Here’s How to Measure Customer Satisfaction with Email

Robyn Woods-Child | Managing Director

Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn

Introducing a Brand New Feature: Signature on Compose

Posted On August 3, 2022 By Robyn Woods-Child In Marketing /

If you are using Microsoft 365 (Outlook) for your company’s business emails, we’ve got a new feature for you.

Introducing Signature on Compose. In this article, we’ll cover what this new feature does, how it works, and whether or not it’s a good fit for your business.

Does your email signature manager have these advanced features?

What is Signature on Compose?
Is Signature on Compose right for your business?
Conclusion

What is Signature on Compose?

Signature on Compose is a new add-on from Rocketseed, which allows Microsoft 365 (Outlook) users to see their email signatures while composing emails (as opposed to only after they’ve hit ‘send’). With Signature on Compose, you can now preview what your email would look like as well as see it in your sent emails.

It was developed in direct response to customer requests; certain businesses either had specific employee requirements leading to their need for this function, or they wanted to have a record of their signatures in sent items.

How does Signature on Compose work?

With Signature on Compose, when you compose your email in Microsoft 365 (Outlook), it will connect via the Microsoft 365 Signature API to Rocketseed, which allows it to pull your signature from the system and insert it into your email as you write.

This feature can be controlled by your admins, allowing them to turn it on or off depending on who should have access.

Will this cost extra?

This feature does not come with any additional licence fees. You can utilise this feature as long as you are using Rocketseed email signature software in your Microsoft 365 email.

Is Signature on Compose right for your business?

Signature on Compose is now available for any Parrot Digital customer utilising Rocketseed for Microsoft 365 (Outlook).

That said, it might not be suitable for every business. This feature will work for your business if your company policy requires that all email signatures should be visible when emails are being sent, and remain viewable within sent emails. This gives you a record of the signatures that were sent.

Signature on Compose also works if you have a personal preference where you get a sense of reassurance that you sent the right signature at the right time, to the right recipient.

Signature on Compose is not, of course, right for every business. It has its limitations which are factors to consider beforehand.

With Signature on Compose, employees are able to amend their own email signatures. This means they’re no longer tamper-proof, as your signatures would be if they were controlled by your central signature management dashboard and applied normally.

Additionally, being separate from email signature, any banner campaigns assigned to run at the top of your team’s emails will not be visible in the compose window. However, Rocketseed will still apply them as usual once you hit send and the emails are routed to its server.

Finally, the Microsoft 365 Signature API is not supported on mobile devices, so signatures cannot be displayed on compose. However, if the email is routed via the server, Rocketseed continues to brand these emails in the usual way.

Conclusion

Whether it’s personal preference or business policy to see your email signature before sending the email, it’s always good to have options.

How much control does an individual staff have over the brand in sending emails? From our point of view, to ensure efficiency and consistency, a centralised admin controlling the entire brand is still the best option.

Need help with your email signature software? Contact the Parrot Digital team.

We, at Parrot Digital have been a long time partner with Rocketseed that we know the leading email signature management software inside and out. If you need more information about Signature on Compose, let us save you the time by walking you through it.

Of course, if you need any other help with your email signatures, campaign banners and graphic design, we’re here to help. Contact us today and let’s get started.

Robyn Woods-Child | Managing Director

Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn

Does Your Email Signature Manager Have These Features?

Posted On June 27, 2022 By Robyn Woods-Child In Marketing /

Not all email signature managers are created equal, and even if you think you’re getting what you paid for, you might be missing out on these amazing features that give your company the ROI it needs.

Many companies invest in email signature software and think, “Great! It does email signatures. Job done.” However, the email signature industry is quite broader than that, and your business would likely get a significant amount more out of a similar level of investment just by switching providers.

So, it’s time to ask yourself a question…

Does your email signature manager have these advanced features?

Rotational banners
Advanced banner targeting
Multiple banner campaigns
Multiple banner links
Custom date scheduling
Read notifications
Click notifications
Comprehensive in-built reporting
Dedicated account manager

1. Rotational banners

Despite what you might think from the name, rotational banners aren’t banners that literally rotate. It’s a feature that allows you to schedule more than one campaign banner to run on rotation at the same time.

For example, within Rocketseed email signature management software, you can upload multiple banners per campaign. Our recommendation is up to three banners on rotation as most email trails are 3 – 5.

2. Advanced banner targeting

Good marketing delivers the right message in the right place at the right time to the right audience. If your email signature software lacks this type of targeting functionality, it means your campaigns will always be a bit of an inefficient scattershot.

Utilising advanced banner targeting, though, you can assign banner campaigns to specific senders, individuals or a broader target audience, ensuring the right people see the right message, and the wrong people don’t.

3. Multiple banner campaigns

Inefficiency is another common problem with basic email signature software. It can’t create multiple campaigns at one time. This can be a pretty frustrating issue in the modern marketing world, where typically you’ll have multiple campaigns running simultaneously.

Ensure your emails sync with your wider digital marketing efforts by finding software that can handle more than one concurrent campaign, each targeted to its own unique audience.

4. Multiple banner links

Clickable banners are essential for achieving campaign results. If you’ve got a call to action in your email banners but the recipient can’t click through to the promotion, chances are you’ve lost that customer. Most people won’t go out of their way to find a landing page.

We know clickable images in an email are not anything new – but can your current email banner provider host multiple clickable links within a single banner?

With an image mapping function, you could add quite a few different links in the same banner. For example, social media icons alongside a primary CTA, different CTAs for different product promos in a sale, or customer feedback options for a quick survey.

SEE MORE IDEAS

5. Custom date banner scheduling

You don’t have to worry about forgetting to update all of your different email banner changes. With Rocketseed email signature manager, you can utilise custom date scheduling.

While a simple feature found in most other marketing platforms, custom scheduling isn’t always available in email signature software managers. So, keep an eye out for this advanced feature so you can automate your live banner start and end dates and guarantee they’ll run on time.

6. Read notifications

How many emails have you ever sent, only to fret that the recipient never even read it?

Read alerts are a solution to that problem. Switch on this feature and the system will notify you when a recipient has received and read an email of yours. No more worrying!

7. Click notifications

Imagine knowing not just what someone had clicked on within your emails but exactly when they clicked. This kind of knowledge could be a game changer for your sales team.

So, how might you use real-time click alerts? Let’s go back to our earlier example of using an email banner as a short feedback survey. A recipient could click on the ‘Not Satisfied’ button and you would see this instantly. If desired, your team could respond straight away to find out what went wrong.

8. Comprehensive in-built reporting

Analytics data is like gold for marketers. Good data makes the difference between evidence-based decision-making and optimisation, and total guesswork. So, don’t let your emails be the only marketing material you can’t get good data from.

With comprehensive built-in reporting from email signature managers like Rocketseed, you’ll be able to track every recipient’s engagement with your content – and measure success as a result. Plus, you can integrate these reports with Salesforce and other CRM systems to keep your data in one convenient place.

9. Dedicated account manager

This isn’t so much a feature of the software, but the software provider. Does your subscription to or purchase of an email signature manager come with dedicated support?

An account manager can ensure that you get set up correctly and that everything works as it should. They can provide training to your people and help you find technical support in the event of a problem. Basically, a dedicated account manager is critical to maximising your investment.

“Here at Parrot Digital, our dedicated account management support is something we’re immensely proud of.”

