How can companies acquire a database?

Organically growing a database is the best way to go about acquiring one, however the process takes a fair amount of time. This usually done by having sign-up forms on the relevant company website or social media profile. Surveys are also a popular way of expanding your database. Whichever way any company chooses to go about it – it is vital that permission is never assumed. People have to opt-in – that is: they have to actively give your company permission to receive marketing material.

So, how can companies gain access to a clean, well-managed database that they did not necessarily grow themselves? The answer lies in email data rental. Unfortunately the business of data and email marketing has been besmirched by the foul actions of a community of irresponsible companies who deal with email data that is not only obtained illegally but is non-responsive and unorganized.

What is email data rental?

Email Data Rental is a service offered by companies who specialise in email marketing. These companies, such as Digital Fire possess a large database that consists of managed, profiled lists of opt-in subscribers. That means that people on such email databases have given their permission to be contacted, they have profiled themselves and have indicated their preference for products and services in which they are interested.

This is the critical difference between dodgy email address lists and databases that have been assembled with care by professional marketing agencies that not only understand the laws regarding spam and unsolicited emails but also respect the business of email marketing and that of their clients.

Because these lists are maintained, regularly cleaned and updated, the data possessed by these companies are highly responsive and therefore deliver high success rates when it comes to campaigns. Brands who wish to gain limited access to these lists can then do so by renting the list or profiled database from reputable digital marketing agencies.

The price of data rental is directly influenced by the quality of the data. Naturally, responsive data that was gathered in a legal, responsible manner through opt-in methods are highly prized and are therefore more expensive than borderline-legal, dodgy data gathered through dubious methods.

Email data rental is therefore a wonderful marketing solution for companies who both have a very small or yet undeveloped database and wish to reach more customers and thereby develop a database of their own.

One of the most important rules when it comes to email marketing is never to assume permission. Email marketing should always be opt-in or permission based – which means a consumer has to actively agree that they want to receive marketing messages from your brand. Sending unsolicited mailers to people who did not expressly ask to receive them is not only a violation of their privacy but often a violation consumer laws.

Often however, companies are not purposefully spamming people but are merely mistakenly assuming that people want to be added to their mailing lists. This is a common mistake, but one that should be avoided by marketers at all costs.

Here are some groups that email marketers typically assume permission from:

• Customers Who Purchased

Online shopping orders usually require customers to provide companies with an email address. This is usually done in order to send the customer’s receipts, delivery information etc., but that doesn’t mean these customers want to receive your marketing messages.

• Support Inquiries

It is totally unacceptable to add the email addresses of people who have contacted your company for customer support. These customers expect service and a solution to their problem – not to receive your promotional material.

• Social Media Followers and Fans

Although companies are granted relatively easy access to the email addresses of many of their Facebook fans, LinkedIn contacts, etc. – this access does not entitle a company to add those contacts to their mailing list. Your social media followers agreed they want to connect with you via these social networks, but that doesn’t mean they want to be on your mailing list.

Assuming permission to market to customers can have negative implications for your company. Here are some things that are likely to happen:

1. You might damage your brand’s reputation. Receiving unsolicited mail is an annoyance that few people today want to put up with. Disgruntled customers complain by word of mouth and online – which ultimately results in your brand being shown in a negative light.
2. If people are complaining about your brand sending them unwarranted mailers, or marking those mailers as spam, email clients will start filtering your mailers as soon as they are sent out. This results in decreased deliverability, which means that subscribers who want to receive your mailers may not get them.
3. You risk alienating and annoying potentially interested subscribers. All email marketing should always be permission based, and the subscriber must always actively – not tacitly – grant that permission. It’s a common mistake in the marketing world to assume that certain people would want to know more about your brand, even if they didn’t actually agree to it, but it’s definitely one to be avoided. The benefits of marketing to people who want to hear from your brand are great, and happy subscribers could one day turn into happy customers.

