The DigitalMailer Blog

January 16, 2013

DigitalMailer Benchmarks: How many of your consumers should be using eStatements?

Filed under: e-Statements,electronic statements,enrollment campaigns,eStrategy,One Click,One Click Campaign,technology,Uncategorized — admin @ 10:13 am

by Ron Daly

Recently, a number of clients have written us emails asking for the “industry standard” of eStatement penetration. While there are any number of results in your typical Google search, we wanted to offer our clients and, in turn, our blog readers a thoughtful answer. So we took the number of eStatement users each of our clients had, compiled our data into an Excel spreadsheet, ran some of the averages and came up with some numbers we think are quite interesting.

Yep, you’re reading that correctly – nearly 80% of online banking users have eStatements. These folks manage their money online and take advantage of eStatements. This number grew twenty percentage points in one year, leading us to believe that more and more people are making the connection between electronic documents and smart money management.

A little more than half of all the customers/members we evaluated were checking account holders. It stands to reason more checking users would be using eStatements just to avoid getting a paper statement that’s weeks behind their online banking reports, ATM receipts, or mobile alerts. Still, that number grew 19 percentage points in a year…that’s a big gain.

Even though this number grew 11 percentage points in a year, it’s still a little low for my tastes. Only 28% of members use eStatements? Why so low? Here’s why:

Most financial institutions still have eStatements inside online banking and only online banking members can get them (see the first percentage number we listed, for eStatement/OLB users? Make sense now?)
Very few financial institutions have marketing campaigns to increase adoption anymore. Those that do typically see great ROI.
Most financial institutions don’t make eStatements the default for online banking users. Reg E says you have to give your users a choice of paper or electronic…but it doesn’t say what the default option must be. Why not start those users with eStatements and make them ask for paper statements?

If only credit unions and banks would make eStatements the default. Most users would never bother to make the switch or make a stink – they’d probably never even think about it again.

Check out our one-click program and see if this simple solution is right for you.

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December 4, 2012

They’ve Got Mail (But Do They Open It?)

Filed under: e-mail,email marketing,eStrategy,On-Boarding — admin @ 10:50 am

There’s a marketing adage that says getting new customers is great, but retaining your current customers is even better. Recently, we’ve discussed unengaged members and ways to help reconnect with them. But what about the chronically inactive subscribers on your email distribution lists? What can you do to reengage them?

Most likely, you track the number of recipients who unsubscribe following an email distribution. But another, possibly larger, group is made up of recipients who are “emotionally unsubscribed” from your messages–those who simply delete or ignore your emails without opening them.

Smart e-marketers know this segment shouldn’t be ignored for two reasons: First, ISPs have developed new metrics that track email engagement as a measure of message deliverability. So, if an email address consistently receives messages from a sender that are not opened, the provider may assume the messages are spam. Second, these recipients represent a pool of customers who at one time wanted a relationship with your company – and possibly still do. You don’t need to simply find new customers; you also need to re-connect with those who are failing to respond.

Here are some tips to help reach your emotionally unsubscribed recipients:

Carefully craft your subject lines. If someone has been routinely deleting your emails, try to grab their attention upfront.
Pay attention to members’ preferences. If a member requests monthly updates about loan rates, don’t send weekly notices. Ensure that you are responding to their choices.
Keep track of products your customers have used or training they’ve attended. If someone recently re-financed his mortgage, don’t send emails about your new mortgage promotion. Look for opportunities to send messages tied to individual needs.
Using an attention-getting subject line, ask users to re-connect. Send an email asking how often they’d like to receive messages and which products or services might interest them. And be sure to get creative with the subject line so it stands out and gets noticed.

The pool of emotionally unsubscribed members represents an important customer base. They already have a relationship with you; they just need to be shown the value of continuing it.

This article originally ran in our free, monthly e-newsletter. Are you signed up already? If not, sign up here to receive a monthly collection of helpful articles and interesting tidbits right in your inbox.

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August 16, 2012

How do you “measure up”?