We cover all of the above, plus we can help with conceptualising, designing and implementing your email signatures and banners, and offer a 24-hour helpline for all emergencies.

Missing out? Time to switch

There’s a reason that we choose Rocketseed as our product of choice. It’s the best email signature software on the market for Australian and New Zealand businesses, capable of providing all of the features we’ve mentioned today and more.

No matter your email client – Exchange, Google Workspace, Office 365 – we can help you. Check out our pricing page here, or book a demo to find out more about how Rocketseed could supercharge your email communications.

Robyn Woods-Child | Managing Director

Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn

22 Email Signature Banner Examples for Your Business

Posted On June 14, 2022 By Robyn Woods-Child In Marketing /

What marketing strategies are you working on for 2022?

Take control of one of your key communication channels this year by turning all employees’ outbound emails into an effective marketing channel. How? By using dynamic email signature banners, you can vastly extend the reach of your message.

We’ve come up with 22 email signature banners ideas that drive results.

First, the three elements of a great email banner

1. Design

There are two key elements to creating an effective banner. On-brand graphic design and on-point targeted copy. The quicker someone can absorb your message, the better.

But how do you know your banner design is working, and whether or not certain fonts, images, or layouts would be better? Using email marketing banner software (for example, Rocketseed) you could implement A/B testing to compare variations to see which gets more traction.

2. Compatibility

These days, emails can be accessed everywhere. Desktop, tablet, mobile phone – it’s a wonder people’s smart fridges aren’t answering their emails too!

For an email banner, this means that the size and shape must be able to automatically adjust to suit the device and email client. This could be an arduous process if done manually (i.e. pasting a JPG file into each sender’s email client), but it is made a lot easier with email signature banner software that does the work automatically.

3. Call to Action

A banner’s call to action must be engaging so that the email recipient is compelled to click to find out more about the content you are sharing.

Calls to action can be as simple as ‘Learn More’ or ‘Find Out More’, but there are lots of ways to utilise catchy phrasing to encourage a click-through. Our examples below will show you a few different options!

22 email banner examples to build your brand

So you’re looking at creating some email banners for your company and extending the reach of your marketing message. What kind of banners should your company use?

Here are 22 email banner ideas that:

Build brand image and awareness
Promote your products and services
Drive sales and maximise customer value
Strengthen customer relationships and your reputation
Engage and motivate your staff

If you’re ready to boost your business and build your brand for 2022, book a demo with us to see how an email signature banner software works, implementing the changes company-wide efficiently with just a few clicks.

1. The Brand Image Builder

Whatever your brand identity is, an email banner can bring that to life.

How it works: A Brand Image Builder banner highlights to your customers the products and services you provide. Like all brand awareness activities, it keeps your message and mission top of a customer’s mind without pushing a specific marketing message.

How to use it: Simply pick the best image that represents your company, add your two-liner tagline and a ‘Learn More’ call to action.

2. The Brand Positioner

Here we’re going to point out your brand’s best features – the unique selling points people won’t find anywhere else.

How it works: A Brand Positioner banner shows what’s special about your company, and pushes the message that a customer should choose your business because it’s the best solution for their needs. It hones in on one or two USPs and displays them loud and proud.

How to use it: Pick your most important USPs and add them in big, bold lettering. Your call to action could also link to a video that positions your company within the industry. Try it out!

3. The Client Testimonial

Trust is the backbone of every relationship, and you can use your email marketing banners to show that your business is one to rely on.

How it works: A Client Testimonial banner is one of your best ways to build trust. It is, essentially, social proof, showing – with evidence – that previous customers have been satisfied by your service. So, logic naturally follows that the reader would be satisfied too!

How to use it: Can you get quotes from happy customers, or do you have four- or five-star reviews on reliable review websites? Put these pride of place in your email banners, with a link to the review, testimonial or case study itself.

4. The Case Study

Speaking of case studies, a good case study goes beyond the social proof factor – it puts a real face, a real story, behind the services listed on your website so a reader can contextualise how you could serve them, too.

How it works: A Case Study banner is quite similar to a Testimonial Banner in that its objective is to connect the reader to real customers. But in this case, you can link to a written case study or a video.

How to use it: You could set up a Case Study banner with a quote from the case study itself, or by highlighting a unique result from the story itself (see example below). Then, your call to action leads through to the content so someone can learn more.

5. The New Blog Post

Content is king. Your website’s blog is a platform to offer advice, answer questions and entertain prospects (depending on your subject matter of course). This adds a huge amount of value to your website.

How it works: Blogs don’t work if they don’t get seen. But, your staff send out emails every day. So, connect one to the other! With a New Blog Post banner, you will be showing off your latest or best blog posts to each and every email recipient. You never know who it might inspire into converting to a sales lead.

How to use it: Businesses tend to show off either their latest or their best blog posts in their email banner marketing campaigns. So, find the blogs that you want to show the world, add the headline or a teaser into your banner, and link out to the post.

6. The Newsletter Sign-up

Another recommended way to build brand identity is via email marketing. If you’re building your email list, here’s your chance to try and boost that sign-up link.

How it works: Newsletter Sign-up banners encourage recipients to opt in to your mailing list. This can be a very effective way to convert customers who you already talk to via email into receiving useful insights or updates straight to their inbox.

How to use it: In one line, summarise what someone will receive by signing up for your newsletter. What do they get out of it? Then you can link out to the sign-up form.

7. The Product Launcher

If you’re releasing a new product, you need to get the word out to as many channels as possible. This is how you can use your emails to push the excitement and energy of the big launch!

How it works: Like the New Blog Post banner, the Product Launcher banner advertises the latest release in your line of products and services. It’s a short, simple message that can be sent to hundreds of customers every day by piggy-backing off your regular email conversations – a very cost-effective way of raising awareness.

How to use it: You will of course need to summarise the name and selling point of the new service in your banner. But, you can go further. Are you offering a free trial? Discounted pricing? Inviting someone to a launch event? Each of these can add more excitement to the banner, and give users more of a reason to click through.

8. The How-to Explainer

Earlier we mentioned that a blog can add value to your website. Well, with this banner example you can add the same value to each individual email.

How it works: Providing extra tips and tricks to help your customers get the most out of your products and services can increase the trust they have in your brand. With the How-to Explainer banner, you become more than just a product, but a product and an experience.

How to use it: What are some smart tips for your products/services which can be condensed into a short sentence? Think about useful reminders, things people wouldn’t know, interesting facts … the list goes on! If you can pull this fact out of a blog or video, then your call to action can take readers here via a ‘Learn More’ link.

9. The Big News

What’s happening in your business? Tell the world with this email banner example.

How it works: Like a product launch or a new blog post, the Big News banner gets the word out about updates to your business itself. Whether you’re directing people to vital information or just doing a little humble bragging to build brand authority, this is a great way to get the message out to a wide group of people very quickly.

How to use it: Have you won an award recently? Opened a new branch? Been recognised by another authority brand? Add the news headline to your email marketing banner and offer a ‘Learn More’ call to action to take someone to the news article or press release.

10. The Promos

When running a new promo, you wouldn’t hesitate to put banners up all over your store or as advertising online. So, why not your emails too?

How it works: The Promos banner puts your latest promotion front and centre within your regular email communications. Whether at the top or bottom of your emails, it lets everyone know that now is the time to buy without the need for them to see a promo in-store, or find your ad online. You’re delivering it right to their inbox.