According to the latest figures:

• 56% of all travel is now researched, booked, bought and sold online
• 96% of travellers start their research on the internet
• In the recession online travel sales suffered the least (2% down) and have already bounced back – by just over 7%
• For over 95% of travellers the internet is their primary source of information about travel- and increasingly their means of selecting booking and buying – 55% on average

These statistics clearly indicate the extent to which the travel industry has become assimilated into digital culture. Where in the past people relied on travel agencies to meet their travel needs, the economic downturn and the proliferation of a tech-savvy generation has caused online travel services to surge. People are using sites such as TripAdvisor to sus out accommodation and hot spots while using websites to book everything from airline tickets to youth hostels and luxury hotels.

So what can travel brands do to make their mark and stand out in the digital world?

On the company website

Web design

Any travel service, whether it be a flight booking or hotel website must have a professional presence online in the form of a beautiful and functional website. Employing a digital agency or a seasoned web developer is crucial – the majority of people no longer waste time with websites that are difficult to navigate or unpleasant to behold.

Search Engine Optimisation

In order to make sure that people find your site when searching for keywords related to your business it is essential to have an SEO expert take a look at your site. Most people start planning their travels on Google so ranking highly in the search results pages is absolutely essential to a travel brand.

On social networking sites

In today’s online and super connected world, brands cannot afford to ignore social media as an aspect in their digital marketing strategy. Studies show that most people now use the web for social and that roughly 30% of all time online is spent social networking. In order to tap into this vast global community, brands should establish and maintain a social media presence that is engaging, helpful and valuable to their followers and fans. One of the best ways to ensure that your travel brand’s social media is up-to-date, well managed and successful is to employ the services of a dedicated team at a reputable digital agency.

Email marketing

Email marketing is one of the most successful components in the digital marketing domain. It is not only highly effective and responsive, but cost-effective, measurable and timesaving. However, sending out promotional mailers is not merely a matter of clicking “send to all”. In order to uphold the highest level of professionalism – and to ensure that your brand stays on the right side of privacy laws -it is imperative that you seek the services of a digital agency that specialises in email marketing.

Earlier in April, Nando’s – a South African fast-food chain known for their facetious, tongue-in-cheek adverts – spoofed a television advert of one of South Africa’s most well-known insurance companies, Santam and inserted their own marketing message.

The original Santam ad features British actor Ben Kingsley discussing the paperwork involved with insurance and the importance of constant vigilance. Nando’s immediately saw the opportunity to spoof the solemn tone of the advert and did so with their usual flippant flair.

Usually, brands who end up sparring because of copyright infringements take their cases and their lawyers to court or die ASA, but Santam’s marketers saw an opportunity to level the playing field without resorting to conflict.

Instead they responded to Nando’s with a spoof video of their own. The video features a Ben Kingsley lookalike who promptly issues a challenge to the fast food restaurant before cheekily asking if they’re “chicken”. Pretty apt considering that the fast food joint in question specialises in Portuguese style poultry. The challenge: to deliver an enormous food delivery to the children of the Johannesburg Children’s Home.

See the video here:

Both videos instantly went viral, setting news sites and social networks abuzz. Initially, it was unclear whether Nando’s would accept Santam’s challenge, but on Wednesday Nando’s confirmed that they would not only accept the challenge but that they would deliver an additional meal per month to the children’s home for the twelve months.

The videos are undoubtedly a marketing hit with both companies emerging as the winners in a battle that could so easily have been yet another exasperating tiff between big brands. On Thursday it was reported to the nation’s delight that Nando’s had indeed delivered the meals to the needy children.

Santam even took their moment in the spotlight a step further by initiating a huge site takeover on South Africa’s biggest online publisher News24 on Thursday. The popularity of these off-the-cuff campaigns has proven the undeniable popularity and power of video as well as digital marketing in our world today.

Consider hiring the professionals

One of the most important things brands need to understand is that being active and supportive on Facebook truly is a serious and often full time job. Pages need to be monitored and managed on a daily basis and responses should be swift and handled with professionalism. This is sometimes a tall order for most companies that don’t have a dedicated team who are responsible for social media. And when companies dump the responsibility on the shoulders of other employees within the company who already have a lot on their plate, they run the risk of having their social media either being neglected or run incorrectly.

These are all reasons why it is a good idea to have a digital agency manage your brand’s social media presence.