Filed under: Banks,Credit Unions,DigitalMailer,e-mail,email,email marketing,eStrategy,junk mail,Marketing,marketing on a budget,One Click Campaign,targeted marketing,Uncategorized — admin @ 1:51 pm

A great article just came out of MarketingProfs.com, offering up new insights into the average open rates, click-through rates (CTRs), and unsubscribe rates for financial service email marketing campaigns. To highlight a few important points:

Financial services campaigns had a 22.6% average open rate. This might seem small, but it’s actually pretty good compared to other businesses (especially education, health and retail). If you’re getting open rates higher than 22%, you’re doing well.
FIs can anticipate an average CTR of 3.5%. Again; small in theory, big in practice. You always want this number to be higher than it is, and the more focused your list, the more you should expect a high CTR.
The average unsubscribe rate for FIs is .18%. What?! You read that correctly – that’s point-one-eight percent. It might make you think that people really love getting emails from their FI, yes? Not necessarily. See, that doesn’t account for people who see an email from their bank or credit union and drop it into trash. Nor does it account for “priority inboxing” (thanks, Gmail, for making emails even harder to get read).

So, what can we take away from all this? Well, as an industry, it would be nice if those rates reflected a highly-engaged readership. It can happen, it DOES happen. But we also shouldn’t use this to shame ourselves out of ever using email marketing again — remember, these numbers are actually pretty good, considering.

How can we raise the bar?

Better Content/Unique Content – The short-and-sweet way to increase your open rates? Make sure it’s an email worth opening. Consider special offers that are only accessible via your email list. That way, users aren’t just users, they’re “insiders”.
A Better Focus on Calls-to-Action – As we’ve discussed before, try out different calls-to-action – text, images, text AND images, different wordings, different positions – it all matters, and it’s all dependent.
The “Let-Out” – Don’t hide unsubscribe links from people. If they want out, let them out. It’s only going to improve your open rate in the long-run (after all, the open rate is the number of opens divided the number of emails sent – decrease the bottom number and the percentage will increase. Simple math, yes?)

Learn more about DigitalMailer’s Email Marketing engine, the ARB.

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February 22, 2012

Who “Lost It” in 2011?

Filed under: Banks,Budget Stretching Ideas,Credit Union Tech,Credit Unions,DigitalMailer,e-Statements,economy,electronic statements,eStrategy,Marketing — admin @ 11:18 am

by Jimmy Marks

At the end of last year, we put the word out to our clients about a contest we were running. We called the contest “Move It and Lose It”. Not move it “OR” lose it, mind you, but “Move It AND Lose It”.

The “Move It” part of the contest was moving customers and members to electronic statements. The “Lose It” was losing costs associated with printing and mailing statements month after month. And boy, did our clients “lose it”!

In the contest period, clients added almost 40,000 new eStatement users! Assuming an average savings of $.50 per user per month for twelve months, they’re looking at just shy of a quarter of a MILLION dollars in savings, just from those new users alone! How cool is that?

You can read more about the contest and the results via our press release, and see who won the iPad (the grand prize) on the “Move It and Lose It” page.

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February 14, 2012

Who Do YOU Love (And Who Loves You Back)?

Filed under: eStrategy,Facebook,give-aways,Great Ideas from CUs Like Yours — admin @ 1:10 pm

by Jimmy Marks

Recently, Adele got a heaping helping of Grammys for her “21″ album. She had a great year, with a handful of hits that were all the rage on the radio. I was listening to those hits for months before they ever debuted, because my fiancée was a member of Adele’s online fan club. My fiancée is a big Adele fan. She got to see Adele live in a small DC night club before Adele was filling the Albert Hall with her crowds of screaming fans.

For being such a big fan, my fiancée received an email one fateful evening with a free download of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” in it. That’s right, the song you’ve been hearing non-stop for months? I’ve been hearing it much longer and much more frequently than you have.

Because of this, my fiancée told all her friends about the upcoming album. She bought the album for quite a few of them and she listened to it over and over and over…with one email, Adele’s label had turned the love of my life into Adele’s number one advocate.

Who do you love? Who loves you back?

Recently, we came across a blog post about the value of online communities. This post wasn’t necessarily talking about Facebook, Twitter or other social networks – it was more focused on user’s groups and customer portals set up by companies to help said companies test products and manage the brand.

Many companies use online portals that they open up to loyal customers. These customers aren’t paid for their input, but they are, in many cases, offered things other users/consumers wouldn’t be offered for their insight and input.

