Thinking Australia’s Internet Management Newsletter takes a look at issues that go beyond the web page.
 
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In this issue 
1. How and why your audience should “know” your brand.
   1.1 The more you know, the more you buy.
   1.2 Be in the know.
 
2. Email
   2.1 It turns databases into communities.
   2.2 It pays to join the community.
   2.3 The cost factor. Dollars vs sub-cents.
   2.4 Email. The next frontier.
 
3. Email Case Study
   3.1 Falls Creek
   3.2 Postscript to Case Study.
 
4. Beware of the e-vaccine side effects.
   4.1 Have you become an e-allergy victim yet?
 
5. Offer of the Month
  5.1 W3C Guideline Test.  
 


 
1 How and why your audience should “know” your brand. 
   1.1 The more you know, the more you buy.
You’re out shopping for a new car and you come across the new Joymobile. Looks good, but that’s all you know about it.
 
It’s not the name that makes us suspicious. After all, we buy Daewoos and Hyundais by the boatload. It’s information and affinity that’s missing. We would rarely buy a brand we’ve never heard of. The more we know about a brand and the more we develop a relationship with it, the more we trust it, and the more predisposed we are to buying it.
 
You don’t entrust your most intimate personal details to a complete stranger. Knowledge builds trust and acceptance. The internet experience is no different.
 
Look at the main brands we all “know”. If we were to buy a book online for the first time, then the place we’d feel happiest doing it would be at Amazon.com, a brand we “know” so we “buy”.
 
If the internet is an evaluative medium as we’ve been saying (See http://www.thinking.com.au/newsletter990519.htm) then this is fast becoming the medium people are using more often to get to “know” your brand.
 
For example, we know that around 50% of all new cars purchased were evaluated on the internet. We become “aware” of a product offline, we get to “know” a product online.
 
1.2 Be in the know.
If knowledge is such a contributor to purchase, then it pays to include two important elements in your online marketing efforts
    1) make sure that when your customers seek, it is you they find (through search engines, other sites and in-bound links)
    2) take your database and turn it into a community (email is the newest Customer Relationship Management channel).
 
For the second year in a row, the recent ActivMedia research findings strengthen the case for the two areas we’re talking about. They ranked Search Engine Positioning and Email as the No1 and No2 website promotional methods for generating traffic.
 
This month, we’d like to spend some time on the wonders of email.
 
2. Email
2.1 It turns databases into communities.
Email is by far the main activity of the internet. It is quite rare these days to see a business card without an email address. One of the hottest growth areas online is email communities and they can grow from any topic or interest group.
 
For example, one person at Thinking subscribes to an email newsletter from ChemWeb.com called The Alchemist. ChemWeb refers to itself as the World Wide Club for the chemical community. It covers such fascinating topics as “spectroscopy” (yes, we’re a little worried about him too).
 
The real news however is that ChemWeb has a loyal base of over 100,000 subscribers who are regularly stimulated by the newsletter to return to the website. Email creates the circular path for creating a conversation with your audience so they get to “know” you better than anyone else.
 
2.2 It pays to join the community.
The results show why email communities are expanding at such a rate. IMT Research found that email marketing produces relatively high click through and conversion rates .
 
The most outstanding figure is the cost of conversion against the more highly publicised and long used methods such as banner ads and direct mail.
 

Source: Oct. 1999 IMT Research, from Iconocast
 
2.3 The cost factor. Dollars vs sub-cents.
Imagine sending out a direct mail piece for your product. It would require all the visual imagery to present your product in the best light.
 
The photography, the quality of the paper, the four-colour printing and the envelope would all have to be chosen to represent a quality that could rub off on the product.
 
For some products such as cosmetics or cars, the per-item cost can reach as high as $5 - $15 on average. An email newsletter can be as plain as text (most are) and as elaborate as an HTML page. It can be personalised, have links to a fuller story on the website, synchronised to limited-time offers and more.
 
Yet the entire exercise can cost as little as fractions of a cent.
 
2.4 Email. The next frontier.
It is predicted that in the next few years, email (data transmission) will overtake voice transmission. We know that with email, 75% of responses are within 72 hours of the email being sent.
 
Some email publishers are still receiving responses after two weeks of the email being published. Email allows you to test, refine and evolve your message, or totally start again.
 
The economies of email allow you to do this. Some 70% of email users have subscribed to more than one email list such as ChemWeb, Mycar, Business Review Daily and so on.
 
