Monday, June 23, 2014

Growing Your E-Mail List Under Anti-Spam Legislation


Manage E-Mail subscribers with Value
Immediate CEM compliance action may be premature as organizations seek to gain express consent  from their certified electronic mail (CEM) subscribers - to ensure they are compliant with the anti-spam, legislation which is about to come into effect in Canada (July 1, 2014). While most companies and organizations want is to abide by the legislation – trying to gain immediate express consent may be short sited. You could severely undermine your organizations ability to reach out to your customers or members before carefully considering a strategy to gain express consent.

Three Steps to Compliance

The new legislation states that there are three general requirements for sending the CEM to an electronic address. You need (1) consent, (2) identification information and (3) an unsubscribe mechanism. Let’s address items two and three, first.  Most CEM tools such as I contact, Constant Contact or even a custom solution already include this functionality within their protocols and even demand them when deploying your e-mail messages. Organizations that create and deploy such tools sets will undergo careful scrutiny long before individual organizations, so they will be sure to bring their tool sets into compliance since this will affect their business model. 

Conduct an Audit

If you conduct an audit of your existing systems and process, most organizations will have this already in place. If you do not, than I certainly recommend you research and upgrade to a modern tool set that allows this as a simple automated function.  The first two issues are fairly straight forward and are tactical in nature and do not require you to communicate with your customer base however the third component of the legislation requires you to have one of two types of consent to communicate with subscribers, either implied or expressed consent.  Like all legislation there is a period of voluntary compliance. The period in the case of CASL is three years – so – you must be fully compliant by July 1, 2017 which suggests that you have a three year window to convert implied relationships into express consent relationships.    

Expess Consent

The express consent relationship is very straight forward. Express consent can be obtained either in writing or orally. In either case, the onus is on the person who is sending the message to prove they have obtained consent to send electronic messages by tracking, whether consent was obtained in writing or orally, when it was obtained, why it was obtained, and the manner in which it was obtained.

Implied Consent

Implied consent is a little broader in its interpretation and has a number or provisions that allow you to continue to communicate with your audience. For example, there is an exception to the consent requirement for commercial electronic messages (CEMs) sent following a referral, if certain conditions are met. The referral must be made by an individual who has an existing business relationship, an existing non-business relationship, a family relationship or a personal relationship with the sender and the recipient of the CEM. Also, the full name of the individual who made the referral and a statement that the CEM is sent as a result of a referral must be in the CEM.

Also, consent may be implied where CEMs are sent to members of an association, club or voluntary organization such as a non-profit organization, organized and operated exclusively for social welfare, civic improvement, pleasure or recreation or for any purpose other than personal profit, and no part of its income is payable for the personal benefit of any member, proprietor or shareholder unless that entity is an organization whose primary purpose is the promotion of amateur athletics in Canada. 

The CEM must still respect the other two requirements – it must contain the identification information and offer an unsubscribe mechanism.

If you are in the process of seeking express permissions, it is important to take the time to develop an incentive based approach to CEMs. Each organization needs to create a value proposition that will engage its existing CEM audience and define the value of the relationship. When you ask that all important question “Do you wish to continue receiving our e-mails?” you will experience a significant “decline rate” so you will want to provide some incentive for your audience to understand and benefit and value in your relationship. 

Creating a Value Proposition

Periodic incentive coupons ( 20 – 50% off) redeemable at physical or electronic locations, (depending on your business model, free delivery , special draws for enhanced service or promotional products, special events, access to unique services (unavailable to regular customers) are just few simple examples of how you can encourage your “Implied Consent”  audience to choose to become your “Express Consent” audience.

We work a number of organizations to design and implement such strategies – contact us if you want to grow your CEM list rather than shrink it.  

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Onboarding - Business Building Strategy?

E-Learning - the Future of Onboarding
New hires, staff turnover, lateral moves, promotions and existing employees all need one thing…a consistent vision and understanding of an organization’s values and mission. We espouse these business mantras to our customers through a variety of online tools, yet we omit delivering these important principles to our most valued asset, our employees.

Using your orientation or onboarding program as a means of motivating, creating skills and creating a common vision can be a powerful tool for growth when used effectively. History, mission statements, product evolution & growth, core values, roles & responsibilities, acquisitions, commitment to opportunity, customer service and more, are all important components in the narrative behind an organization’s success. This process helps bond a prospective employee to an organization and prepares them to be successful.   

Many organizations use outdated & inconsistent information, legacy technology and redundant means of communication to integrate a new hire into the organization and as a result they are not exposed to customer expectations, core values and branding narratives and much more.  Additionally, the existing process offers organizations no understanding of the comprehension and commitment of the new hire with few ways of tracking or evaluating their participation.

While we have leveraged almost every possible channel to market to our customers, we have missed a significant opportunity to allow our employees, (what I would describe as a key stakeholder)  to contribute to the growth of an organization through a deeper and more consistent understanding of an organization’s vision.

