David Reed

DMA email tracking report 2014

The DMA with its insight partner fast.MAP and sponsor dbsdata has published the latest results of its email tracking research series. The results are from the sixth wave of the email tracking survey, which explores consumer attitudes and trends for email marketing in the United Kingdom. This article covers findings from the new questions that were added in the most recent offering of the survey and highlights some important trends across the averages reported year-on-year.

Piano Media profiles visitors and drives conversion

Publishers need to attract visitors to their websites with free content and encourage them to register for enhanced access. These registered users are the best prospects for conversion to paid subscription, but it is challenging to identify which registered users are the most likely to convert. This case study looks at how Piano Media used a tagging and profiling tool from VisualDNA to generate propensity scores that drove a threefold improvement in sales of subscriptions.

fast.MAP Marketing-GAP research — IDM-sponsored questions

For 9 years, research firm fast.MAP has been surveying consumers about their reactions to a range of marketing activities and asking marketers to anticipate what their responses will be. The difference between these two sets of answers is the ‘marketing gap’, which reveals where marketers have got out of step with consumer attitudes. This article reviews the findings from the most recent survey and a set of questions sponsored by the IDM. These reveal some important differences between expectations among marketers about the adoption of technology and social media compared with the reality among consumers.

When a brand makes a promise: British Gas, integration and ‘Doing the Right Thing’

Increasingly, brands are making direct promises to their customers and putting the customer experience at the heart of the brand strategy. Rather than making boasts — think of British Airways, the ‘Worlds Favourite Airline’ or BMW, the ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’ — more progressive marketers, particularly in service sectors, try to express their brand as a promise. Norwich Union will ‘Quote You Happy’. BT ‘Gives More Power to You’. Tesco ensures ‘Every Little Helps’.Often expressed as advertising straplines, these brand promises nonetheless go beyond advertising and are potentially very powerful ways to differentiate in crowded, competitive markets. The fact that an increasing number of brands feel the need to make a promise to customers, and not just boast, is a good thing. The brand visionaries, who set out to define why customers should buy their products not just now but also tomorrow, are contributing to the long-term health of their brands, not simply exploiting the equity earned in the past.In recent times British Gas has embraced this new way of thinking. With the increased onset of market competition following deregulation, British Gas was faced with a need to demonstrate how it was different from and better than its competitors. Given that its core products are commodities, it decided that the answer lay not in the products themselves, but in how it delivered those products. British Gas had to launch a new brand promise to customers.That promise, ‘Doing the Right Thing’, set a new benchmark for how British Gas and its employees act. The ideas strength is that it is a decision-making tool, where doing the right thing for customers takes priority within the business. This brand promise is in its infancy, but already major changes are taking place within the organisation, influencing long-term strategy and the everyday actions of staff. Slowly, customers are experiencing a change in how British Gas serves them. Over the next five years one will see the brand transform, becoming genuinely customer-focused; an organisation that delivers real benefits and differentiates the brand in the energy sector and beyond.This is the story of how British Gas and its agencies — EHS Brann, Clemmow Hornby and Inge and WWAV Rapp Collins — worked as one team to launch ‘Doing the Right Thing’. Together they are working to create an integrated customer experience that will give the brand a lasting advantage over its competitors.