it is, to be honest, a nightmare. To give it structure, you have to put in a grid, which is incredibly difficult to keep organised. Fonts and text size change accidentally, the layout changes every time you move something, and it’s impossible to create a sleek, well-designed layout. Due to this, we have sent a number of campaigns where it’s a simple image, all designed within Photoshop or something – this of course means there can’t be hyperlinks etc, however depending on the campaign, we sometimes have to choose style over the CRM’s limited features. It’s not ideal, so I believe we’re currently trying to think of a method around it. Once an email has been built however, it tends to work really well, and functions.
We also make use of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. They each have their positives and drawbacks, listed below

Facebook: Great for sharing a variety of content, it’s an easy-to-use platform that people of all ages and professions use. It’s pretty social too, so we tend to post varied things, including more professional posts (like press releases), and more laid-back content like illustrations of Grayson, or playing upon popular topics at the time. You can even view statistics for your page, which actually go quite in-depth about both your content and your audience. The negative, though, is that pages don’t actually reach that far, and you’d have to invest money for many people to see your page’s content.

Twitter: Fantastic for short statements or sharing links, we tend to post travel alerts (as text if they’re short, as an image if they require more information), as well as a few news stories, or anything related to corporate travel. We also sometimes post images of Grayson, to keep the account somewhat colourful and lively. You can also reach a huge number of people through it, due to retweets! However, the problem is that you have a character limit of 140, so you have to learn to condense information down. You can’t always communicate in the way you’d like via Twitter (and it’s a bad idea to revert to text speak, you need to remain professional), so you have to be careful and select what you think will work within 140 characters. You also cannot view statistics with Twitter, you have to use other websites such as Twitter Analytics.

Google+: Similarly to Twitter, content can be shared and seen by others pretty easily, and you have the option to join groups and share content with like-minded people. However, the drawbacks are that it’s not actually used by a huge number of people anymore, and to my mind, you’re quite limited in terms of engagement. It’s rare we get any activity at all via Google+, so we tend to simply share similar content to Facebook. You have very limited statistics, too.

LinkedIn: A great professional network perfect for our business, aimed at people who want to talk to other business-minded people. You can have a personal profile (complete with a portfolio, work information etc) and a business page. The business page section even shows you statistics, which is very handy for keeping track of what posts do well. The drawbacks however is that it’s a fairly clunky site to use, it doesn’t feel sleek or fast like Facebook or Twitter. Overall though, there aren’t many negative points, and it’s a great website for a professional business to use.

Pinterest: Quite an unusual site, it allows you to share imagery and caption them. We have a few boards on it, including one filled with Grayson images. It’s a fun, quirky website to use, and it’s nice to have a purely visual website that doesn’t show much text like other social media. However, it’s actually hard to get your content seen unless you follow trends, and it’s not too easy to actively engage with others.

1.4 – Explain the requirements of using multiple digital marketing technologies

Marketing is moving to be digitally-based. If you think about how many adverts you get browsing social media, through email, or just browsing the internet, it’s all based online. Therefore, as a company, it’s vital to cover as many areas as possible to reach a wider audience. The digital world is massive, so to try and capture some of it, you have to invest time and money to get yourself seen! Whether it’s promoting your page on social media, sending out campaigns through email every month, or buying advertising space on other websites, you need to be prepared to cover a number of different areas. Each different type will reach a different audience, which is another reason as to why you need to cover a variety of areas.

2 – Be able to plan the use of digital media for a specific message, audience and recipients

2.1 – Confirm the sales and marketing objectives for the digital communication, including response rates and sales generated return on investment

For this section, I will pick out an email campaign we sent out via the CRM, regarding the Security & Policing event.

Basically, Gray Dawes purchased a company called Events in Focus, who sell nearby hotel rooms to people/companies that attend events. We often help them with their email marketing, putting together the layout (and sometimes target lists etc) in the CRM.

The objective of this particular campaign was to contact people who may be interested (or previously expressed an interest) in the Security & Policing event, and advertise the rooms that Events in Focus have for sale. Therefore, it was vital that the layout was clearly showing off the hotels, with an easy and simple method to book them. The links therefore needed to be clear, and overall it needed to be a campaign that made a good impression. As for sales, it really varies from event to event – not to mention, we’ve heard Events in Focus believe there’s an issue with the statistics. From what I’ve heard around the office, it sound like a 1/100 booking confirmation is the standard aim for something like this. It doesn’t cost anything to put together the campaigns, however it does cost Events in Focus to purchase the rooms, to then sell them on at a higher rate. Therefore, I assume they needed to book up at least a couple of the hotels advertised, to at the very least, make their money back.

