A recent MediaPost article – "Using Personality to Help Drive Engagement" – advised companies about the importance of email having a well-known personality, celebrity, or some type of icon. Silverpop's Loren McDonald writes that database members will respond more to a person than simply an impersonal company email.
Here's an excerpt of his article that sums up his advice to businesses:
Your goal is to convey the idea that your company is run by people, not by machines. How you do that depends on your own corporate image and personality. What works for another company might be a disaster for yours.
Don't assume your founders or CEO must be the face in your email messages, either. It could be a product manager, customer support person (think of Frank Eliason at Comcast and his Twitter role with @ComcastCares), ecommerce manager or whoever best fits the role.
Sometimes, an iconic image is more appropriate, too. Think Betty Crocker, Mr. Goodwrench, or the AFLAC duck. Now, you can give it a voice that befits your corporate image, and you don't have to worry about replacing it, because it won't leave your company for a better offer.
Even if you don't think your corporate culture lends itself to personality-driven emails, you can find ways to make your message less stuffy and formal.
And yet in radio, stations often send out generic emails with just call letters or from the WXXX Email Club that are supposed to create engagement, assuming that the recipient even bothers to open it in the first place.
When stations have personalities or even mascots, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially when you think that most companies would die for the celebrity factor that radio has.
Sending out personal-sounding email from your most popular jock or the morning show is strategically and tactically smart. And for most of us who grabble with a hundred or more new emails a day, something has to stand out.
Recently, I had just that experience as I got off a plane out west to discover 63 new messages had shown up while I was at 30,000 feet. Which one did I open first? This one:
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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