How to use it: If your company is participating in Black Friday, 9/9, Cyber Monday or any other kind of major event/promotion, start building the hype by putting it in lights via your email marketing banners. Email banner software such as Rocketseed even have features that ensure the right banners are delivered to the right customer segments, maximising the chance of a conversion.

11. The Upcoming Events

Boost your event attendance by extending the reach of your advertising through email marketing.

How it works: The Upcoming Events banner puts pedal to the metal for event advertising. When you’ve got an upcoming seminar, webinar, conference or any other type of event, you can tell people just by emailing them normally. Plus, with Rocketseed’s segmentation that we mentioned above, you can ensure that only the right customers see this particular banner – reducing redundant advertising and upping conversions.

How to use it: The name, important details and a quick summary can all feature strongly in an email banner. But, the link makes it even more convenient. Tie your call to action to a calendar link so customers can book you in through the click of a button, or link out to the ticketing page to make it easy to secure a place.

12. The Announcements

Got a big announcement to make? You might not need a whole blog post, or even an email dedicated to the cause. Your email banners could do all the heavy lifting for you.

How it works: Whether you’re going away for the holidays, moving office, or there are key staff movements within your business, the Announcements banner will keep your customers informed of all the important happenings within your business.

How to use it: There are a few ways to use an Announcements banner, depending on the announcement. Whether you’re dressing it up for the festive season or dressing it down for a more serious notice, what remains important is getting across the key details – who, what, when and where. For example, if you are going for a long holiday, you could include an emergency contact for customers to use while you are away.

13. The A/B Tester Email Banner

A/B tests are invaluable for figuring out what iteration of a design works best. So, it’s a good thing you can A/B test your email banners too.

How it works: With the A/B Tester banner, you’re setting up two iterations of a very similar design to see which yields more of a cost-effective result.

How to use it: The goal here is to run two banners in tandem to gain data insights into their effectiveness. Ideally they would be identical except for one difference, perhaps colour, photo or copy. Thankfully, you don’t need to set them up manually so long as you’re using a central email banner management system like Rocketseed, which can publish two different banners to your audience at the same time.

14. The Quote Requester

Not every customer wants to pick up the phone to ask for a price, or to wander into your office. That’s where your website comes in handy – and your emails can point them in the right direction.

How it works: The point of the Quote Requester banner is to advertise your online quoting tool. It would ideally fit into your sales pipeline further into a nurture, where you hope customers are ready to move to the next stage of conversion.

How to use it: This banner can send people to a form that they fill out with their specific requirements, which will then tell them the quote estimate they’re after. Additionally, if you set up this banner with the right tags in Rocketseed, it can also send notifications to your team to start the sales process.

15. The Direct Seller

Why beat around the bush? Your email is an excellent direct-selling platform, and cost-effective to boot.

How it works: The Direct Seller banner is straightforward. It offers a clear sales pitch or promise, acting like a more typical paid ad – except it appears in your company emails.

How to use it: Key here is getting your sales message clear and concise, so you can make the best pitch within a small amount of copy. Then, you’ll need a clear call to action, a relevant image and you’re in business.

16. The Exclusive Deals

We know from the rest of this article that your emails are an amazing marketing platform. They give you the power to send a specific sales message directly to the people you talk to on a regular basis. So why not offer them something exclusive?

How it works: The Exclusive Deals banner gives your email recipients a deal that’s all for them – a little gift to sweeten the pot. If you make it clear that this deal is only available via your emails, you’ll add that sense of urgency to encourage the click.

How to use it: Offer irresistible benefits exclusively to email recipients. One example would be to showcase a price comparison between purchasing on the website or purchasing now via clicking the banner. Your call to action can then link to a landing page that will facilitate the purchase, and the deal.

17. The Upseller

Upselling is one of the best ways to increase revenue through existing customers – as we all know the old adage, it’s better to keep an existing customer than acquire a new one.

How it works: Throughout the course of a customer’s business, they might email your team quite a lot. These are all opportunities to use the Upseller banner, which offers an exclusive deal, sells a new service or advertises some other type of action that could lead to an upsell.

How to use it: What can you offer existing customers to encourage them to utilise more of your products or services? In the example below, we’ve assumed the customer is getting their email signatures sorted and we’ve suggested they take a look at additional features of Rocketseed to maximise their investment.

18. The Satisfaction Survey

The only way to truly improve is to get feedback, and this is how you can get it.

How it works: Through your everyday communication, try adding a Satisfaction Survey banner that links out to a feedback form. This is a cost-effective way to weave the idea of giving feedback into your regular email discussions.

How to use it: Unless you really need the data, you probably don’t require a big list of long-form questions that takes 20 minutes to fill out. Keep it simple – as simple as one click! With Rocketseed, you can set up dynamic banners with multiple clickable buttons. Check out the example below.

19. The Request a Review

As we mentioned above, feedback is essential. It helps your business improve itself, and it can also act as a piece of marketing in and of itself. That’s where reviews come in, which provide the social proof required to utilise the Testimonials banner we talked about earlier.

How it works: Are you set up on a particular review website? Use your email marketing banners as an opportunity to encourage email recipients to leave their feedback in the form of a review.

How to use it: At its most basic, the Request Review banner can be a simple design that gently points a reader towards a particular review website, to which the call to action will link. Or, you can make it a little more appealing and offer something in return for the review – like a voucher, or a free ebook.

20. The Trainer

Throughout this article, we’ve offered suggestions for email marketing banners that advertise key messages to customers. But what about your internal email marketing?

How it works: When you have new measures, new systems, new policies, you need to get the word out. That’s where the Trainer banner comes into play, putting out the relevant message or announcement to your wider staff.

How to use it: You can use a variety of the banner examples above for the Trainer. Choose whichever is most relevant to your internal message and deploy it across your company-wide emails in whatever form is appropriate – for example, HR comms or messages from team leaders.

21. The Company Culture Creator

Are you welcoming new staff? Here’s a quick way to utilise a similar tactic as the Trainer banner, but for building company culture. Internal marketing is often overlooked, but a customised email banner for your team can save you a lot of meeting time.

How it works: Through the Company Culture Creator banner, you can get new staff to adjust quickly to the policies and procedures they need to read to learn the ropes. You can also use these banners to encourage employees by announcing birthdays, promotions, new babies, and so on.

How to use it: Like the Trainer, you’ll need a message and a place to link out to. Then within a platform like Rocketseed, you can set it so that your new staff (or whichever teams you want to promote a message to) become the target recipients and your HR or leadership emails will start to contain the appropriate banner design.

22. The Staff Survey

Finally, we’re back to feedback. But on our internal comms theme, this banner is all about soliciting feedback from your own staff.

How it works: In 2021, we learned of the Great Resignation – where employees were voluntarily leaving jobs after rethinking their careers post-pandemic. This Staff Survey banner is a way to try and avoid the trend striking your workplace, by helping you learn what staff really think.

How to use it: This follows the same concept as the Satisfaction Survey banner earlier. You can either keep it simple using one-click dynamic banners or if you really need the data, you can link your call to action to an anonymous feedback survey form. Of course, if you want to encourage employees to take time out of their day to fill it out, you may choose to offer an incentive.

Keep your marketing banners on-brand with Parrot Digital

When you choose Parrot Digital, you can trust that your email marketing banners are in good hands. We’re more than just a provider of Rocketseed email signature software – through our in-house design team, we can help you each step of the way in choosing the most appropriate banner design for your campaign, and putting it together so that it looks great, gets the message across and remains 100% on brand.

