Do You Need to Upgrade the Operating System or Applications? continue...

There's one good reason to go ahead with the upgrade to the Windows 2003/XP platforms: support. This issue can be a minor one if you've already prepared your own support infrastructure, such as keeping personnel trained. One inexpensive way to do this is to subscribe to Microsoft's MSDN (Microsoft Developer's Network). MSDN gives you a superset of the documentation and knowledge articles that you can get from msdn .microsoft .com. Even though the articles on the Web site may be aged out over time, you can always turn to your CDs (or DVDs, if you chose that option) to find support for Windows 2000 as the next few years go by. Microsoft also offers a subscription to TechNet, which is a scaled-down version of the MSDN subscription. I suggest that you subscribe to one or the other as your budget permits. In a large network, the MSDN subscription is a small cost to pay for the many benefits (from programming to operating systems) you'll get.

Tip

Another option you might want to consider is the Microsoft Action Pack. This is a subscription that supplies Microsoft Partners with operating systems, Exchange Server, and a few other software items. If you do not need the development tools that come with an MSDN subscription, you can at least preview newer operating systems and some software by becoming a Microsoft Partner. You can sign up as a partner by becoming a reseller, or even a consultant.

If you already have trained personnel for the current operating system and applications, support isn't that much of an issue for your network. Yet, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP might be a good choice mainly because of the additional functionality and security improvements they provide. For example, Windows XP Professional has a user-friendly task-oriented GUI (although you can choose to revert to the classic Windows interface). Other important features of Windows XP Professional include a solution to what is called (in Microsoft documentation) DLL hell. Applications that now overwrite DLLs (dynamic link libraries) in the Windows environment (Windows 9X/Me excepted) are now stored in application-specific directories, so the core DLLs located in the system files directory remain untouched (except by Microsoft updates, of course). This can solve a lot of headaches for network administrators who are deploying new applications. So, if your network adopts new applications frequently, upgrading might be a good choice as opposed to a network that requires only minor upgrades for applications.

Windows XP also has many other new features, some that make the user experience easier and some of which solve problems that exist in Windows 2000. For example, the capability to set checkpoints and roll back to a previous state on the computer is an important one. This feature is called System Restore. If you or a user makes a change to the desktop's configuration or installs an application that causes problems, it's easy to simply use System Restore to go back to the previous configuration of the desktop without having to remove programs and diagnose other configuration changes. System Restore enables you to create these checkpoints yourself (for example, just before you make the changes), and automatically creates checkpoints on a periodic basis and when some changes are made to the operating system or applications. However, it's best to create a checkpoint yourself (a simple matter) before making changes to the desktop computer.

Tip

For more information about DLL hell and System Restore, see Platinum Edition Using Windows XP, published by Que Publishing (ISBN 07897279001.

System Restore is not a free lunch. It works by saving critical system files, including Registry settings, on the hard disk so that it will have the necessary information to restore your computer if you choose to roll back to a previous state. If disk space is important, this feature might not suit your environment. System Restore requires, at a minimum, 200MB of disk space. However, you can change this to a larger value to keep old restore points around for a longer period of time.

Windows XP is also available in an x64 version that supports the 64-bit extensions found in the latest desktop and workstation processors from Intel (processors that support EM64T) and AMD (processors that support AMD64). Although drivers must be rewritten to run for 64-bit operation, the user interface of the x64 edition of Windows XP is virtually identical to the original 32-bit version. If you need a native 64-bit edition of Windows, this is the way to go.

There are many other features that Windows XP offers for desktop users that go far beyond the scope. You might want to check out these features on Microsoft's Windows Web pages for Windows XP. There are many white papers and other documents available on Microsoft's Web site. Some changes are cosmetic—such as stacking multiple instances of a single program into one item on the toolbar when the toolbar has become overpopulated—to the new interface—to the capability to enable another user to take control of the desktop and assist a user with problems. Many of these new features are also offered by third-party products. However, if you have not yet invested in these kinds of products, you might find the features that Windows XP offers for desktop users—not to mention the features to make life easier for your help desk staff—worth the upgrade.