However, if your brand has the resources to manage your own Facebook page, these are some of the rules:

• Respond to any queries, comments (positive or negative) as promptly as possible.
• Never delete negative comments – engage with the user and try to determine the facts surrounding the incident and what you can do to help.
• Say thank you and continually show appreciation for any support your brand receives from happy customers
• Stay active on your page – a stagnant page with old content tells people that interaction with your community is not a priority for your brand.

Humanise

They may seem obvious, but many brands fail at making their brands seem more like people rather than faceless corporations. People relate to brands that are able to keep it genial and mostly informal, while still acting responsible as a company.

Seeming approachable on Facebook is very important, as this will stimulate conversations and build trust between your brand and the consumer.

Some of the things your brand can do to seem more human and less imposing is to use social media to crowd source – allow your community of fans to take part and share their personal experiences, designs and ideas. This not only helps your brand to trace great content and ideas, but also fosters a sense of unity between the brand and its fans.

However, the most important thing your brand can do when it comes to humanising your brand in the context of customer service is to admit when you’re wrong. A few mistakes here and there are inevitable, but admitting when you are at fault allows people and fans to forgive and move on. Denial on the other hand will only serve to exasperate an already unpleasant situation.

Timeline for brands

Facebook recently launched Timeline for brands and the new look and feel of these pages are already helping brands with customer service.

One of the best new features of the Timeline is that people can now send direct private messages to brands. This is helpful as brands can respond to people in a personal manner as opposed to leaving a comment that might get lost in a long thread of status updates.

Timeline also allows brands to “pin” certain posts to the top of their page. This is helpful in circumstances when brands receive an influx of similar questions that can be answered by that particular post.

As social media expands to one of the most used tools on the web, brands will have to make sure that they are able to deliver the same quality of customer service on their social media pages as they do from their company base.

Observations and misconceptions

The study conducted by TNS groups the three million or so black diamonds into four categories, namely: Mzansi youth, start-me-ups, young families and established families. These groups represent youth who are still living with their parents, but already have spending power, young, ambitious professionals, young families often climbing on the property ladder and older families who were active during the time of the struggle respectively.

Although these sub-groups have slightly different preferences and habits they are united in the fact that they fall within the middle class. This, in fact is one of the points that marketing experts have emphasized in conversations regarding the emerging black middleclass -that they are in fact part of the middle class and that they are not, as many erroneously believed part of the super rich.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that their spending habits and brand preferences are not wildly exorbitant, but rather sensible and moderate. For instance, the most popular car black diamonds is a Toyota and not a Jaguar or Mercedes as is often assumed. Their favourite shopping outlets also reflect middleclass sensibilities with stores such as Edgars, Woolworths, Shoprite and Mr Price ranking on top.

Targeting the black diamond market

Black diamonds, just like other groups within the middle classes, are digitally connected and online. While most prefer to access the internet from the office, many opt to access the internet from their mobile phones – a habit that falls within a distinctly African trend. As a group, there is a prevalent fondness for owning mobile phones with over 89% owning a mobile compared to 84% of other middle class groups. This of course makes these high LSM black group an ideal target group for most forms of digital marketing, but most notably – mobile marketing.

This growing group of upwardly mobile black people is playing a huge role in South Africa’s economy so it’s no wonder that marketers should wish to target them. However, a keen understanding of this complex and varied market is necessary and marketers should be prepared to do their research before launching into campaigns.

Tracking results is the only way to establish whether the emails your business are sending out are actually performing and making a difference in your marketing strategy. Email open rates make up part of these results. Put simply, open rate is a metric to track how many of the emails you send out are being opened by your subscribers – the amount of total delivered emails that were opened.

Measuring open rates

When each email is sent out, a piece of code is added that requests a small, undetectable image from the relevant web servers. Thus, when a reader opens an email, the image is downloaded, allowing companies to record that download as an open for that specific email.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that the open rate is not a 100% accurate measure. Recording an ‘open’ is only possible if the reader’s email client is capable of displaying html with images, and if that option is activated within their email client. Therefore, companies that are sending text-only emails will not be able to record open rates (with the exception being if the text email contains a clickable link). Similarly, people who receive html mailers with the images disabled will not be recorded as ‘opens’.

