Posted on February 7th, 2012
Looking to take your email marketing to the next level in 2012 but managing 1,000,001 other things too? Know what best practice looks like but struggling to find the time and resource to implement it?
Stream:20 Director, Stuart Russell, recently presented at Figaro Digital Email Seminar to teach attendees how to be an Email Superstar in 2012 despite the other pressures they face.
Posted on October 18th, 2011
Win one of three top of the range Crumpler laptop bags!
To celebrate the launch of the their affiliate program, Crumpler EU are offering affiliates the chance to win one of three top of the range laptop bags. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to join the program and generate more than £200 worth of sales during October. The Crumpler affiliate program is running on the Stream20 Network (the same as Jurys Inn) so either sign up there or contact osh.rice@stream20.com. (more…)
Posted on June 23rd, 2011
Here’s the second half of the Stream:20 Top 20 on Email Marketing.
RELEVANCY
12. Relevant content really works; take the time to personalise your emails for better results
Everyone knows that folk expect personalised experiences in their emails but where does that data come from for you to deliver it? Well, naturally, you can start at the email capture point. However, this needn’t be in the form of reams and reams of questions and forms. If you’re looking to deliver gender specific product info in your newsletters, simply use two submit buttons (I’m a bloke/I’m a girl) and collect the data from the subscription action.
13. Be sure to talk to your best customers differently to the rest of your base
Consider how your top customers are different and talk to them appropriately – are they are more sophisticated customer in terms of their product knowledge? Do they buy more in each order or just spend more frequently?
14. Invest in automation and triggers to realise great ROI from your program
Relevancy is not just about content but also timing and reaction. Triggered emails can be a strong driver of ROI so it’s worth investing in automated campaigns. Carefully auditing your site (and other customer touchpoints) will probably bring up a plethora of new ideas.
OPTIMISE CREATIVE
15. Optimise your pre-header and footer real estate at all costs
Regardless of your sector/messaging/type of email, your creative should include a pre-header message with at least a rich text summary message of the email content and linked Call to Actions (CTA) sitting above your entire wireframe. Similarly, your footer can be turned into a prime piece of real estate – design it to reflect your site map for additional click activity.
16. Include a navigation bar in your email that replicates your site
Regular customers will be used to your site and the way it’s laid out. By taking elements of this in to your emails you can maintain the familiarity your customers have built up as well as link them directly to important deep links on the site.
TESTING
17. Test, test and then test again…. and then again…. And again etc etc
Day, time, creative, CTAs, content, tone, wireframe, subject line, frequency… testing is almost limitless and one of email’s key USPs. But unless you have a clear plan it’s also meaningless. Before you start, set clear, attainable, measurable objectives. Don’t rush. And set aside dedicated time to analyse the results.
INTEGRATE
18. Integrate with social media
It is now key to start mapping out your email-social integration strategy today. Really think about what this looks like for your company?
19. Integrate with mobile
Optimising your campaigns and strategy for mobile marketing is simply no longer a consideration, but an absolute necessity.
REPORT
20. Plan to report on the areas that matter to the people who matter
Want buy in from senior management for further channel investment? Stop reporting on opens and clicks. They’re not interested. Instead, work to construct a mature reporting framework around the KPIs they will understand. Revenue, ROI and conversion metrics are the obvious areas to look at first.
These tips are taken from a more in-depth white paper that the Stream:20 Email team wrote. If you would like to receive a copy of the full white paper, please contact Matt Barker at matt.barker@stream:20.com or call him on 020 7793 2450.
Posted on June 20th, 2011
Companies love to send out emails, they’re cheap, they’re quick and are seen as relatively easy to do. But the fact remains that unless you get the basics right an email campaign can end up being at best time consuming and ineffective at worst damaging to your brand. So here are the Stream:20 top 20 tips for getting your email campaign right, first time.
PLANNING
1. Do not email for email’s sake… define a business proposition for your program
As simple as it sounds, defining the objectives of your email program and managing them through a maintained business proposition is critical.
2. Ensure your email program delivers value at every step
Whether it’s exclusive content, sneak previews, offers only available to email subscribers etc., delivering real value to your subscribers creates on-going engagement, which is at such a premium.