2.2 – Identify the criteria to be used in selecting the recipients in accordance with the plan

With any campaign EIF send out, they send it out to people have expressed an interest in the event, or a similar event.

For example, if a person attended Security & Policing 2015, they’d be added to the target list for that event, and information about any future S&P events would be sent to them – including this one I’m discussing. Or, if someone attended an event with a similar criteria/subject, it may be sent to them too.

2.3 – Source and acquire targeted lists and databases of recipients in accordance with the plan

The contacts are first added to the CRM by EIF employees, who fill out their details, and add them to relevant target lists. The target lists then sit within the CRM, and once we’ve completed an email template/campaign, we can select the relevant target lists with ease.

2.4 – Confirm the range of electronic media best suited to communicating to the target audience in line with the sales and marketing objectives

The campaigns always follow the same format – an email listing the event name, hotels available, and additional information, all hyperlinked to relevant pages. The people we’re targeting will more than likely be professional workers, who work with emails fairly often, meaning this method is probably the best and most likely to be seen. It also caters to any age, whether they’re younger or older. Everyone who works in an office (or indeed, most people who work) have access to some form of email, therefore this seems like the best method to cover a decent amount of ground. It can also be tracked easily, allowing us to see the results of the campaign, including the successful parts and failures. Myself and Danielle did once carry out a campaign that included a physical postcard being sent out to old clients (to tempt them back to Gray Dawes), which was a great campaign! It does of course, cost a lot more time and money, and isn’t something we can do for the Events in Focus campaigns (because they’re constant).

2.5 – Agree with relevant people the marketing communications message designed to engage the customer and which is appropriate for the media selected

With these campaigns designed to sell rooms, we tend to keep them very simple, and get across roughly the same message each time –  “You may be interested in this event, and we’re here to provide some cheap rooms to help you attend.” We don’t want the email to mess about or put them off, we want a simple and clear message that is what it is. I don’t believe we’ve ever needed to really discuss this subject too much, because it’s quite a simple and clear campaign.
In contrast, for the campaign I mentioned above where Danielle and I sent out postcards, we did discuss the message. We wanted it to be a lighthearted play on words, that would come across in a good light to old customers. We wanted to get across the quirky side of Gray Dawes, and also appeal to the likely age range. We agreed on this, and created a campaign based on ‘Don’t You Want Me’ by Human League, re-writing the lyrics and title, and having a Grayson-based version of the album cover. This was actually a really great campaign, and was one of our most creative! I’d love to carry out more campaigns like this in the future when the opportunity arises!

3 – Be able to check the digital message can be accessed and/or delivered

3.1 – Check any links, keywords, and supporting attachments allow access by recipients to further information

The campaign advertises rooms we have available in a range of hotels – therefore, it needs to be very clear on how to actually book them. We have a message near the time that says ‘Click Here to Book Online’.

This is then hyperlinked to a booking page set up by EIF, which is very clear and easy for the client to use/navigate.

Once you fill that out, you get taken to a page listing all the necessary information (event location/map, the hotels, etc) where you can fill out more details. The hotels listed here are the same as on the campaign, meaning people can first take a look at the campaign to get an initial impression, then go to the booking link and choose their desired hotel.

It’s vital that the links all work correctly, so this is something we always double check. We don’t normally have attachments, but if we do that’s another thing we check works. To be certain the entire campaign functions correctly, we actually send a number of tests to a test list, which is usually made up of myself, Danielle, and the relevant people from Events in Focus. That way, we can each not only check the email looks correct, but check that imagery, links, and attachments all function as they’re meant to.
Each of the hotels listed on the campaign themselves also link to the booking page, because a client may not consider going back up to the top and clicking on the main booking link. It’s important to have enough links that they can clearly see how to make a purchase, but also be careful that it doesn’t appear to be spam.

3.2 – Identify any risks that the message might be labelled as ‘spam’ and take action to minimise such risks

This is actually an issue we discussed very recently. A woman from Events in Focus was discussing a past campaign with us, noting that it didn’t work at all, and had little to no communication from potential clients – which is of course, very unusual. The head of IT at Gray Dawes said that it might be an issue with the email being marked as spam or blocked. To resolve this, it’s probably best to read up on what stops emails being delivered, and try to work around it.