Opening rates vary from email campaign to campaign. The rate obtained for any list, or group of lists will differ according to how it was measured, when it was sent, the size of the list and a host of other potential variables. There are some trends though – niche topics as well as organizations that focus on specific supporters are more likely to see higher open rates, while large companies with extensive databases often see lower open rates. Generally however, a figure between 20 and 40% is considered an average open rate.

Don’t be fooled

Of course a high open rate for any email campaign means that you’re doing something right, but it is important to remember that an open rate only tells us half the story. Opening an email does not necessarily amount to any valuable interaction with the email – the mere fact that the email was opened does not mean that the recipient read it, saw the pictures or clicked through on any of the embedded links.

Even though email open rates are not the only or the most accurate indicator of success, they do indicate that people are following through on the first step of coming into contact with your marketing – which in itself is a good thing at any rate.

Here are some pointers that will help improve you company’s email open rate:

• Subject lines

Email subject lines should always aim to be snappy, succinct and accurate. It’s also important to avoid using spam phrases at all costs. These would include old classics such as: Congratulations, Winner, Free Stuff etc. Rather, try to include as much detail as possible regarding the contents of the mailer – this will entice the reader and hopefully nudge them towards opening and reading.

• Trim the excess for success

Make sure that you are receiving reports that allow you to determine which emails are either bouncing or which subscribers are not opening your emails on a consistent basis. Pulling people from your list who never open your emails can radically increase your open rate. This will also allow you to hone in on the remaining subscribers by formulating targeted campaigns that’s much more likely get a solid response.

• Eye-catching layout

When designing a mailer a good idea is to focus important content at the very top. Many email clients display the top half of unopened emails allowing the reader to get a sneak peek at what’s inside. Eye grabbing content could lures the reader and could potentially result in an opened mailer.

• Excellent timing

Luckily in this case timing is not everything but it can make a positive difference to your campaign. Emails that appear in inboxes at the right time are much more likely to be opened and read. People’s schedules are busy, so grabbing their attention while they are sitting down and committing to checking their emails is the best strategy here. During lunch or after work generally sees a spike in email checking – particularly those that do not necessarily pertain to work.

Open rates are a valuable measure that can indicate whether your campaigns are working or not – but its inaccuracy and many variables can often be misleading. A good idea would be to consider open rate data alongside other results data as part of a holistic approach when measuring campaign effectiveness.

]]> http://www.digitalfire.co.za/blog/a-closer-look-at-email-open-rates/feed/ 0 http://www.digitalfire.co.za/blog/mobile-marketing/ http://www.digitalfire.co.za/blog/mobile-marketing/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:33:04 +0000 Digital Fire http://www.digitalfire.co.za/?p=2457 Continue reading →]]> Mobile marketing is currently one of the most versatile and successful ways for businesses to communicate directly with consumers – particularly with South African consumers. Through mobile marketing marketers are able to target and engage mobile users via their mobile devices – sending marketing messages to them directly or allowing them to visit a mobile website. Mobile usage is growing at a phenomenal rate and all sources point to the fact the future of marketing – especially marketing in Africa – lies with mobile.

Due to the general shortage of traditional, desktop based Internet connectivity South Africa has experienced a boom in terms of mobile usage that trumps most other countries. Currently South Africa is 6th on the world’s top 10 for mobile Internet connectivity Top 10) with over 70% of South African mobile subscribers not owning a land line connection at all. This rapid increase in mobile users mean that marketers now have access to a massive, constantly expanding market that is still relatively untapped.

Beyond these encouraging statistics, mobile marketing also boasts inherent attributes that make it an ideal platform for marketers.



Why mobile marketing is effective

Mobile marketing works for a number of reasons but some of the most obvious are due to the very nature of mobile devices themselves. Mobile phones have become practically universal – it is a personal device that is is always carried by almost everyone. This means that marketers are able to capture the attentions of a wide array of people on any given day. In addition there’s the fact that mobile phones are rarely switched off these days – the digital generation prefer to be “on” everyday, at all times. The mobile phone truly does capture the social context of media consumption, which means that people are more accessible to brands.