Plus, with Rocketseed we can ensure every recipient sees only the banners most relevant to them, and you can track their every engagement using one-click UTM tracking codes and advanced reporting features.

Need help in navigating Rocketseed? Book a demo with the Parrot Digital team today and we’ll show you how to make the most out of your investment in 2022.

Robyn Woods-Child | Managing Director

Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn

Why Choose Parrot Digital as Your Email Signature Software Partner

Posted On April 22, 2022 By Robyn Woods-Child In Marketing /

There are only a handful of email signature software partners that can provide both high-quality software and local support here in Australia and New Zealand. But, even so, there are a few options and we know it can be hard to figure out who has the right features for your needs, and those of your clients.

So what should you look for in an email signature partner? How do you compare alternatives?

In this article, we’ll walk you through everything you’ll need to think about when choosing, and talk about how Parrot Digital ticks all the boxes.

Partner with Parrot Digital: At a Glance

Advanced, centralised software
Easy-to-use browser-based UI
Works with all major email clients
Personalised, one-on-one service
Local Australia and New Zealand support

Why offer email signatures as a service for clients?

As an IT managed services provider, you could be offering your clients email signature software support in addition to your other services. But why would you bother?

Well, companies are increasingly cottoning on to the power of email signatures and banners as a low-cost marketing tool, in addition to their importance in maintaining good brand reputation. One staff member could send hundreds of emails a month, now multiply that by the number of staff members. Each email represents the company, building or diminishing trust, and it’s also real estate for important marketing messages.

Therefore, every email is a very real business opportunity for your clients.

So where do you come in?

Most businesses cannot maintain and control this themselves. That’s why they need you. As a part of your services, you could offer email signature software and support for them. That would include helping set your clients up with professional graphics, ensuring it all functions properly, providing training, and guiding them on how to get the most out of the investment.

Of course, this could be a lot of work – especially for larger clients. Which is where we come in.

You’ll need an email signature partner who can handle this work for you, supporting your team to offer the best service possible to your clients without adding to your workload. We offer exactly that. Read on and we’ll explain how.

7 common email signature challenges that we can help you solve

1. Every staff member creating their own individual signature

All of the emails your clients’ people send reflects their wider business – its tone, its brand, its standards. So, it’s essential that every email is up to scratch.

It might seem easy to let staff make their own signatures and banners, but the reality is they don’t all have the skills necessary to ensure that theirs are on-brand and actually work properly when loaded by the recipient. Having your team check every single one is also very time consuming.

The solution: You need a centralised email signature and banner management solution. We can provide software that allows you to update people’s signatures across the business with just one click. Or, segment by role, department and location to gain more custom control.

2. Staying on-brand with HTML design

Say your client’s marketing team has designed the perfect email signature layout, or the perfect banner. Could it be replicated in HTML and still remain on-brand? HTML has limitations which require a certain level of technical expertise to overcome. Like we mentioned above, doing this on a case-by-case basis for all staff is going to be pretty time-consuming.

The solution: We have loads of pre-made template options ready to customise, and an in-house graphics team on standby that can help your clients get their branding perfect. Plus, our software choice of Rocketseed makes it easy to customise HTML graphics even for more inexperienced users.

3. Constant updates from marketing

A business could have several marketing campaigns in a month – and certainly in a quarter. Each of these may require that your clients’ email banners be updated to suit the new campaign goals. Are you willing to go through the process of manually changing each person’s banner every time, multiple times a month?

The solution: We’re back to the centralised dashboard again. When you can change everybody’s signature banner with just a click, it’s easy to upload a new design and assign it to everyone across the business. Your clients won’t need to rely on staff uploading banners each time a new marketing campaign is released.

4. Sending irrelevant marketing materials to the wrong audiences

Maybe once it was considered OK to blast out email marketing banners to anyone and everyone, in the hopes that they’ll be relevant to at least a few recipients. But these days people expect better. If you can’t segment your email recipients, you can’t personalise the marketing materials they receive – that’s a lot of wasted email space, and an unnecessary distraction for those wrong audiences.

The solution: You must be able to segment. We can help your clients customise which email banners display to which email recipients through dynamic audience segmentation, which you can then adjust en masse for each of your clients’ own needs.

5. Images appearing as an attachment

When you copy and paste an image into an email signature or add it as an attachment, a few things might go wrong. Because this image won’t be dynamic, it may format incorrectly. Or, it may not appear at all – instead being replaced with a red X. Thirdly, the lack of optimisation could increase the load speed of the email leading to poor user friendliness for the recipient. All that marketing effort? Wasted.

The solution: Partnering with Parrot Digital gives you access to Rocketseed software, which can build all the text, links and images you need within an HTML-friendly environment. When these signatures and banners are applied to your clients’ emails, they will automatically format correctly based on the recipient’s email client or device.

6. Stacking email signatures at the bottom of chained emails can add to archiving costs

You’ve probably all seen it once or twice – an email chain that’s started to balloon in terms of response numbers, and each time someone responds to the chain it adds to their archiving costs, particularly relevant to larger companies.

The solution: We’ll set you up so that your clients never have this problem. Through Rocketseed, email signature images are stripped from all but the latest email.

7. No analytics data

Can you measure ROI on a campaign if you have no real data? With no data coming back your clients will never know if their campaigns were a success or not (and therefore if their investment should continue or not). As a service provider, it’s in your best interests to be able to help show your clients their return.

The solution: We can help your clients gather data on every branded email they send. There is no setup required as Rocketseed software has built-in comprehensive reporting analytics. Your clients can also add a Google Analytics code with just one click.

CHECKLIST: How to choose an email signature software partner

There are only a handful of best-in-market email signature software companies around the world, and even fewer delivering service locally here in Australia and New Zealand. We reckon we tick all the boxes, but if you want to compare us to competitors – these are the things to look for.

Full studio service	✓
IT functionality	✓
Marketing functionality	✓
Goal-oriented service	✓
Full training provided	✓
Local IT support	✓
24/7 support	✓
Extra guidance where required	✓

Full studio service

Graphics, typography, GIFs – stay on brand without sacrificing page load speeds. Our full studio can help your clients design the perfect email signatures and banners, no matter their branding needs. Simply ask them for their requirements (copy, colours, images) and we’ll do the rest.

IT functionality

Parrot Digital will ensure that every element of your clients’ email signatures renders correctly, the data tracks properly, and their email signature formats stay the same no matter the recipient’s device or email client. And, above all else, we will ensure that it is all secure.

Marketing functionality

Email signatures and banners aren’t here to just look professional, but to serve as a low-cost, high-return marketing channel. With our centralised solution, we can help your clients quickly execute on-brand, engaging campaigns no matter the number of senders, and ensure that the data coming back is trackable and easy to analyse.

Goal-oriented service

When working with a software partner, it’s important to have a common understanding of what you and your clients are trying to achieve. Thanks to our one-on-one service, you won’t just be talking to a machine or system-generated email, but one of our experienced team members (or even our director Robyn herself!) who can work with you to ensure that we know and understand your clients’ unique needs.

Full training for you and your clients

To make sure that both you and your clients can get the most out of our email signature solution, we won’t just train you on the platform and leave you to it – we can train each of your clients, too. Your IT company can earn the extra points with its clients without having to do any more work!