As for what marks email (particularly marketing campaigns) as spam, there are a variety of reasons which can relate to the technical aspects of the email, or simply some keywords included. Basically, if there’s something in the email similar to how spam emails are constructed, it’s in danger of being treated as such. This article lists numerous issues and how to avoid them, and below is a screenshot of some of the points.

3.3 – Enable click-through tracking in digital messages in accordance with the plan

I believe within the CRM, once an email has been sent out we can check a variety of statistics. This includes how many opened the email, how many weren’t delivered, and how many clicked on links. It’s certainly something we need to make more use of, and plan to in the future. In the past it has been greatly useful try and figure out what parts of a campaign have been successful, and if anything stopped it from being delivered. Of course, it also gives you an indication whether that person uses that email account any more (for example, if they didn’t receive or open any campaigns you sent), and also allows them to unsubscribe.

3.4 – Send messages to the targeted customers in accordance with the plan

Generally, my job is to build the design and layout of the campaign, whilst Danielle or others actually send them out to the targets. However, I can see how they do it – basically, once you have target lists set up with people, it’s a simple case of assigning the relevant ones to a campaign. For this Security & Policing campaign, I can see the target list at the moment is ‘Aimee Test list’ (an employee at EIF), and that she’s the only target within that list. If I wanted to add a list, all I’d have to do is go to the little drop down arrow, and click ‘Select’. This brings up all of our available target lists, which can then be added to the campaign.

3.5 –  Set up reporting system for ‘undeliverables’ in accordance with organisational procedures

We don’t really have a ‘system’ to my knowledge. We simply monitor the results of a campaign, noting where it failed to be delivered, and working to resolve this. For example, as noted earlier, we had a campaign that didn’t seem to get any responses at all, causing us to believe it’s an issue with it potentially being blocked. We find it easiest to simply monitor the results of a campaign ourselves, so we can look into the details and make any corrections.

4 – Be able to monitor and evaluate the response to digital activity and take any corrective action

4.1 – Record undelivered messages in accordance with reporting system

Please see 3.5.
Aside from campaigns, in regards to social media we tend to check the statistics etc, seeing what posts were well received. This allows us to use this information to our advantage, and try to make our content more engaging. For example, we know from engagement that travel alerts work well on Twitter, whereas posts advertising our services don’t tend to get any engagement. On Facebook, news posts or cheerful/lighthearted content seem to work best, whereas travel alerts don’t seem to gain much attraction.
If we ever have to send a message via social media and it doesn’t work, I’d record it down and ensure we find some method of getting in contact with that person.
We get emails through the website that appear in mine and Danielle’s email inbox – it’s therefore our duty to actually forward them to the relevant people in the office, and ensure they’ve been correctly delivered.

4.2 – Identify repeat communications requirements in line with the sales and marketing objectives

Of course, when you’re trying to make a sale, you have to make it obvious to the customer/client where they can click to purchase the service. However, there’s of course a big chance they may not be interested, so you have to avoid spamming them and give them the option to stop seeing your content. We all hate cold calls, and people feel the same way about emails – therefore, it’s vital to consider your audience and be straight with them and try to sell, but also give them an alternative if they don’t want to see your content. This is precisely why we have a number of booking links within an EIF campaign, as well as a method of unsubscribing.

4.3 – Monitor and evaluate the responses to digital marketing against agreed criteria

I remember some time ago, when I first created Grayson, we couldn’t figure out a name for him. So, we had in mind that we wanted to get at least 5 potential names via a social media competition, suggested by fans! We took to Facebook and posted an image of the (at the time, unnamed) character Grayson, asking for suggestions. We actually got quite a few responses, more so than we expected! This made us realise that Facebook is a great place to try and get people involved, especially when a prize is involved! I can’t seem to find the original post, but here’s the second post about it we made:

4.4 – Report the findings of the evaluation in accordance with organisational procedures

Each week I send an email to Danielle, accounting what I’ve been up to in the workplace. Whilst we don’t do it at the moment due to social media being a little unclear currently, but I also used to report on what social media activity we’d had that week, including popular posts, likes/unlikes, etc. I remember reporting this post to Danielle, explaining how the format of it worked very well, and that when possible, competitions are a great way to get people engaged with posts. Asking for suggestions for something is also a good way to get people engaged, because they feel as if they’re really contributing towards something, and feel it’s worth being creative and offering an opinion.
UPDATE: I have now been asked to resume giving social media updates, meaning I will need to begin analysing posts like this in more detailing, noting why I believe it worked, why it didn’t work, how we can replicate this in the future, etc.