success story: canadian society of cpas

Success Story: The Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada Integrated Newsletter

www.highroadsolution.com

Your Presenter:Jenny Lassi has been affiliated with HighRoad Solution for 8 years first as a client and then as an employee. With experience handling deployments and deliverability for a wide range of clients with optimized recipient engagement top-of-mind, Jenny routinely trouble shoots deliverability issues from ISP level filtering to email client level filtering (email Forensics as she refers to them). She also consults with clients on authentication, content, content strategy, email preference center management & other deliverability optimization tactics.


Today’s Content• Automation High Level• Automation Low Level• Chartered Professional Accountants of

Canada Automation Success Story• Automation Fine Tuning for Deliverability• Key Takeaways


Your MissionThe mission statement for your association/non-profit is your mantra.

The mission of association professionals is to offer information/events that supports the mission while simultaneously increasing membership and revenue.


In our State of Association Marketing Demand Metric study, 81% of association professionals who participated said Email is considered the most effective tactic for association marketing.


98% said Email marketing is the most frequently used marketing tactic.


The Email channel owners are Marketing Communications hands down.

Where is IT/Web Team? Crickets… crickets… should they be invited to the party?

Helk yes!


Bright Ideas

How can you fix something if you’re not aware that anything is broke?


Bright Ideas

How well does your organization embrace change in process?


Bright Ideas

Communication between departmental teams is NOT the norm

for most organizations…especially tactical tasks to execute on day to day

initiatives.


Bright Ideas

Your team may not realize there is another approach to completing a

marketing communication’s task that accomplishes the same thing in a fraction of the time saving time,

resources and $$$.


Bright Ideas

Just because you’ve always done it one way is not a compelling

reason to keep doing it.


Focus on Growth

Be your own business analyst!


Focus on Growth• Identify opportunities to add value

to members/subscribers and your relationship with them

• Focus on what you want to accomplish first not on how you can use the available tools


Focus on Growth• Growth is stifled by separatists

who don’t engage the entire team• Create a growth committee of

organizational team members from different departments if you don’t have one already


Automation Types• Prospect Member Join Campaigns• New Member Welcome Campaigns• Membership Renewal Campaigns• Next Likely Purchase Campaigns• Birthday Message Campaigns• Work Anniversary or Membership

Anniversaries Reward Messages


Automation Types• Membership Renewal Touch-point Email

Series• Post Renewal Member Appreciation

Message Email Series• Association/Non-profit Recognition

Messages• Engagement Campaigns with Incentives• Automated eNewsletter pulling content

from the website CMS


Automation Types• Automated eNewsletter that reads

interest areas from AMS, pulls content from website CMS and sends each recipient their customized eNewsletter


Automation Tools• AMS Data Integration

Segmentation• Transactional

Messaging• Newsletter Express• Newsletter Express+• Recurring Messaging• Strategy BluePrints


Success Story


“It’s like magic!”


High Level• It all started

with a new responsive bilingual website with RSS feeds & the desire to send members less email


Overview• Previously CPA Canada sent a member

newsletter titled “CPA Today” manually • In efforts to reduce the amount of emails being

sent to members, wanted an automated solution combining content

• Requirements gathering began June 2014 and launched 1st edition January 2015

• To date, 5-newsletters worth of content was combined for the new Member News automated newsletter


CPA Today EN & FR• CPA Today EN• Open Rate: 28%+

• CPA Today FR• Open Rate: 37%+


CPA Today EN & FR1. Member News 3-4 article teasers2. New Resources 3-4 article teasers3. Upcoming Events a. Webinars 1-3 event teasers b. Courses 1-3 event teasers c. Conferences 1-3 event teasers4. Unification Update 2-3 Update teasers5. CPA Magazine 2-3 article teasers6. Main Feature 1 full article7. Member News 3-4 full articles 8. New Resources 3-4 full articles 9. Upcoming Events a. Webinars 1-3 full events with details b. Courses 1-3 full events with details c. Conferences 1-3 full events with details 10. Unification Update 2-3 full articles 11. CPA Magazine 2-3 full articles


The ROI of Automation• Standard amount of time to design a newsletter

template = 5/hrs• Standard amount of time it takes to code a

responsive newsletter HTML template = 8-15/hrs• Standard amount of time it can take to flow approved

content into 1 HTML template and send = 2-10/hrs• Multiply that time the number of versions needed for

a full roll-out in both languages = x 2• Full automation helped CPA Canada go from 10-hours

per campaign roll-out down to 0-hours


Magic Recipe


IngredientsWebsite CMS RSS Feed

Really Simple Syndication


IngredientsResponsive HTML Email Template• Lead Story• Audit & Assurance• Finance• Financial & Non-Financial Reporting• Forensic & Investigative Accounting• Management Accounting• Strategy & Governance• Taxation• Leadership & Management• Trends & Issues• CPA Profession News• CPA Certification Programs• Ads• Quote• By the Numbers• Upcoming Webinars• Conferences & Courses• Ads• Highlight1• Spotlight• Ads