Windows Server 2003 versions are another story altogether. You'll find Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, Windows 2003 Enterprise Server, and Windows 2003 Web Server, as well as numerous specialized versions such as Storage Server, SQL Server, and many others.

If you support Itanium servers, there are two versions of Windows Server 2003 optimized for Itanium: Enterprise Edition and Datacenter Edition. For 64-bit (x64) servers based on Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron processors, there are three versions available: Windows Server 2003, Standard x64 Edition; Windows Server 2003, Enterprise x64 Edition; and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter x64 Edition.

With all that said, let's now get on upgrading to Windows 2000 and then Windows 2003 if your network consists now of Windows NT 4.0.

Tip

Whatever you decide, check Microsoft's Web site and examine all the white papers and other documentation available to determine whether you'll benefit from an upgrade to Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003.

E-NEWSLETTERS - DEFINING AND REFINING Part 10

3. Some content in e-mail, full content on web site (multiple pages). This is similar to approach (1), but here the e-mail newsletter is longer since it contains a short extract from each article. Typically a more >> option link will be available to take the user through to the web site. This makes it easier for the reader to decide whether the content is relevant to them. This is a common approach; Figure 5.14 is an example.

4. Some content in e-mail, full content on web site (single pages). This is similar to option (2), but again has the advantage that an idea of the relevance of the content is given in the e-mail, and also it is easier to find other content from the same newsletter on the web site.

5. All content in e-mail. This approach is being used by Freepint (www.freepint.com) at the time of writing. A lot of detailed content about web searching is provided in two detailed text e-mails, sent each month. Here, a clickthrough is not required to the site at all(although some longer articles may require this). It is typically used by professional or technical plain-text newsletters. This approach is arguably the best method of communicating information to the recipient. However, for the marketer, calls-to-action encouraging further participation are more difficult to achieve from the newsletter than from the web site.

This decision is difficult, since the preference on length varies according to the individual. For many, including this author, part of the power of e-mail newsletters is to be able to get a rapid briefing on developments about a particular topic. If you have to clickthrough to a web site and then understand the structure of the web site, as is the case with the What's New in Marketing web site (www.wnim.com), this slows down the experience.

A related question is, should we archive? For a B2B newsletter, the question is perhaps not should we archive, but how? Archiving a B2B newsletter, provided it has quality content, provides an excellent resource for your customers. They will return to the resource as they face particular issues. As mentioned above, this can also assist in generating new subscribers, since specialist articles indexed by search engines will gain new visitors who may look to tap into your expertise. For a B2C newsletter, the issue is not that clear cut. If the e-newsletter is providing news or interesting content, then similar arguments apply — it is a resource that will encourage repeat visits and can also, via search engines, act as an acquisitions tool. For B2C newsletters from an e-tail site it is inappropriate to archive the content, since product information and offers will quickly date.

When an archive is content-rich, which is typically the case with a media or news site, the utility for the user can be improved by developing 'related article' features. ClickZ (www.clickz.com) has a good related-articles feature. This lists items related to the current article according to which category they fall into, or according to similarity in key words in title or body.

Decision 18 — how do we gain subscribers?

There are two aspects to gaining subscribers: first, there are various sources where e-mail addresses can be collected; secondly, there is selling the benefits of the newsletter so that potential subscribers are happy to give up their e-mail address. You may want to refer back to Chapter 4, where approaches to gain customer e-mail addresses were covered in more detail. This explains maximizing our use of online and offline touchpoints with our audiences to explain the proposition, and offer the opportunity to opt-in without building too many barriers.

On the web site, we need to ask these three questions to maximize sign-up:

1. Is our opt-in given enough prominence? Is it on the home page? Is it 'above the fold'? Is there enough screen real-estate devoted to it? Is our archive and proposition indexed by search engines? Is it prominent throughout the site?