There’s probably one out there for whatever your interests could be. You’re reading one now.
 
3. Email Case Study
3.1 Falls Creek
Earlier this year (about a month before the ski season), Falls Creek Ski Lifts Pty Ltd contracted Thinking to manage and maintain their site. Thinking instigated the addition of an online newsletter which developed into an online community.
 
Approximately 20-25% of first time visitors subscribed. 50% of visitors returned between 2-50 times. 25% returned 50-100 times (normally up to 80% of visitors may never return).
 
There was a five-fold increase in enquiries, three times the number of conversions and a four-fold increase in revenue.
 
3.2 Postscript to Case Study
Over the season, Falls Creek managed to capture a sizeable and loyal community. We recently emailed the community a simple questionnaire. We were very hesitant to do so.
 
We feared that it might flag the ski season was well and truly over. We feared a mass of people unsubscribing. On the contrary, we received a very healthy 7% response and for some unknown reason, there were more new subscriptions than unsubscribes.
 
The power of these email communities must have something to do with the basic human desire to belong. When we first move into a strange new country, city or neighbourhood, the first thing we do is go in search of, and cling to, similar minded groups or communities where we can feel at home.
 
And the more you learn and “know” about these groups and the people within these communities, the more you’ll “buy” with them.
 
If you want a better understanding of the relationship between “know” and “buy”, send an email to know-buy@thinking.com.au.
 
 
4. Beware of the e-vaccine side effects
4.1 Have you become an e-allergy victim yet?
In the 17 November 1999 issue of the Financial Review, writer Peter Moon discusses how to avoid the new virus called Bubble Boy.
 
Every company whose brand is on the internet should take note.
 
Not so much of the virus, but of the effect that safeguarding against the virus can have on your customers.
 
In the article, Mr Moon’s advice for internet users who wish to protect themselves from attack is this: “Here’s what potential targets should do for insurance: … Open Internet Explorer and set internet zone security to high. Then download and install the patch from www.microsoft.com …”
 
This is very good, helpful advice. However, what if internet users take Mr Moon’s words to heart and do not turn back their security settings to medium, but leave them at maximum?
 
What would happen?
 
Well, much of your transaction software wouldn’t work. Your customers have just turned off their access to java script and much of Active-X, the software plug-ins that run most of the e-commerce on the majority of sites. Suddenly, the phones start ringing, the traffic drops overnight, the transactions dry up.
 
How do you deal with such an issue? The same way you would deal with an oil spill if you were an oil company, or a salmonella scare if you were in the food business.
 
You are open with people and let it be known quickly what the dangers are, and what you have done to ensure that your site is safe. It’s all part of building a strong relationship with your customers based on trust.
 
You remain vigilant to such outbreaks and are proactive with your customers. For more information, contact issues-online@thinking.com.au.
 


5. Offer of the Month
5.1 WC3 Guideline Test
A few months ago we reported of the new W3C ruling on design guidelines for visually impaired people. It was suggested at the time that not abiding by the guidelines could be seen as being prejudiced to handicapped groups.
 
We warned that associated pressure groups could be on the look out for some major companies to bring the issue to the fore.
 
Well, it’s happened.
 
According to the Australian on the 17 November, 1999, the US National Federation of the Blind is suing the world’s largest ISP, America Online (AOL), for being prejudiced against visually impaired people.
 
What’s happening in Australia? I would say that the local pressure groups may be assessing a few major targets. You may be one.
 
You can read the deposition, media release and W3C standards by visiting www.w3c.org.
 
For this month only, Thinking is offering a W3C Guideline Test to see whether your site complies with the basic needs of the Guidelines.
 
The cost is $495.
 
The offer ends Christmas day, 25 December 1999 - only a few days before the other bug is supposed to get you.
 
Order Online by clicking here, or for information, email protectme@thinking.com.au.

 
THINK MAIL is Thinking Australia’s Internet Management Newsletter. It is compiled and written by Mark Bergin and Joe Di Stefano.
 
For further information contact Thinking Australia.
 
Thinking’s mission is to help our clients establish, develop and maintain successful internet brands. We help them complete the transition from mere internet presence of their brand to the more important phase of internet - brand management which covers the management of their “voice”, “experience” and “audience”.
 
Please send this newsletter to anyone who you believe would receive value from this information.
 
To subscribe, email to newsletter@thinking.com.au with your name and subscribe in the subject line.
 

 
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