3. Become integral to your business’ broader data strategy… and if it doesn’t exist, create it
As the email program manager, make it your business to muscle in (diplomatically of course!) on anything data. And if the Database Marketing Manager isn’t already your best friend, fix it, quick sticks.
4. Define email campaign management processes from the outset
This might all seem a little keen and “project managery” but efficient processes become imperative when running successful testing programs (see point 17) and when running dynamically personalised email campaigns.
5. Don’t rush your email partner selection process – invest in time and resource
Spend time choosing an email partner that’s right for you.
6. Budget carefully… unforeseen costs are the scourge of the email marketer
And today’s Email marketers in 2011 need to budget for more than send costs. Good email requires investment, so make sure you’re upfront about it from the start.
7. Remember to build in control groups from the outset
Using a control is the only way you’ll know if your email really made a difference or if the recipients would have bought, engaged or acted any way.
8. Don’t let your onsite signup form be an afterthought
Make sure you take the time to think about your data funnel and your on-going data collection strategy.
9. Ensure you’re leveraging all customer touch points to collect data
Now start thinking beyond your site for data collection. Prep your call centres, build signups into your Facebook page, incentivise affiliates, take out ads in your quarterly customer brochure, budget for external lead gen and member get member programs.
WELCOME
10. Use a sequential welcome campaign to educate your customers
Start thinking beyond the welcome message you’re already sending and start being more adventurous. Why not look into a sequential welcome process to further educate your users or create a platform to show them what aspects of your service they have or haven’t used in a defined period of time?
And one final point on Welcoming….
11. Leverage your welcome emails to capture further customer preference data
Looking for more customer data? That (those?) instant welcome email(s) comes into play again.
In the next section we’ll look at relevancy, optimising creative, testing, integrating and reporting.
Posted on June 16th, 2011
On Wednesday Stream20 held their inaugural affiliate event at Covent Garden’s Hospital Club. The event was designed to be a unique experience for affiliates, combining both informative presentations and discussions. It also proved to be an excellent opportunity to bring clients and affiliates together to encourage debate, offer advice and to help improve transparency in the industry. We thought you might like to see some snaps of the speakers on the day, so we’ve included some below.
The event featured some fascinating presentations on subjects ranging from the latest SEO and PPC tricks, information on combatting Panda and insights into the new EU e-privacy directive. Speakers included Helen Southgate, the chair of the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council, Rik Ferguson from TrendMicro, Rohit Chugh from CKNet and Raife from My Voucher Codes.
Once the presentations and discussions had finished, the afternoon finished off with drinks and networking in the bar.
The event was a great success and was attended by over 30 affiliates, selected clients and the Stream20 team. We aim for this to be the first of many Stream20 affiliate engagement events to run every quarter. With the next event already being planned for September, why not get in touch to add your name to the list for next time? For info, please contact vicky.ryan@stream20.com
Helen Southgate, Head of the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council:
Rik Ferguson from TrendMicro:
Rohit Chugh from CK Net:
Donal Langan from Stream:20:
Posted on June 6th, 2011
You’re invited to Stream:20′s inaugural Affiliates Engagement Event
IAB Affiliate Marketing Council, myvouchercodes.com, Trend Micro and CKNet confirmed guest speakers
When: From 2pm, Wednesday 15th June, 2011
Where: The Hospital Club, Covent Garden, London
Who: Confirmed speakers from myvouchercodes.com, Trend Micro, CKNet and Stream:20
Contact: Teresa Lawrence at teresa.lawrence@stream:20.com or Vicky Ryan at vicky.ryan@stream20.com. Alternatively call Stream:20 on 020 7793 2450
Here at Stream:20 we believe that a well managed Affiliate marketing campaign is a fantastic way to boost sales and promote brand awareness. We’d like you to join us for our inaugural Affiliates Engagement Event on the 15th June. The aim of the event is to bring clients and affiliates together to encourage debate, offer advice and to help improve transparency in the industry.
Speaking at the event will be representatives from myvouchercodes.com, who will highlight the benefits of a voucher-lead campaign and from Stream:20 clients Trend Micro, who will lead a discussion on internet security – a contentious issue following recent high profile breaches of online customer security for the likes of Epsilon and Sony.
