Evaluation of Hobson’s CRM after one year of use 1. CRM analysis report ● ● ● ●
Statistical analyses of monthly e-newsletters completed from June 2013 to October 2013. There were no outstanding trends identified across newsletter interaction from month to month – some months had more interactions than others. Suggest statistical analyses are considered by month and by year, e.g. newsletter for July 2013 be compared to newsletter from July 2012 etc. Social media links tend to be consistently weak, with links to student experience stories generally attracting the most interaction.
2. Key information not clear from Hobsons results ● ● ●
If recipients chose to mark the newsletters as trash from their email client. This means that they could still be on the mailing list, but not engaging with the newsletters. If recipients choose to right-click a link and open it in another tab on their browser, does that still count as a click-through? No information available regarding devices or browsers used by recipients.
3. Suggestions to drive engagement with newsletters ●
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Engagement with newsletters is measured by number of interactions with links. Some stories have a great deal of links associated with them. Suggest restricting the number of links per story to the call-to-action button. Fewer links with higher interaction rates demonstrate stronger statistics than many links with low interaction rates. When converted to PDF, the newsletters mostly run on to three pages. For recipients viewing the newsletters on smartphones, this may be excessively long, too long to encourage interaction. Suggest that story length be reduced to a single paragraph, with the call-to-action referring recipients to the full story on the BCU website, which would increase interaction with the newsletters, as well as analytical information for the website. If social media engagement is to be improved, suggest incorporating the popular social media icons into the newsletter’s header. This suggestion is based on the F-shaped pattern of reading web content. In the images below, the red areas are the most read part of the web page, the yellow less so, and the grey areas not receiving any attention.
The social media links are currently based at the very bottom of the newsletter, which, according to the heatmaps illustrated above, is the least likely place to receive any viewer attention.
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Suggest greater care is taken with timing of newsletter. A report has suggested the optimum time for sending HE newsletters as being 7-9pm, which makes sense as the audience is more likely to be at home at the end of the day, as opposed to receiving the email during the day, when they are at school, college or work, and don’t have time to give attention to the newsletter. Suggest a number of timings in this frame are tested and monitored, to find the optimum time for engagement with the audience. As the statistics indicate that student experience stories are the most popular amongst recipients, more focus could be placed on these. Many students have their own blogs or websites. It could be possible to provide a short profile in the newsletter, which links to the students’ blog or website, as well as their Twitter handle, for prospective students to engage directly with current students. This suggestion is based on Cardiff University’s THRIVE campaign for 2012 entry – more information available at http://precedent.co.uk/our-work/thrive. “A day in the life” diary-style features might also highlight student experience.
4. Suggested changes to reporting on Hobsons statistics More distinction could be made in terms of comparison to previous month’s statistics. Currently, any positive change is indicated in green and any negative change is indicated in red, no matter how small the change is, which may lead to misleading interpretations of optimism or pessimism in relation to statistics.
5. Wish list for Hobsons usability ● ● ● ● ● ●
Bulk queue function for queuing many emails at once. Queued emails listed in the order in which they were set to be queued. Recipient device statistics. Recipient browser statistics. Statistics of recipients returning to the newsletter, e.g. unique visits. A function to export customisable reports.
6. Suggestions regarding long term CRM strategy ●
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Statistical reporting for newsletter needs to be completed monthly. In the absence of a function within Hobsons to export reports appropriately, it is a very labour intensive task, where results are manually input into a spreadsheet. Suggest an individual be employed to undertake the task, perhaps a temporary member of staff to complete the statistical analyses of previous newsletter. Unsure of the responsiveness of the newsletters in terms of how they are viewed on a cross section of devices. As BCU’s target audience is the most likely to be in possession of smartphones and tablets, it is important that the newsletters look as good on those devices as they do on a computer. Emulator software is available to test this on websites, and it would be assumed something similar is available for newsletters. Long term, as with all digital marketing channels, it is important to be mindful of disruptive innovation, particular wearable technology such as the forthcoming Google Glass and smartwatches. It would be better to understand how new technology might impact how the audience receives communications in advance, and how that can be used to BCU’s advantage.