Why companies should look to invest in mobile marketing

Mobile marketing works and a punchy, integrated campaign will be able to deliver exceptional return on investment for any company that puts utilizes it. Here are some of the reasons why mobile marketing offers brands such an efficient marketing solution.

• It’s cost-effective

One of the best things about mobile marketing is that it is extremely effective, yet often relatively inexpensive. An SMS campaign, for instance can be done on a reasonably small budget.

• It’s Flexible

Mobile marketing is by no means limited to SMS. Campaigns can range from MMS and mobile-search through to QR-codes and mobile-commerce sites. Different campaigns come with different price tags and some types are limited to Mobile certain kinds of handsets, but for the most part all manner of mobile campaigns have proven to be very successful.

• It’s Uncomplicated

Mobile marketing is relatively easy to implement and understand and as platforms and handsets become increasingly universal the process of setting up campaigns is becoming even easier. In particular the dominance of Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS in the smart phone market has had a positive influence on digital marketing as apps and systems become universal.

• Reach

With mobile marketing brands are able to reach millions of subscribers instantly while consistently adding to their database. Furthermore, the ever-increasing prevalence of mobile usage contributes to a large and growing market.

• Integrate into other campaigns

Mobile marketing is easy to integrate into a variety of other campaigns including email and social media. In fact, it’s implementing a variety of integrated campaigns as a whole that usually gets the best results.

• Measurability

As with other forms of digital marketing, one of mobile’s greatest benefits is its measurability. Message delivery rates, response rates and sales conversions can all be tracked accurately with mobile marketing. This is a huge advantage for marketers who need to analyze the effectiveness of different campaigns and need to report back to their clients.

]]> http://www.digitalfire.co.za/blog/mobile-marketing/feed/ 0 http://www.digitalfire.co.za/blog/why-email-marketing-is-so-effective/ http://www.digitalfire.co.za/blog/why-email-marketing-is-so-effective/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:13:52 +0000 Digital Fire http://www.digitalfire.co.za/?p=2451 Continue reading →]]> Email has been proven to be one of the most effective marketing mediums available to companies and brands today. Its many benefits and merits has cemented its place as an integral part of any digital campaign, and as the online world and social networks expand, email too has gone from strength to strength. In this article we will look at some of the reasons why email marketing is able to boast such unparalleled effectiveness and how companies and brands can benefit from running well-managed email campaigns.

Email is ubiquitous

Emails are an omnipresent part of life in the Internet age. People of almost every age group and background use email on a daily basis – often checking their inboxes more than once in one day. The frequency with which people check their emails provides marketers with an ideal opportunity to come into direct contact with their target market in a way that few other marketing mediums allow. The increasing popularity of smart phones and tablet devices is also influencing the effectiveness of email marketing. Smart devices alert people every time emails are received which means people check their emails as they come through – at any time and at any place.

Emails are user- and marketer friendly

Emails are not only visually appealing and accessible to the consumers who receive them; they are easy to manage by the companies and marketers who send them. Because of their brevity and high amount of visual content, emails can be read in a matter of seconds – this makes it less time-consuming than other marketing mediums and thus more appealing to readers. The visual aspects also have other strengths – it grabs attention and thus allows companies to reach their loyal customers while enticing new ones.



The management of an email marketing campaign is also straightforward and streamlined – which saves marketers and companies’ money and time. Emails are sent en masse, which means that a limited amount of work still has the ability to reach millions of people instantly. Yet, despite its wide reach emails are environmentally friendly and cost effective. Email campaigns are also totally measurable, allowing brands and companies to see exactly how well mailers performed and how they compare to other campaigns.

Email caters to the individual

One of the best things about email is that emails can be individualized within a large database list. The intimate nature of email makes it inherently personal, so companies can tap into that by tailoring their mailers even further. By using segmented and well-managed databases marketers are able to target specific groups with specific interests. The inclusion of personal details such as a subscriber’s name at the beginning of an email as well as the personalized content that caters to the interests of that specific subscriber is certain to make an impression.