Due to Stream:20’s multi-channel experience, they will also look to give affiliates and affiliate marketers the skills they need to optimise their SEO and ultimately the effectiveness of their campaigns. Stream:20 SEO Consultant, Donal Langan will give proven tricks of the trade for getting the most out of SEO, while CKNet Search Marketing will reveal the secrets to creating a successful paid search strategy.
Helen Southgate, the chair of the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council will also give an update on what the council is doing to help promote affiliate marketing.
The event will take place from 2pm on Wednesday, 15th June, 2011 at The Hospital Club, Covent Garden, London. If you would like to attend, please contact Teresa Lawrence at teresa.lawrence@stream:20.com or Vicky Ryan at vicky.ryan@stream20.com. 020 7793 2450.
Posted on March 17th, 2011
Announced on the 17th of March, we are proud to announce that we have been nominated as best agency for the A4U awards.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the judges for the nomination – its been a long year, with lots of hard work for both affiliates and our clients. We see ourselves a little differently – we are a consultancy, working in-house with our clients – but we definitely compete in this space and appreciate the nomination.
Teresa Lawrence – who heads up the Trend Micro account is particularly chuffed – “I’ve been working at Stream:20 for 3 years and being shortlisted for this award is a really proud achievement for us. Its great to be finally recognized as big player in the affiliate management world”
Alex Lockett who works across a number of accounts including Experian, Trend Micro, Sky Germany – “being relatively new to the company its nice to see that we have a strong footprint in the industry and being shortlisted for this award demonstrates how strong we are in the marketplace at the moment”
Vicky Ryan (who can’t comment on which account she works on) – is currently sunning herself on a beach in singapore and wasnt available for comment.
Osh Rice who works across Jurys Inns, Doyle Collection, Electric Shopping, Motorparks said “This is excellent, the pace of the work we are doing here and the volume we are driving for clients and affiliates probably shows that we are doing something right here”
Grant Reid, Dan Brewer, James Parker, Joni Toonen, Matthias Link all wanted to say something but they were heads down this week and couldn’t comment.
…. all are smiling.
Posted on February 24th, 2011
Posted on February 16th, 2011
Salary: Dependent on Experience + Bonus + Bupa
Stream:20 is a leading online marketing consultancy. We are a young, dynamic company which has experienced steady growth since our launch in 2005. We have signed a number of impressive clients and are continuing to grow.
Our mission is simple – to help our clients increase online revenue – we are passionate about performance and return on investment.
We are currently growing our affiliate team and need talented, professional, experienced individuals to manage and grow our client’s affiliate programs.
You will be currently employed as a senior affiliate/ publisher manager at a UK network or be managing /assisting with the management of a program for a large client in-house. You will have regular contact with some of the biggest affiliates in the UK and have an excellent reputation amongst them.
In addition to this you will be used to and enthusiastic about growing affiliate programs by proactively recruiting new affiliates and fostering partnerships with major online properties.
You will be used to, and motivated by, hitting targets.
European Languages a plus but not essential
KEY: Communication skills – enjoy talking to people face to face and building relationships verbally on the phone
KEY: Must enjoy affiliate marketing and be passionate about this channel
Stream:20 is a meritocracy – excellent future opportunities will exist for the right candidate.
Please submit your CV to jobs@stream20.com
Posted on February 16th, 2011
We need a talented, professional individual to work on key blue chip clients in the area of email marketing. As a Stream:20 consultant you will spend time working at the client’s place of business.
Key areas of expertise:
• Email marketing – including testing, creative and delivery
• Data analysis
• eCRM strategy and backend knowledge
• Landing page development – strategy, design and optimisation
• Online Cross sell/ up-sell
• Ownership of sales targets, development of strategy to hit these targets
• Forecasting
• Developing eCRM strategy and ensuring the creative/technical process follows through on that strategy
• Managing internal stakeholders and processes
• Liaison with internal legal and brand teams for sign-off
• Presenting reports and results to senior management
• Keep abreast of developments in the sector to identify opportunities
Key requirements:
• Be able to absorb large amounts of information and data in order to be able to understand our clients’ business
• Work well under pressure to tight deadlines
• Motivated by targets / results
• Used to operating at senior management level
• Excellent communication presentation skills
Experience:
Minimum of 3-4 years email/eCRM experience. Salary is dependant on experience and background.
We are currently recruiting for permanent and contract roles
Please submit your CV to jobs@stream20.com
