Most businesses wouldn’t dream of printing business cards or company letterheads without a logo and branding material. Yet in this branding age, an era dominated by online communications, so many companies are allowing their most common mode of business communication, email, to be sent out totally unbranded.

Direct Broking is one of an increasing number of companies that has recognised that the hundreds of emails it sends out on a daily or weekly basis are a rich and untapped source for communicating its brand differentiation. Direct Broking runs New Zealand’s most popular online share trading website at www.directbroking.co.nz. Its products and services include DIY online or telephone share trading, share alerts, fixed interest, wholesale dealing and investments.

To leverage its large client base, the many thousands of daily email communications with clients and the enormous activity on its website the company decided to use a total package of digital marketing solutions to launch its new branding last year.

The company turned to digital marketing solutions provider Calcium Software and its mailPrimer suite. Direct Broking now uses three Calcium Software solutions: mailPrimer 1-2-1 (for everyday email marketing needs), mailPrimer 1-2-many (for personalised mass email marketing such as newsletters, promotional campaigns, competitions) and Silhouette (for tracking customers’ online behaviour on a website.)

Digital marketing tools that “leave no room for error”
One of the big advantages of mailPrimer is that you can set up one email template that’s used by every member of staff to present a united and consistent brand message to all recipients. The system automatically “wraps” the text of all emails with the branding and links in the email template.

“From day one of the new brand launch, every email from any individual within the company correctly used the new brand – Calcium saw to this – it leaves no room for error,” says Direct Broking marketing and communications manager Gillian Beresford.

The system provides feedback as links on the emails can be tracked and reported on for activity.

Previously, the company did not have the right tools to make the most of marketing online to clients and its database was in need of major ‘cleaning’ though email addresses had been collected. “We had an issue with ‘bulk’ email and Calcium’s 1-2-many tool was able to give us an immediate solution without having to wait until the database had been cleaned up,” Beresford says. “It is vital within our business to be able to send communication to clients and subscribers in a timely fashion and Calcium’s tools allowed this with ease.”

The first task for Calcium Software was to create strong brand awareness across all Direct Broking online communication channels, including daily email communications, email newsletters and on the company’s website.

Calcium’s MailPrimer 1-2-1 solution is a very cost-effective way to launch a new brand or product. As 1-2-1 emails are likely to be sent to existing contacts who are the most important people to a business’s success, it is appropriate to reinforce the brand message with them.

The 1-2-many email service provides a very high delivery rate for bulk emailing due to the smart technology built into the system. Silhouette is used to track recipient activity from emails through web sites, so that Calcium solution users can measure responsiveness to campaigns and offers.

December 2006

Creating cross-selling opportunities
The next step was to leverage this branding by creating cross-selling opportunities, for example to promote specific investment funds and for share alerts.

Beresford says Direct Broking wanted to achieve consistency, education and brand recognition and also the ability to promote its products and services in a timely and efficient fashion coupled with the technological grunt to change its product and service information quickly and easily.

As Direct Broking relies heavily on email as a communication tool to reach its customers, if 20 per cent of emails the company sends out remain undelivered it would result in significant business losses.

“The products have very little ‘limits’ and compliment each other, with mailPrimer 1-2-1, 1- 2-many and Silhouette, Calcium's offering a suite of solutions,” Beresford says.

Transforming plain emails into dynamic web pages
By using mailPrimer for its day-to-day email communications, Direct Broking has brought its corporate identity online without limitations, creating cross-selling opportunities, tracking its emails and how recipients interact with the email and its links, thus fully and easily profiting from its daily communication with them.

In addition, mailPrimer transparently and automatically leverages the implied permission built into any organisation’s daily email exchanges. By applying branding and product and service information to daily emails, using smart HTML and smart delivery Calcium Software has extended the power of e-marketing for Direct Broking.

Beresford says that the Calcium suite of software allows the company to consistently promote the company’s brand and products. Direct Broking can also back this up with electronic newsflashes and an email newsletter.

“We can get the same message across to clients but in three different ways,” says Beresford.

Results: a sharp spike in website traffic
The solution delivered brand and product awareness directly and personally to Direct Broking clients. By using mailPrimer, Direct Broking has had a direct increase in web traffic and in the number of inquiries it receives about products and services advertised on the company’s daily emails, email newsletters and the web.

For example, Direct Broking sent a campaign out promoting investment funds backed by the branding in the company’s daily email communication. By measuring traffic on its website it was found that there was a 100,000 page view spike in traffic specifically in relation to the campaigns going live.

In addition, the company received 200 requests for information about the investments promoted within two hours of the campaigns being sent out.

The Calcium solutions not only delivered the Direct Broking brand on all the company’s online communications but also provided a low-cost alternative to traditional direct marketing campaigns. Beresford says this has strengthened the Direct Broking brand and established the company as a market leader in online share trading. “Our first port-of-call for fast and effective campaigns will now be via multi-level email marketing and advertising.”

For more information
Calcium Software
Gael de Kerdanet, CEO
gael@mailprimer.com
(09) 921 5678
021 77 1364