Page 8 - index

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Automation gains

momentum in

external and

internal email

communications

As eMarketer.com confirmed in one of its recent re- Here, premium, consistent and user-friendly mailings
ports, it is “pretty obvious by now that the old-kid-on-the designed in HTML impress and mobilize employees
-block, the email isn’t disappearing”, stating that busi- and boost the internal branding.
ness executives polled worldwide in December 2014 by 2. Automation and customizability
StrongView, in conjunction with SENSORPRO, ranked Luckily, email marketing in the internal corporate com-
email as the No. 1 marketing program for which they munications can as well be individualized and com-
planned to increase spending in 2015. pletely automated. A good example is, for instance,
More than six in 10 respondents said they’d up invest- communication regarding training: The employee first
ments in the channel, compared with fewer than 50% receives an invitation to the training via email. If he
for second-place social media and 40.2% for No. 3 mo- doesn’t respond, a reminder will be sent automatically.
bile—often viewed as hotter than email. After notification of the employee, training materials is
sent immediately, followed by further reminders until
However, email marketing is not only in the communica- the day of training. After the training, the employee au-
tion an important tool with external stakeholders (e.g. tomatically receives an email asking for feedback. Ac-
customers). With email marketing software, even the cording to his/her reply, subsequent suitable courses
communication within the company can be designed are determined on an individual basis, and he/she gets
more efficiently and professionally. automatically invited again, so that the cycle of commu-

Impressive impact of internal communication on nication starts anew. The huge advantage is that
branding emails that are sent in the internal corporate communi-
cation via a main email marketing software, are central-
There are many reasons for internal corporate commu- ly archived so that each officer has access to all previ-
nications, such as information about new features in the ously sent emails.
company/business or the development of new markets,
annual reports and presentations of general meetings, 3. Collaborative Working
press clippings, notes on malfunctions and mainte- Looking at internal email communications, there are
nance manuals for new software and hardware, invita- usually several people involved who contribute content,
tions to meetings, events or courses, internal newslet- provide feedback or have to give their consent before
ters, FAQs, employee discounts or surveys, etc. an email can be sent. An example is the communica-
tion of the quarterly results by the board: Marketing is
The senders of such communication are, for example, responsible for the layout of the email, the internal PR -
the HR department, management, IT or marketing. In in collaboration with the assistance of the executive
most cases, each department designs and structures board – for the content, and the board must give the
the email according to the very own objectives and ide- final go for the release of the email. Instead of sending
as instead of trans-sectoral guidelines. the email back and forth between individuals, which is
Emails are often created and sent via Outlook or any particularly inefficient and error-prone, a centralized
other email client, although handling of internal commu- software provides an opportunity for collaborative work
nication with a central and professional email marketing of several people on an email. Even release- and feed-
software has many advantages compared to that solu- back processes can be displayed in the software.
tion as the following examples show: 4. Performance Measurement
1. Internal Employer Branding Professional email marketing systems allow to measure
Strengthening employees' identification with the compa- the success of sent emails and present the results
ny and increasing employee satisfaction are just some comprehensively and instantly at the same time. How
of the objectives of internal employer branding to raise many people have opened the email? How many have
the perception of the own brand in the internal corpo- clicked an integrated link? How long on average has
rate communication, which is why the same demands the email been read? These figures can identify, for
have to be made to the internal corporate communica- example, what issues are particularly relevant for the

tions as to external communication. employees and therefore the communication can be
optimized accordingly.
8 Asian eMarketing November 2014 - Cross-, Multi-, Omni-Channel & Everywhere Commerce