These communities can be very valuable. Creating portals for these communities can be very costly. So where do Facebook and other social networks come in?

We’ve seen quite a few financial institutions use their Facebook pages as:

Focus Groups
Community Bulletin Boards
Help Desks

The feedback from loyal customers and members helps these institutions make decisions about which products to implement or change; what’s important with the customer base; and what technological issues need to be solved. That’s a lot of valuable information, and it can be had with a focused effort and thoughtful community management.

One thing about an online community, though – getting people to click on a “Like” button is one thing, but the truly dedicated in your online community are the people who take the time to write you, to respond to postings, and to take you up on offers. Give those people as much respect as they give you of their time. It can make a big difference.

Show the people who love you how much YOU love THEM. It’s a cycle that will turn social media from a noisy nuisance to a critical connection point for your best customers, members and clients.

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January 19, 2012

Why bother blocking social media? The “Big Guys” don’t.

Filed under: Banks,Blogging,Credit Unions,eStrategy,Marketing,Social media,technology,Twitter,web sites — admin @ 10:20 am

Take a look at this video from Ragan.com that’s all about social media access in the workplace. Erin Moran from the Great Place to Work institute has some insights about how valuable social media can be, how “career-ending blunders” very rarely happen, and how allowing employees to have their say can lead to transparency and a better “trust relationship” with the consumer.

Can’t view the video on the blog or via the daily email? Go see it on Ragan’s website.

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November 10, 2011

The Losing Team

Filed under: Banks,Credit Unions,e-Statements,electronic statements,enrollment campaigns,eStrategy,smart marketing,technology,web sites — admin @ 11:15 am

by Jimmy Marks

I had to learn how to be a good sport. It took a lot of time and I still don’t love a loss, but for the most part, I remember when I’m dealing with a game.

My nephew was recently in the championship game for youth flag football. He and his team played a team much bigger than themselves and they held them through the scoreless first half, but were eventually outgunned. They lost. And my nephew did something really surprising…

He high-fived the other team, sat down for his chat with the coach, and then went on his merry way. He wasn’t upset, he didn’t cry or get angry, he was just fine. He’s a good kid, and he’s no sore loser. It was inspiring.

Sometimes, it’s okay to be on the losing team. I guess it all depends what you’re losing.

Which is why DigitalMailer clients across the country are joining us in our quest to “Move It & Lose It”. And I’m joining the losing team for a goal of my own.

See, from now through January 31, 2012, our eStatement clients are going to be creating and running campaigns and changing their eStatement enrollment strategies to try and have the highest amount of enrollments. The winners will be getting an iPad 2 to either give away or use at their branch (for whatever reasons they choose…the SMART folks know they’re great for chatting with branch visitors and showing them important info that just won’t translate to paper).

To show that we’ve got something at stake ourselves, I’ve decided to try and lose twenty pounds by January 31. I’ve gotten off to a rocky start – it’s tough to will myself onto a treadmill, but I’ve cut a lot of sugar and fat out of my diet. I’m hoping to get a little better every week, just as our clients are trying to add more eStatement users day by day.

What are the clients “losing”?

Costs. Specifically, printing and postage costs. It takes a lot of money to mail statements every month and a simple switch can make a world of difference. Electronic statements are easy-to-use, compliant, and best of all, cost-effective. There’s just no reason not to encourage your customers/members/users to switch. It saves you money, it saves them time (and storage space) and it makes the whole world a little simpler and a little greener.

We’d love it if you’d come join us…on the “losing” team.

If you’re a client and you’d like to get in on the fun, click here.

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October 19, 2011

Waking up to Mobile Marketing…

Filed under: DigitalMailer,e-mail,e-Statements,email marketing,enrollment campaigns,eStrategy,On-Boarding,targeted marketing,technology — admin @ 9:49 am

by Greg Crandell

I recently attended a breakfast panel program hosted by our local metro area’s business and technology publication. On the panel were folks intimately involved in mobile marketing, either as advertising and consulting services providers or as leaders in B-2-C companies. They were asked a number of questions by the moderator regarding the current state of mobile marketing, and its impact on traditional marketing. They were also asked to comment on some current trends in mobile marketing. Their answers, and their observations, were well worth getting up early to hear.