Email in conjunction with social networks

With the popularity of social networks on the rise, many feared that there would eventually not be space for email as part of our digital digests. However, the opposite has happened. Not only is email still as popular as ever – it actually works particularly well alongside social media as part of a comprehensive strategy. Email campaigns are still one of the best ways to bolster any brand’s social media, but the interaction doesn’t end there. The latest email campaigns all now contain links to the brand in question’s social networks – allowing people to join their groups, become followers or fans or even to share the content of the email via their own social network of choice.

Email marketing has come along way since its inception, and it is still growing and expanding at a phenomenal pace. Businesses who utilise email as part of their digital marketing offering see remarkable results and experience ROI unheard of through other marketing means.

]]> http://www.digitalfire.co.za/blog/why-email-marketing-is-so-effective/feed/ 0 http://www.digitalfire.co.za/blog/email-marketing-for-emerging-markets/ http://www.digitalfire.co.za/blog/email-marketing-for-emerging-markets/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:33:00 +0000 Digital Fire http://www.digitalfire.co.za/?p=2444 Continue reading →]]> In today’s unstable economy the world is increasingly turning its gaze to emerging markets – countries that are experiencing rapid growth and industrialisation. BRIC, the group acronym that refers to the biggest players in the emerging market field, (Brazil, Russia, India and China) has become a buzzword for marketers as more and more companies expand towards these countries and the potential customers they represent. These new frontiers so to speak can potentially offer marketers and businesses proper ROI and growth in saturated, established and post-recessionary markets.



Internet penetration is growing fast within these territories, which in turn is opening the door for digital marketing. Email marketing in particular is becoming one of the most successful strategies when it comes to reaching these new markets and many brands are now seeking to grow their databases in order to do so. Email’s measurability and overall low cost lends itself well to catering for emerging markets. But email is not only proving effective in these markets, but also popular and accepted due to its environmental friendliness and low risk.

South Africa as emerging market

South Africa is considered to be one of the most prominent emerging markets and certainly one of the fastest developing economies in Africa. South Africa is also experiencing a surge in Internet users with more and more people and companies going digital every year.

Compared to more developed international markets however, South Africa is still unfledged, but this does hold some benefits to marketers. Unlike the developed markets South Africans are not bombarded with nearly as much marketing content- which thus leaves room for brands to introduce themselves to ‘fresh’ customers.

Companies and brands that are not that well known in Southern Africa could particularly benefit here, as emerging markets steadily starts gaining an appetite for products from other corners of the globe.

Companies such as Digital Fire are actively working to bring quality opt-in email marketing to the local SA market- and the only way to do that is by acquiring a clean, well-managed email database.

Growing your database in emerging markets

A well-managed email database is one of a company’s most valuable assets. Growing a database of emerging market subscribers aught to follow the same policy as when growing any other database. Growing a database organically is a good route to take and it is essential to adhere to the rules set out by the Consumer Protection Act. This means that all contacts on your database must have actively opted in to receive marketing messages. Remember, even if your company is marketing to other nationality’s -respecting the privacy and rights of all consumers is not only best practice, but also the best way to ensure that your company does not breach any laws.

Another nifty tip: if you are focusing on an emerging market that speaks another language – make sure that your system is able to handle that language’s special alphabet or characters. Another way to expand your contact list is too get in touch with companies who supply email data rental. Renting clean data from a reputable company is the easiest and most effective way to gain access to new subscribers in emerging market countries.

Tailor content towards your new market

Although email is now a global tool, different nationalities still have their idiosyncrasies. Sit down with your creative team and make sure that the content and products you are marketing caters to the culture and tastes of the relevant emerging market and that there is nothing that could potentially offend any group of people. As always, a segmented database is the best way to tailor any campaign to a specific group and extra personalization is a great way to take it even further. Once again, make sure that your systems can take any special alphabet into account and make sure that names and greeting that appear in any other language is spelt correctly.

Email truly has gone global so it makes sense for marketers to start turning their attention towards emerging markets. The new territories holds promise for any brand that wants to expand and email is the perfect way to reach these new prospects. By slightly altering campaigns and working with other companies to grow or expand your database, more and more companies will be able to tap into this new, growing market.

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