Local IT support

So many software solutions in Australia and New Zealand have their customer service and IT support teams located overseas. But, not with Parrot Digital. We’re right here Down Under, so we know the business culture, language, and regional needs of the area, helping us provide a more effective local service.

24/7 support

Need help at odd hours of the day or night? We’re here for you. While our local team does follow Australian and New Zealand office hours, 24/7 technical support is available for any out-of-office hours support.

Extra guidance where required

Some companies stop offering that one-on-one support once training and implementation have concluded. But, we know that the questions won’t always stop there. Whenever you or your clients have an issue or question, want to re-design their branding, or you just want advice on a particular aspect of utilising our solution, we’re here for you.

Check out what our clients say about us:

SUCCESS STORIES

Ready to get started? Contact us today

We care about you and your business, and we believe our triple-A client portfolio and rave user reviews prove that we know what we’re doing.

If you are interested in partnering with us, fill out this form and we’ll be in touch the next working day.

Robyn Woods-Child | Managing Director

Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn

How to Improve Internal Communication in a Hybrid Working Environment

Posted On March 11, 2022 By Robyn Woods-Child In Marketing /

According to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, 70% of workers prefer flexible remote work options, while about 65% still opt for some face-to-face time with their colleagues. No matter your opinion on hybrid working, the data is coming through loud and clear – hybrid working is here to stay.

However, there are challenges to operating with a hybrid workforce, particularly when it comes to internal company communication. So, that’s what we’re going to tackle today – how to improve and progress communications within a hybrid working environment.

Common challenges of internal communications in a hybrid working environment
Quick tricks to keep your remote workers feeling included
5 ways email signatures software can help meet the challenges of remote working

Common challenges of internal communications in a hybrid working environment

Every company goes through something a little different when transitioning to a hybrid working environment. That said, there are common challenges among most businesses – especially when it’s to do with company communication:

Poor technology at home (unstable internet, no headset or camera, incompatible apps) can make it harder to communicate with an individual, putting pressure on IT support teams and leaving that person feeling isolated.
If you’re at home, no one can just come to your desk to pass on a simple message. This often leads to an uptick in instant messaging and emails flying around the company – cramming people’s inboxes full. Important messages may, as a result, get missed.
Not everyone will be well versed in the company’s branding and brand voice, and without easy access to someone they can ask, or with compatibility issues regarding company apps, they may send messages that don’t fit the brand.

Ultimately, what these challenges tend to boil down to is this: Employees can start to feel isolated from the business, alone, not a part of the culture, when they work remotely. This may lead to boredom and unhappiness, neither of which are particularly good for staff retention!

Quick tricks to keep your remote workers feeling included

1. Try to be as human as possible

If you’re communicating digitally every day, it’s easy to go into autopilot. Copying and pasting, repeating phrases (“Hey , hope you’ve had a great day so far” at the start of every email…), or just forgetting to include pleasantries.

Try to avoid copying and pasting conversations, and think about how your words will sound when read at the other end. It’s very easy to appear blunt because there’s no body language to accompany your text.

On that note, why not send a video message every once in a while? Seeing someone’s face is a good reminder that it’s a real person behind the email address.

2. Encourage conversation

You’re going to have to try hard not to fall into the habit of sending messages only when you need something work-related. There’s a benefit to having actual human conversations every now and then, even over digital mediums.

In the fight against staff isolation, try to keep up good social habits online. Say good morning to people, allow for a little small talk in your life, or set up virtual ‘watercooler’ events where your staff can hang out and chat via video conference without the need for it to all be about work.

3. Think carefully about your tools

There are a plethora of solutions out there these days to help you manage a remote team. It’s easy to get carried away with the newest, latest thing, but the reality is you probably don’t need all of the apps – in fact, really only one or two.

This is one area where you may need to experiment. Other people’s employees might recommend one particular app, but will your people like it? Will it help them do their type of work?

Don’t make the decision alone. Try a few different platforms if you must, and then survey your people to see which ones they liked. Keeping people in the loop will help them feel included in the decision-making process, another way to prevent feelings of isolation.

5 ways email signatures software can help meet the challenges of remote working

So, we know that keeping in good contact with staff is going to be very important moving forwards. In this fast-paced hybrid working environment, something as simple as modern email signature software could be a vital tool to ensure staff remains in sync, no matter where in the world they’re working from.

But how?

1. Maintain a unified brand image, both internally and externally

Every email is an opportunity for a customer, prospect, supplier, or other key stakeholders to view and interact with your brand. But, it’s relatively common for remote workers to start to get ‘creative’ with their use of company branding – for example, their email signature, a critical element of your company’s brand communication.

This is where you would want email signature software with centralised control. By setting up your company’s email signatures through a single dashboard, you maintain tamper-proof control of everyone’s branding and can make changes across the whole company with just the push of a button. This guarantees consistency without adding a load of extra work for your team.

2. Keep track of your team’s productivity

Thou shalt not micromanage. It’s one of the commandments for hybrid working, but we understand why you might feel compelled to do it. Many managers around the world are concerned that if they can’t see their employees, they don’t know if they are working or taking, shall we say, ‘extra long’ breaks.

But, you don’t have to micromanage. Email signature software can actually help you here, too. It provides at-a-glance analytics data on who is sending the most emails (or fewest), giving you a quick glimpse into the communications productivity of employees. Over time you’ll get an idea as to what the average is across various teams and roles, allowing you to see if someone is starting to slip.

3. Keep your marketing cost-effective

Marketing algorithms change regularly, making it hard to guarantee ROI on a new strategy. Email signatures are a bit of an unsung hero here, offering a low-cost, quick-response channel that’s already well integrated across the business and used regularly to drive real engagement (people reply to emails all the time, right?). Through that same dashboard we mentioned earlier it’s easy to add social media links or quick campaign messages to every employee’s signature.

You can also try email banner advertising, putting fresh eyes on your latest campaign, product announcement, etc., in a much more visually stimulating manner.

4. Gain fast feedback on company or staff performance

Worried if your business can still deliver a high quality of service despite operating in a hybrid work environment? You’ll need feedback – fast!

Try setting up a one-click performance survey and piggybacking it off your regular email communications. Either add a few buttons to your company email signatures to let recipients rate your service as ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘average’, ‘bad’, etc., or put the same buttons into a highly visual email banner instead.

5. Engage staff with quick, visual messages

Keep your company’s culture alive without clogging people’s inboxes. Using email signature banners, you can make a raft of company announcements without actually having to make an announcement – just update the banner on key personnel’s email signatures (such as HR or leadership), and their regular comms will do it for you.

But what kind of messages can you send with a humble email banner?

They could be about recent news, safety reminders, or even a happy birthday message. These are functional, positive, and staff will look forward to reading them. Email banners can also help direct new employees to onboarding materials and make staff aware of important product launches.

Wondering where to start?

Here at Parrot Digital, we’re ready to help. Book a demo with us today and we’ll show you how Rocketseed email signature software can improve your communications in a hybrid working environment, and keep your staff feeling like a part of the family.

Robyn Woods-Child | Managing Director

Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn

How to Use Gender Pronouns in Email Signatures

Posted On December 27, 2021 By Robyn Woods-Child In Marketing /

As the world opens up to the idea that gender equality goes beyond male or female, it is becoming increasingly common to see gender pronouns in people’s social feeds, business cards and email signatures.