When commenting on the current state of mobile marketing, the panelists spoke of the “always mobile, always on” state of today’s consumers. They pointed out that up to 40% of mobile users are online, and mobile, while at home. The mobile platform has indeed taken its place next to the landlocked Internet device, and may be on its way to supplanting it.

Panelists also felt that “automated marketing”, stuff that is done automatically based on the mobile users’ known attributes or device channel, was likely to be the most important activity marketers could engage in to keep marketing in the mobile mix. More on automated marketing later, but what did the panelists mean when talking about keeping marketing in the mobile mix?

For these people, traditional marketing is a wounded activity. They see consumer brands driven, not by traditional marketing methods, but by consumer endorsements. And that means you can’t correct for a poor product or service by traditional branding exercises. No amount of time and money can overcome a consumer groundswell of negative feedback online. So efforts focused on convincing consumers are wasted in a world where consumers look to each other for ratings and advice.

But, even in a world moving toward brands driven by consumer endorsements, there is room to deploy traditional marketing tools such as email and direct mail. There is evidence, according to the panelists, that younger consumers (millienials) see direct mail as valid when they can tie the company and product to favorable impressions gleaned online. In other words, younger consumers react favorably to direct mail marketing that complements the work being done online, and in the mobile space, to promote endorsement and to drive interest.

The panelists said much the same thing about email marketing. They perceive it as a way to reinforce beliefs and to promote already achieved endorsements. For them, email is both a way to complement the “conversational layer” found online, and to bring “automated marketing” to the email inbox.

There is that term again – automated marketing. Just what does it mean? Well, for the panelists, and for us at DigitalMailer, it is a term that refers to all marketing efforts that use data to develop messages and uses automation to deliver them. For us at DigitalMailer, automating onboarding campaigns for new members creates easy low cost means to deliver complementary messages to folks who have chosen to do business with you. In the same way, emails that automatically operate within lending or new account platforms create the same easy to deploy and maintain marketing opportunities that once had to be scheduled and performed in ad hoc fashion year after year.

Online and mobile channels are the perfect place to automate your marketing, whether it’s messaging or surveying to learn how to serve better or to learn the messages needed to win endorsements for your worthy services. And it is automated marketing that will keep marketers “in the mix” as word-of-mouth continues to grow its brand building presence.

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August 24, 2011

The Financial Industry “Back to School” List

Filed under: electronic statements,email marketing,eStrategy — admin @ 9:57 am

by Ron Daly

Every parent knows the “back to school” list is a necessary evil. These are the things your child’s teachers have dictated he or she must have to succeed in school for that year. Some of the things you buy don’t even get used while others disappear so quickly you wonder why you didn’t just go to the wholesale club and buy a truckload of the stuff (filler paper, magic markers and glue sticks have done it to me in the past).

As my own child prepares to head back, I reflect on this summer. Where the heck did it go? Seems like she just wrapped last year a few days ago and now she’s moving up a grade. And no, you cannot – can not – use the same backpack and binder again. That’s just tacky. New outfits and new stuff. Because the Jonas Brothers are out and Bieber is in…and, pretty soon, someone goofier and younger than him will come along and we’ll need another new backpack and binder.

It’s all about style for her – preparedness comes second.

In finance, we’ve never worried much about either.

See, other vendors out there have created products with no scale and no change. They sold you the perfect solution for ten years ago and that same solution might not be so “hot” anymore. What do you do? It took you forever to convince your management team to get on board with a product and now that the product’s no longer cutting it, you don’t want to relive the change process.

We know it’s stressful. We’ve been there. But we’re also a company that’s investing our time in making our products better – more stable, more usable, more dependable. And we pride ourselves on uptime and smooth transitions because those are the things that we know are important to you in the long run.

Let’s talk about what we think you need to have/have to do while going back into this new school year…

Lose Leaf Paper

No, that’s not a typo – we think you should lose the paper. We know a totally paperless bank or credit union is a pipe dream, but we think it’s a very good goal. Ever since we started our company blog, we’ve been hammering this point to death, and we’re not stopping anytime soon. Paper is two costs – the cost of printing and the cost of postage. Both costs are increasing with rising fuel costs and an increase in the price of pulp from last year. It’s time to start finding smart ways to cut paper and postage and move more of your paper to the online channel. The people who were grumbling about the “feel of newspapers” and “how nice it is to get a letter” a few years ago bought an iPad or a Kindle and got over it. Re-survey the consumer base and ask what devices they’re using, how comfortable they are with the Internet, and whether or not they know how many trees they’d be saving if they gave up eStatements for their accounts.

