Background
From January 2018, employees registered on the SmartSpending™ employee discounts platform will receive a re-vamped weekly email, updating them on the latest discounts and offers available to them on their discounts platform. Not only will the email look and feel more engaging than ever before, but the content has been overhauled to be tailored to each individual user.
Here's a summary of the key features of the new newsletter:
1. Branded to match the employer brand
We will be able to match the entire color of the email to the client's program branding, to ensure continuity and further connection with the employer brand.
2. Improved user experience
We’re always looking to improve the email’s spam and usability performance, reducing image heavy templates in favor of text-led content. In a nutshell, it means members will be able to download the email quicker on their Smartphones and get a good understanding of our great offers without having to necessarily download the images.
Over 43% of our members who used the discounts platform in 2017 did so with a Smartphone or tablet, so we needed to adapt our newsletter for mobile success!
3. Cleaner design
One unanimous piece of feedback received through UX testing was the need for a cleaner, smarter, slicker template. We’ve stripped back the offers to focus on the main call to actions such as the offer and the offer type. Let’s be honest, a saving of 10% is worth making the most of, but add the fact that it’s an ‘Instant’ offer and life just got so much better.
The Deal of the Week placement has also had a complete refresh. No more image-led banners – instead the text has been separated from the image entirely. Like we mentioned above, this means the offer is visible even if images aren’t.
4. Announcements section to highlight new retailer additions
Another exciting addition is the ‘Announcements’ section that allows us to shout about all the cool new additions to SmartSpending™. Whether it’s a brand new retailer, another offer going ‘Instant’ or simply some advice on how best to use your Cashback – we now have a section to shout about it.
5. Hot-links
The hot-links section is another brand new addition to the newsletter. One of our key goals is to increase click-through rates, directing users from the email to SmartSpending™. One of the ways we’re hoping to achieve this is by including hot-links at the bottom of the email, enabling users to click through to various sections of the SmartSpending™ site, such as ‘My Account’.
How will these changes improve engagement?
Although employee spend through SmartSpending™ has increased year on year, we’ve seen a slight decline in engagement across our Retail emails over the past 12 months. Of course, we want the stats to go in the opposite direction but this doesn’t come as much of a surprise considering we have not changed the ‘Offers’ email in a little under a year.
Improving engagement isn't just about keeping our regular savers interested, it’s also about re-engaging those members who haven’t logged in to the platform either for while or at all. Making improvements to the email’s overall engagement potential should help move in-active members down the funnel and get them engaging regularly with SmartSpending™ as a product.
Since the launch of our personalized Solus emails back September, we’ve seen a boom in the engagement rates, with an average open rate of 44% across our Solus campaigns. Huge stats considering the average UK open rate for ‘Offers’ emails is 26% - so it’s a no-brainer that our newsletter should reflect this demand for personalization and a more targeted approach.