IngredientsTaxonomy of Interests/Topics


Ingredients

Smarty Tag Developed Template


Content Centric• Goal was to focus on

content published to their website and let automation handle the delivery of the content to the member based on their content taxonomy/preferences


Member News• Member only email• Members choose their

topics in their member portal powered by Aptify

• Pulls content from website CMS via RSS


Member News• NX+ application checks

the AMS/Aptify for preferred language

• The EN or FR template is selected

• The NX+ application pulls in content in correct language into the template


Member News

• The Smarty Tags pull in the correct language from the RSS feed


Strategic Business Decisions

What content makes sense to combine in one newsletter?


Member News EN & FR• Member News EN• Open Rate Average: 36%+

(8% increase)

• Member News FR• Open Rate Average: 42%+

(5% increase)


Fine Tuning the Engine• CPA Canada saw open rate increase with both EN and

FR when going from manual sends with static content to automated sends with customized content.

• So far 5-newsletters worth of content in Member News and could be more in the future.

• Automation gives them more time to focus on finding more messaging efficiencies, analyzing performance and strategic implementation to improve performance.

• The entire organization is still learning to master the publishing process in French and English


Deliverability• CPA Canada was one of the first

associations to tackle the CASL legislation. • CPA Canada is only sending to members.• Delivery rate is 99.5+ % for both EN & FR.• A highly engaged audience who expects

and customizes content increases deliverability overall for all messages sent from the account.


What’s with the bounce?

1. Email address no longer exists (Hard Bounce)2. Lack of Authentication3. Blacklists4. IP Reputation5. Filter thresholds met then all other traffic

deferred6. Changes on recipient email server filter software7. Recipient email server not available temporarily


Getting to the Root of the Bounce1. Set up DKIM/Sender ID if you haven’t already2. Make sure email address is correct in the system and your

AMS/CRM3. Review bounce code/reason from Bounce Logs4. Reach out to abuse@ AND

[email protected] to request to whitelist the IP address of your email platform account/HighRoad account and your domain ideally within 48-hours of the sent message

mailto:[email protected]


Invalid eMail Address Handling

1. 1-Hard Bounce2. 3-Consecutive Soft Bounces of

a Particular Bounce Type


Getting to the Root of the Invalid1. Isolate Temp/Perm Invalids2. Subscriber Analysis3. Bounce Log Review4. Data Hygiene Analysis5. Data Collection


Invalid Export Analysis

The bounce column indicates the present count of either soft or hard bounces the subscriber has experienced.

The invalid column indicates whether the subscriber is permanently invalid (2), temporarily invalid (1), or not invalid (0).


Invalid Forensics1. Look up subscriber history to see the last message

sent that bounced2. Get to the root of the invalid by reviewing bounce

code/reason from Bounce Logs from that specific send


Invalid Forensics

Run all platform invalids through an Email Validation Service to see which invalids are true invalids or which are valid email addresses that you’re unable to deliver to.


Email Validation Report

A quick report can be run to determine if the email addresses that are invalid in your email database are true invalids because they don’t exist or if there might be other factors at the root of the invalid.


Bucketize Results


True Invalids

Turn true invalids into an opportunity to reach out to constituents personally and strengthen your relationship


Invalid False Positives

Are you getting bounced, blocked and beat up?


Invalid False Positives

Start the conversation with the blocking domain:

Reach out to abuse@ AND [email protected] to request to whitelist the IP address of your email platform account/HighRoad account and your domain ideally within 48-hours of the sent message

mailto:[email protected]


How do you re-validate an invalid?1. You can look up each subscriber 1 by 1 and revalidate

from their Subscriber Profile2. Delete invalid subscribers from the system and re-

import (Note: you will lose Message History in this process for many platforms)

Once again…ONLY AFTER you get to the root of the issue should you un-flag the

record as invalid.


Re-Validate Single Record


BULK Re-Validate

1. Export File2. Delete3. Re-Import


Once Re-Validated…Measure again.

How soon should you measure?

Was the root issue resolved?

If not, back to the drawing board!


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Thank you for participating in the Success Story: The Chartered Professional

Accountants of Canada Integrated Newsletter Webinar!

Note: Be sure to look for an email featuring a recording of today’s

webinar and a copy of the presentation or access on-demand

content at HighRoadU.com


Key Takeaways…• Be your own business process analyst and look

for efficiencies in process regularly• Collaborate with all departments that would

have a different approach to the same improvement opportunity • Define project requirements first then identify

tools that make it possible• Automate. Everything. Period