The Magic Markers

Time to start setting some benchmarks for yourself and your financial institution. What should your eStatement penetration be? How high should your opened-versus-unopened email ratio be? These are the kind of numbers worth knowing. We have a benchmarking report that we think would be helpful for you – click here to email us and we can send you a copy.

The Glue

As we move forward into the next decade, the distances between your online services needs to shrink. One of the popular upgrades being made by many of our clients is a streamlined site-to-OLB experience. Single sign-on and multi-use platforms are going to be important, as users are expecting a “one-stop-shop” approach in an online banking experience.

Do you have everything you need?

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August 9, 2011

Keeping An Eye on You…What Google Analytics Tells Us About Our Visitors

Filed under: Blogging,DigitalMailer,email marketing,eStrategy,Marketing,technology,web sites,Webinars — admin @ 12:46 pm

by Jimmy Marks

As the person who runs our website, I have to deal with a lot of data. Going out, coming in, passing by, and reading through – I have to keep my eyes on a constant flow of numbers and figures. One of the tools that’s helped incredibly is Google Analytics. With Analytics, I get a pretty in-depth view of my viewers. I don’t get their names and their exact locations or anything like that. I do, however, get a LOT of data about the “typical viewer”.

To show you what I see when I plug in given dates and look at the data, I’m going to run down who my average viewer is and how he/she behaves on our website (based on the data I have from January 1 of this year to now).

The Average DigitalMailer.com viewer:

Is from Virginia, Texas or California
Is an English Speaker
Is visiting on a Wednesday or a Thursday (I’m betting Wednesday is the day you’re reading this)
Views about two pages in each visit to the site
Is viewing our site on Internet Explorer on a Windows machine
If they’re viewing the site on a mobile phone, it’s with an iPhone (I’m not sure which carrier, AT&T or Verizon)
Came to the site directly
Is looking into email marketing, QR Code learning sessions, Webinars, or just basic info about the company

That’s only a little taste of everything I know about my site and my viewers. Why do I think that’s important information? Well…

Our business isn’t locked into one particular region, we can go anywhere. But if I were a business that wanted to identify my typical reader/user and play to their sensibilities and market to them, wouldn’t it be helpful to “hit ‘em where they live”? I not only get to see the average user’s state, but their home town, too.
If I had a high number of Spanish language users and no Spanish language site, I’d be leaning on Google Translate’s interpretation of my content. Is it going to come across?
If my big visit days are Wednesdays and Thursdays, that’s when I’m going to want to make the most “ruckus” with my content. Post blogs on those days, change pages that are heavy volume, check who signed up for our newsletter…
If the site looks absolutely wretched or breaks on Internet Explorer, I’m so dead. As a Mac guy, you can drink a little too much Kool-Aid and think of Safari and Chrome as the view of the user. You have to keep those browsers top-of-mind.
As I mentioned in my “Time to Mobilize” article, that site better work well on the iPhone.
I’m sort of surprised that so many of our viewers came directly to the site – we get a lot of referrals and search traffic. One thing I noticed about our Google Keyword? Most people find us by googling “Digital Mailer”. Has that become the new URL? Just googling the thing you want?

The more you know, people. If you don’t already have an Analytics package in place (and you know that Google Analytics is free, right?), you need to get on it. It’s 2011 and your greatest weapon is what you know. Talk to your web designer/developer today and get going.

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The DigitalMailer Blog

DigitalMailer Benchmarks: How many of your consumers should be using eStatements?

They’ve Got Mail (But Do They Open It?)

How do you “measure up”?

Who “Lost It” in 2011?

Who Do YOU Love (And Who Loves You Back)?

The Losing Team

Waking up to Mobile Marketing…

The Financial Industry “Back to School” List

Keeping An Eye on You…What Google Analytics Tells Us About Our Visitors

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