Want to get involved but wondering where to start? We’ll cover why it is inclusive to include gender pronouns in email signatures, examples of commonly preferred gender pronouns, and how to add pronouns using a central email signature management solution.

What are gender pronouns?
Is it necessary to include gender pronouns in email signatures?
Examples of gender pronouns in email signatures
How to set up gender pronouns in Rocketseed email signature software

What are gender pronouns?

Gender pronouns are words used to identify a person’s gender identity. He, she, they – these are three common examples. They are someone’s means of expressing their gender, and a way of asking others to acknowledge and respect it.

Here are some examples of gender pronouns:

He/Him/His: For a person who identifies as male.
She/Her/Hers: For a person who identifies as female.
They/Them/Their: For a person who identifies as gender-neutral; these pronouns can also refer to those who don’t identify as either male or female.

There are quite a few more, but the three above are some of the most common. Some individuals even use mixed pronouns, such as he/they.

Why are gender pronouns important?

Gender pronouns are a sign of respect, as well as inclusivity. Including these preferred terms in email signatures can make someone feel equal. This may seem small, but for many people in the gender-diverse community, this acknowledgement is very important.

At this point in time, as gender pronouns are still considered new, mistakes are inevitable. Understanding and the willingness to learn are the best positive approaches to move forward.

Is it necessary to include gender pronouns in email signatures?

Adding pronouns to your company email signatures removes any ambiguity as to how to address and respect someone’s identity, and provides clarity to how people can address you as well.

Of course, it also shows that your company is trying to be inclusive and wants to support the gender-diverse community, even with the simplest gesture such as recognising their preferred gender pronoun. Because you send and receive emails every day, this support will be evident to employees, clients, suppliers and anyone else your company comes into contact with – and you never know who may really appreciate that your business cares.

Let your staff know it is optional – not compulsory

Some will quickly accept the use of gender pronouns in their email signature, while others could still be getting used to the idea. Everyone moves at different speeds and that’s OK too.

Open a conversation with your staff, hear their thoughts, and gather feedback. You can explain that you feel it’s a positive step towards inclusivity and a way for them to show support to their peers, friends or customers/clients, and they can let you know if they want to opt-in or out. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, so you can have some staff who display their pronouns and some that don’t.

From here, if you’re using a central email signature management solution, it will be relatively easy to assign preferred pronouns to those that want them displayed.

Examples of gender pronouns in email signatures

Here are a few email signature template samples of where you could place your pronouns. As you can see, they can be quite seamlessly blended.

Example 1: It could appear next to your name such as the below:

Example 2: Or it could be right after your job title

Example 3: Another option is a line after your name

How to set up gender pronouns in Rocketseed email signature software

Rocketseed has been designed to be user-friendly and easy to manage, even if you have a staff of 20 or 20,000. It works perfectly in customising your company’s email signatures, whether it’s on Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), and Microsoft Exchange, where you simply add preferred gender pronouns as required.

One important feature is its ability to implement new email signature template company-wide changes with just a few clicks. Below is a quick demo of how the pronoun changes are applied using Rocketseed email signature software.

Need help? Rocketseed Email Signature Solution is here for you

Parrot Digital is the exclusive partner of Rocketseed in Australia and New Zealand. Our local implementation team can help guide you through setting up gender pronouns or answering any other related questions.

Not sure about the design aspect? Our talented graphic design artists can help build pronouns into your company email signatures while maintaining your brand identity. Book a demo with us and discover how we can help your internal and external branding.

Robyn Woods-Child | Managing Director

Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn

A Simple Guide to Using Email as a Productivity Tool

Posted On November 8, 2021 By Robyn Woods-Child In Marketing /

With countless productivity apps installed on our phones and desktops, isn’t it interesting that so many of us still feel totally disorganised and exhausted by it all? We talk so much about focus and efficiency, yet we need multiple apps to accomplish one task which can make the situation worse.

In this article, we’ll show you how to use your email as an effective productivity tool.

Why use email as a productivity tool?
How to use email to maximise productivity
Email productivity tips to get more done
Get the most out of your email with dynamic banners and signatures

Why use email as a productivity tool?

Having too many tools divide our attention. And when distracted, the brain can’t entirely focus, meaning it often takes longer to complete tasks or we forget key details.

But the answer doesn’t have to be using even more productivity apps. In fact, email could be the only productivity tool you need – here’s why:

Email is simple

You’re probably already an expert on how to use your company email client.

Email is accessible on any device whether you’re using Microsoft 365’s Outlook or Google Workspace’s Gmail.

Email is unified

It is an effective open channel of communication used worldwide, for both business and personal use.

It’s one of the world’s only truly cross-platform, cross-device means of digital communication.

Email can be used for easy referencing

With email, it’s easy to search contacts, emails and email folders when you need them. Additionally, it records the date and time that each message is sent, or received.

Integrate it with your Onedrive or Google Drive folders and with just one click you can file and store documents or images. The search function will help you find anything.

Email allows you headspace

One of email’s advantages is the flexibility it allows, compared to instant messaging. When someone sends an email, they usually don’t expect an instant response. That means you’ve got the freedom to keep working on your current task before replying – the compulsion to check isn’t as strong.

In fact, researchers found that ignoring emails for a while can be good for your stress UCI).

The answer to productivity does not rely on the number of apps that you have. Email is a universal communication tool that everyone understands; even when used on different platforms and different devices, its functionality is the same. We just have to learn how to use this well-understood communication tool for productivity, not just comms.

How to use email to maximise productivity

The majority of us aren’t using email to its full effect. We spend endless hours struggling with a bloated inbox causing us frustration and that deep desire to install yet more productivity apps. Of course, this can just lead to more distraction.

So, follow these steps and you’ll start to see how email can be maximised as a productivity tool, and not just a way to send messages and Zoom invites.

1. Make email your ultimate task list

Sorting emails does not have to be viewed as its own task, rather think of it as a giant task list – the core of your business. The best thing to do is centralize these tasks.

Our tip: Get rid of unnecessary alerts or lost conversations in different apps. Instead, use email as the go-to for everything that needs to be done, whether it’s collaborating on ideas, working with your team or just communicating back and forth.

Bonus tip: You don’t have to talk to your team on Slack and then talk to your clients via email. Not only does it require two different apps, but it also means you need to keep changing tabs. If you spoke to both parties with the one app, it would allow you to focus on one space while giving both clients and colleagues your undivided attention.

2. Detox your inbox

How many emails are sitting in your inbox right now? What kinds of emails are left unread? Do you really read them all?

Our tip: Whether it’s unwanted newsletters, delivery alerts or Google Doc edits, you can unsubscribe from them all. Spend a day going through your inbox and decluttering the messages that you don’t ever read so that you are left with only what you actually need. Web-based tools such as Unroll.me can also help.

3. Prioritise using the auto-priority feature

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first,” as the famous writer Mark Twain once said.

But why are we bringing it up? This piece of advice basically says to do the most important or the worst task first – i.e. the task you’re most likely to procrastinate on. Getting this task over with can make the rest of your day a lot easier.

Our tip: Your email likely has a strong auto-priority feature that filters out the least important messages and highlights essential conversations. Group messages per person or topic and set up the rules for prioritisation in your settings menu. You can also pin critical emails to the top of the inbox and snooze low-priority messages. If you’re not sure how to do any of this within your work’s email system, consider contacting IT or the relevant email administrator for advice.