Today we see fewer employees entering at the bottom of the employment ladder and working their way up. We no longer “start employees in the mail room” and expect them to work their way to the top.  What we do see, is well educated, entitled employees coming into the workforce with no experience and being placed in increasingly important roles, with little or no guidance. When they fail we have been able to quickly replace these prospective employees – with someone from the over-abundant ranks of the unemployed. That strategy is beginning to dry up and those companies who have strong recruitment and retention programs in place are skimming off the cream of the crop.

So far we have been able to withstand the costs associated with “churn” and the resulting turmoil because of a stagnant economy which has created low expectations, and the continued availability of skilled baby boomers to take up the slack.  This has left the ranks of many organizations and companies thin, with insufficient customer service, product or organizational knowledge, resulting in middle managers who are poorly equipped to take on “next level” job responsibilities and remain loyal to an organization.

Onboarding as it’s called today is the process of forging employees and introducing them to the vision and mission of an organization. It helps define company loyalty by ensuring that they understand organizational goals and carry the collective memory of an organization’s successes and failures forward in decision making.  This is valuable information for “would be” middle managers within any organization seeking to manage change and growth in the trenches. It also speaks to a new hire’s recognition that an organizations is willing and committed to invest in growing its employee’s skills.

Onboarding today is often an outdated "mish-mash" of videos, workshops, documents, lectures - that are not effectively organized. This is surprising given that the E-Learning technology offers Human Resource departments a tool set uniquely equipped to be cost effective, easily updated, self-paced, and contain a variety of visual mediums that can easily integrate legacy organizational knowledge as well as espouse an organization’s vision - and its plan for the future.


 E-Learning is an ideal solution for Onboarding yet few organizations truly understand its value and impact on success. A simple 30 - 45 minute self-paced E-Learning module can offer new hires a history of the organization, its customer service strategies, its service delivery model & partners; and an understanding of its customers, products and plans for the future. Such a module can replace repeated, one-off workshops or training sessions that can drain several day of manpower for each new hire. The best part about E-Learning is that each employee can be tested to track comprehension -  and additional important information about a prospective new hire can be gained from a closer examination of each employee’s interaction with the content.

The most difficult part of this process is often the need to create onboarding subject matter and the time and commitment needed by the organization to develop the information and its objectives properly. The great news here is that most organizations already have the basic information in place…it’s the delivery mechanism and performance tracking that can make this a more productive method of onboarding.  The content is easy to update and can be accessed 24/7.


Onboarding needs to step into the future by leveraging new technologies to  grow its skill base from the inside out and create a skilled, and loyal workforce.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

The Biggest Marketing Mistake!

Promoting short term goals
rather than long term growth
 
Most small businesses, "Fall victim to a constantly changing marketing strategy." This mistake is often due to the lack of marketing expertise, fluctuating budgets and cash flow demands. It is just too easy to get off track, or find a reason to starve or change marketing strategies. Owners or senior decision makers within small companies, due to their businesses' more cyclical nature, often focus on promoting short term goals rather than consolidating long term growth. They choose to market, “What they want to Sell” rather than “What The Client Wants.”  

Larger companies are less susceptible to the short term marketing strategy syndrome; because it is much more difficult to get out of existing media agreements, change marketing messages across a variety of mediums and co-ordinate such changes internally and externally. This is where smaller and being more nimble can be a drawback as the temptation to make constant changes to your marketing strategy can be overpowering. I like using this euphemism in such cases, "Just because you can…doesn't mean you should.”
Small business does not have the kind of metrics that allow them to understand the potential of customer awareness, whether they encompass a broad or narrow audience.  They track their sales in terms of weeks and months not quarters or years and in such a narrow sample it is difficult to see growth, especially if your product or services are gaining awareness and sales may not be in lock-step. Small businesses tend to want to see immediate results and are not willing to invest in long term strategies that do not produce verifiable sales.

In virtually every medium we work in, the strategy of maintaining a consistent marketing initiative over time yields more results than trying to buy your way into growth. Growing your market consistently over time through an organic process creates greater customer loyalty in most situations. Media distribution channels that feed short term marketing strategies work like meters, the minute you choose not to feed the meters  - the clients stop coming. In a more consistent long term approach that is centered around  key points like great customer service,  memorable marketing message, sound product value, product knowledge and great pricing  clients tend to be loyal and provide great word of mouth marketing, but tis takes time to trickle through.

Most small business will tell you that referral business and word of mouth is the greatest from of advertising …and I wold say …very true; but the other side of the coin is that word of mouth and referral business is slow and takes time. You want to manage the impression that your customers shares about you and your products… and what they are saying about you consistently. It has to be good of course … but also has to be consistently focused on the message that helps differentiate you and creates long term relationship.

This can only be accomplished through a sustained marketing initiative that is consistent and carefully tracked over time to make sure that the right message is being delivered and received.