4. Make use of folders

Ever dream of having a tidy email inbox? Easy – use folders. Folders for email are like folders for anything else, collecting messages with a similar theme together in one easy-to-access (and organise) location.

Our tip: Here are some suggested folder labels to try out:

To-Do
Done
VIP Messages
Subscriptions
FYI Only

While you may need to customise this list a bit to suit your work, these basic folders would allow you to see clearly which emails need prioritising and which ones can be postponed.

5. Use templates for quick responses

You don’t have to retype the same email over again. When you know you’re going to have to send emails with similar text multiple times (for example, emailing completed work to a client or team leader) you can set up templates or ‘canned responses’ to auto-fill a lot of the text for you.

Our tip: Use email templates for your most common emails and tasks, saving you energy and hours of work each week. Fill in as many details as you can, and just leave blank spaces where you will need to modify the template (i.e. with people’s names, or a job number).

Email productivity tips to get more done

1. Allocate specific times to check your emails

Constantly checking emails is a good way to increase your stress and reduce your productivity. If something is so urgent that it must be attended to immediately, it’s more likely someone will call you, right?

Instead, schedule specific times for checking and responding to your messages. Block a time of your day, perhaps one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and do your best to stick to those times.

Bonus tip: Consider switching to Pomodoro

Another helpful time management technique is called Pomodoro. It is a timekeeping methodology that tells you to pick a task, set a 25-minute timer and work on the job until the time is up. After, you get a five-minute break. For every four Pomodoros (half-hour blocks), you get a more extended 30-minute break.

This is an excellent trick for limiting how much of your day goes into email. Use one Pomodoro cycle per email time block and work through as much as you can. Yes, it might sound silly at first, but millions of people swear to this life-changing technique.

2. Turn off email notifications

Receiving an email notification while working on other tasks throws off your focus, making it more challenging to get things done. Turn email notifications off both on your phone and desktop and focus your energy on what is in front of you.

3. Don’t check your email first thing in the morning

Reclaim your morning and start with a proper routine.

For example, starting with a workout, meditation, or time with your family means you are taking time for yourself before giving over your time to your inbox. You can also plan your day the night before and pick at least three priorities, so your day has some key objectives.

Then, each day, remember what Mark Twain said. Spend your energy on your most important (or least favourite) tasks while you’re still full of energy.

Get the most out of your email with dynamic banners and signatures

Optimised email banners and signatures are a superpowered combo that gets your brand more exposure while you work normally.

Well-designed, dynamic banners and signatures can strengthen your internal comms and highlight key messages to clients and suppliers. You’ll be finding new leads and generating sales all without the need for social media advertising, Google Ads, commercials, billboards, you name it – your marketing message works in synergy with your regular communications.

Need help? We’re here for you

At Parrot Digital, we’re the exclusive provider of internationally renowned email signature manager Rocketseed in Australia and New Zealand. Rocketseed email signature software can centrally manage all of your company’s senders and their signatures/banners, saving time and effort in making small changes (one click and you can change the whole team at once).

We’ve built our local team out of talented graphic designers and email experts that can help you design fully brand-compliant visuals. Want to see how it works? Book a demo with us today.

Robyn Woods-Child | Managing Director

Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn

How to Use Email Marketing to Strengthen Your Internal Comms

Posted On October 8, 2021 By Robyn Woods-Child In Marketing /

As your company grows, ensuring that every staff member stays aware of important business updates can be a significant challenge. You must find a way to keep employees properly informed, but in a way that still allows them to avoid distraction and carry on with their daily tasks.

While there are many apps on the rise to help with this, according to a recent Radicati Group study, email marketing remains the best tool for balancing internal communications with productivity. So, in this article, we’ll cover why internal comms should remain a top priority, and explain how to use email banners and other tools to maximise your engagement.

Why should you pay attention to your internal communications?
How to use email banners for effective internal communications
Other best practice to strengthen your internal communications for HR teams

Why should you pay attention to your internal communications?

With today’s rapidly evolving employee behaviors, internal communication is more important than ever – and it can go far beyond simple HR communications.

Here are the reasons why, plus a few practical tips to get your company started.

1. To keep in touch with increasingly geographically dispersed teams

We’re living in the new normal. In this highly digital-first world, it’s increasingly likely that your company will employ team members on a remote basis. There may also be a rise in employees who opt to work from home simply because of its benefits.

Internal email communications can be a fantastic way to keep in touch with these dispersed team members and to continue to keep them engaged wherever they are in the world. It’ll help to give them a feeling of connectedness with their peers, like they properly belong to the company’s culture. This could in turn encourage them to stay longer and perform higher.

Even better, email is nothing new – so it’s easy to implement compared with new tools such as Slack or Asana. In fact, 67% of employees are already using the classic email to keep in touch with colleagues (Expert Market), so why not use the same channel for internal HR comms?

2. To inform staff of important company updates

74% of employees feel like they are missing out on important company announcements, according to Gallup. That includes important policy updates, employee shout-outs, charity drives, adjustments to the process and all the other shifting changes that make up the life of a business.

So if we know that staff want better company updates, then we see a clear opportunity to use internal email marketing. Here are examples of company updates that your employees will definitely benefit from:

Changes in policy: Changes in policy can have a huge impact on the business, so make sure that new developments get off on the right foot with company-wide announcements (and, even better, calls for feedback or discussion – to build an effective two-way communication).
Training opportunities: We live in a changing world, where new skills are required all the time. Offer training opportunities and clearly advertise them with the use of internal news announcements.
Recruitment/promotion opportunities: Much like skills are always evolving, so too will opportunities for advancement within the company. If this is clearly advertised, you can tap the right people within the company. Even from HR’s point of view, potentials are often overlooked. Who knows? It might be someone you don’t expect.
Employee recognition: Employee recognition boosts morale and productivity in the workplace. Is someone doing a particularly great job? Let the whole company know with a shout out.

3. To promote company content and new initiatives

Along with news and changes to policy, you can also use your internal HR comms to promote the company’s content, as well as any new initiatives it is taking part in.

For your company marketing to succeed, understand that your staff hold a significant power. Chances are many of them are on social media like LinkedIn or Facebook, both of which are powerful tools in getting a message out. So, if your content is great or you’re taking part in an important initiative (see below for examples), your staff could be your biggest promoters. Get the word to them and encourage them to join in or share, and see how far the news travels.

Here are creative content/initiatives which your company can promote internally:

Blog content and marketing resources: Your customers are not the only ones who should be reading your marketing materials. Whether it’s customer guides, whitepapers, instruction booklets, or pamphlets, your staff must also be informed to keep the consistency and to stay aligned with the brand.
Initiatives: Think charity drives, sports teams, social activities, competitions, partnerships. If your company is taking part in something exciting or interesting, get the company on board!
Staff surveys: How well are your leaders doing? What do employees think of recent changes or new products? Staff feedback surveys can be a great way to generate anonymous insight into the thoughts of the people on the front lines, and internal email marketing is a useful way to get these surveys into the hands of your organisation.

How to use email banners for effective internal communications

An email banner is probably the most underrated and overlooked internal communications tool. It’s the branded image that goes on top or at the bottom of an email accompanied with marketing copy that helps the sender to make a major marketing impact with every message.

What goes into an email banner?

Banners need to be well-made to achieve the desired impact. Typically, they will be graphically designed to maximise their ability to visually promote key initiatives, changes in policy, blog content, and so on.

They can also feature multiple clickable calls-to-action, where every click is tracked and reported on in order to measure engagement with different programmes and initiatives.

Employees use email to communicate the majority of the time, so their collective insights can measure whether your campaign has been effective. And, if you see that staff are not clicking and reading the emails, that itself is also valuable data (it means you may need to make some changes!).

By managing email banners from a central database, which you can do so with a tool like Rocketseed, it’ll also be easy to swap them out for new banners and have those new graphics automatically apply to all the applicable email senders you need (no manually copying/pasting graphics into each individual email).

Other best practice to strengthen your internal communications for HR teams

Aside from making the most of your email banners, here are other ways to promote effective internal communications in your organization:

1. Make the most of your email signatures

Many overlook the opportunities of the humble email signature. Think about it: there’s one at the bottom of every single email that you send, in addition to everyone else at your company.

With a modern HTML email signature generator, you can create interactive signatures with buttons to your social media channels, key web pages, promotions, or whatever it is that you need to advertise internally. Plus, by hooking these buttons up to your analytics system with in-built UTM tracking codes, you can also keep an eye on the performance and see just how effective your comms have been.

2. Promote your brand within the company

Of course, your company’s branding will have been devised with the company’s customers in mind, but let’s not forget to take into account your values and purpose. Just because you’re emailing an internal audience now doesn’t mean branding is no longer important.

Internal branding ensures employees are aligned with the company’s vision, philosophy and tone. When your employees embrace these values, this will reflect on how they interact with your customers and stakeholders.

Your employees probably receive countless emails a day. In order to effectively market an internal message to them, you’re going to need to treat them like any other marketing audience – they have needs, challenges, and time limitations.

Focusing on visual appeal, good UX, mobile functionality, and clear user goals are common techniques that help increase the open and click rates of your internal emails.

3. Keep emails concise

Emails let you write a full-length novel, but that doesn’t mean you should. Employees tend to focus on their tasks at hand, and most people at work are on a deadline, so they simply don’t have the time and inclination to read a lot of text. If you have a lot you need to say, perhaps due to the seriousness of the announcement, consider how you might be able to simplify the message into a few core points.

If it’s imperative that you get the entire message across, consider creating alternate content (i.e. a presentation or PDF) and using emails to market that. Or, consider booking Zoom calls or face-to-face time to find better ways of engaging your audience with a greater message. Again, email can help you market and organise these.

4. Organise, strategise and automate your emails

The old rule of thumb is to avoid sending multiple emails in one day. Nobody likes spam, and your staff has a lot of things on their plate.

If you have a lot of things to say, sending multiple emails a day may not get the message across; your staff might start to ignore you, potentially sending your open rates plummeting as a result.

Consider starting a scheduled internal newsletter with multiple links to important announcements so employees just receive a few emails a month containing everything they need to know. If it’s scheduled, they’ll also know when to expect it and can plan accordingly if it’s something they enjoy reading. Of course, remember to keep it interesting!

Looking for professional email signature and banner software? We’re here for you!

Manually uploading, changing and checking email signatures and banners is time consuming, which is why you need a tool that makes it simple.

Parrot Digital is the exclusive provider of internationally renowned email signature manager Rocketseed in Australia and New Zealand. With Rocketseed, you can centrally manage all of your company’s senders and their signatures/banners, making small changes that can be rolled out automatically to everyone applicable.

Not only that, but we’ve got a talented graphics team on hand to help you design fully brand-compliant visuals and a host of templates for you to pick and choose from if you’d like help making a start on your own. To learn more, check out our pricing page or get in touch with us today.

Robyn Woods-Child | Managing Director

Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn

8 email signature banner ideas sure to generate engagement

Posted On June 16, 2021 By Robyn Woods-Child In Marketing /

Are you getting the most from your email signature banners? Every email you send is a fabulous opportunity to display a clickable email banner which can help drive traffic to your website and achieve various marketing objectives.

But, like any marketing activity, you need to get email banners right in order to drive those interactions and engagements. So, let’s help you stand out from the crowd and look for opportunities to really get your emails shining with these eight engaging email banner ideas.

The “how are we doing?” banner
The “let’s get social” banner
Showcase your success
The “worth a thousand words” banner
The “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” banner
The “it’s that time of the year” banner
Spotlight your sponsorships
Drive your charity donations

1. The “how are we doing?” banner

Incorporating a ‘Rate Our Service’ banner in your email is a great, non-intrusive way to get feedback from your clients.

With these convenient buttons, your audience can effortlessly select the desired rating in one easy click, without having to complete a lengthy survey form. Plus, this instant click-notification can help you discover how employees are performing in real time and follow up accordingly.

2. The “let’s get social” banner

Looking to really build those social media channels?

Encourage your audience to follow you on the social platforms of your choice for all the latest and greatest news your brand has to offer. Here, they can not only stay on top of trends but like, comment and engage with your brand to become some of your biggest brand ambassadors!

3. Showcase your success

Case studies can be some of your most powerful content – in fact, 50% of B2B buyers told Isoline they find case studies the most useful content type, second only to videos.

People want to hear from reliable sources that your product/service lives up to its promise. Use this opportunity to showcase these testimonials (in either written or video format) and drive traffic to your website.

4. The “worth a thousand words” banner

If you thought case studies were powerful, videos are on another level. As we mentioned above, videos were considered the most useful content a business could publish, and they’re also the most likely content B2B users will share!

Grab your audience’s attention with a short informative video and promote it with your email banners. Now watch those views roll in as people engage with your content and begin to share it on their own feeds.

5. The “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” banner

If clients love your brand, they’re going to want to hear all about how it’s going – that means promoting news and updates when those big stories break.

Maybe your company won a big award, or you’re launching a new product that will rock the industry. Let people know in your day-to-day emails! Not only does this keep your clients informed, but it’s more traffic being driven back to your website, which is always a bonus.

6. The “it’s that time of the year” banner

If you can’t beat them, join them. Customers love those seasonal deals and, if all of your competitors are doing it, why aren’t you?

Take advantage of promotional marketing opportunities presented by seasonal dates and see your sales soar.

7. Spotlight your sponsorships

There are few loves in this world quite like the love people have for their favourite sports teams. If your brand also has a go-to team, why not show your support with specially branded email signature banners?

This can be a great way to get on the same level as your audience. A love of sports is a deeply humanising thing, something we can all relate to (even those who don’t support a team can usually empathise with the passion), which is a fabulous way to build and nurture customer trust in your brand.

8. Drive your charity donations

Speaking of showing support, email banners are also a wonderful opportunity to show off your charity partners and help get more eyes on their great cause.

Of course, any additional attention you can drive towards the charity of your choice is going to be a win in everyone’s eyes. Your brand once again shows that it’s run by real humans with real values, and some people (or cats) in need get the attention they deserve and, hopefully, some extra donations.

Ready to drive real results with your emails?

New to this? Setting your emails up with fabulous marketing campaign banners is easy with Rocketseed email signature software, where you can centrally control all of your custom-designed banners in one, easy-to-use platform. At Parrot Digital, we’re the exclusive partners for Rocketseed in Australasia – jump on a call with us today to see a demo, and let’s talk about how we can help take your email campaigns to the next level.

Already one of our clients? Our local support team is just a phone call or Zoom meeting away, ready to assist you. Get in touch with us now and let’s see what kind of email signature banners will work best for your company.