2. Is our proposition clear? Does the messaging say more than 'opt-in to our e-newsletter'? Does the sign-up page highlight the benefits? Are the benefits for different audiences clearly described? Is the quality of content demonstrated through an archive or example newsletter?

3. Can we overcome barriers to subscription? Reassure potential subscribers that you will not be overloading them with e-mail. Show how the newsletter will be relevant and targeted. Reassure them that details will not be passtd on to third parties by using those six magic words: 'we will not share your information'.

E-NEWSLETTERS - DEFINING AND REFINING Part 9

Decision 15 — marketing communications integration

There is a tendency to plan our e-mail newsletters with blinkers on. If this happens, we lose opportunities to leverage the strengths of different media for different purposes. Here are some ideas on how to avoid this:

• Use the e-newsletter to preview future offers and product developments before other media. Highlight unique web offers — this will be an incentive for audiences to open the e-newsletter.
• Use the e-newsletters to reinvigorate recent or current campaigns or promotions that were first highlighted in other media.
• Use the e-newsletter to give more detail than the offline newsletter or house magazine provides — refer visitors to the online version and reduce the size and cost of the offline communication. Alternatively, put the whole magazine online, as with http:// www.easyjetinflight.com.
• Rather than referring the media or other audiences to press releases or a media centre, refer them first to an e-newsletter item. This will give them a more complete picture of what the company stands for, and your current news.

Decision 16 — e-mail integration

Alongside the e-mail newsletter, there will be many other e-mail communications from an organization. This leads to decisions about what is the best way to break major news such as a product launch or upgrade.

I have seen newsletters where a major initiative such as a product launch or an event invitation becomes lost in all the other news items. Many newsletter templates could be improved by avoiding the newsletter being a list of items with similar weightings. This danger can be reduced through themed subject lines, or an e-mail newsletter design that gives precedence to certain items and is not too long. However, the danger of diluting the message still occurs. In the case of the product launch, it is best to use a separate e-mail to give this message. The opt-in form should give this option, so that the e-mail received is in keeping with the subscriber's expectations.

Decision 17 — web-site integration

One of the benefits of e-newsletters, compared with their paper-based equivalents, is the ability to deliver a large amount of valuable information at a low cost. Of course, this is a double-edged sword. Too much information will make the e-newsletter unwieldy, and your message will not get across or the recipients will not be able to locate the information relevant to them. So when you want to convey a lot of information, as is the case with many newsletters, you have to decide on the split of content between the e-mail newsletter and the web site, where more detailed content may be hosted.

To simplify an example, let's say this newsletter contains just three different content areas, or three different articles. The options are:

1. Minimal content in e-mail, full content on web site in multiple pages. Here, the e-newsletter contains the links and a very short summary of the article, linking through to the full article on the web site. This has the benefit that the newsletter can be scanned very rapidly by the recipient for articles of interest. However, there is no indication of the quality or relevance of the content, which is possible with approaches (3) to (5). It also less easy for the other articles to be read than in the next option, (2).

2. Minimal content in e-mail, full content on web site in a single page. As in the previous case, the e-mail has limited information, but on clicking through to the web site a single page newsletter is presented that contains all the articles. This has the benefit that the interested reader can rapidly find the information in all articles.

Building Brand Awareness

Powerful companies with large promotional budgets are reinforcing their competitive advantage through strong advertising offline as well as online. In 1998, the rage cost of building a national online brand was about $5-10 million. In 000, it cost $50-100 million, a tenfold increase. In 1999, 40 per cent of web-development budget was going on towards marketing, with more than 80 per of all television commercials in the USA featuring a Web address and 30 cent promoting an individual Web site (Lindstrom, 1999). Excessive spending brand-building without compensating revenues can be blamed for the down- of many dotcoms. Many of those that survive have incurred significant cost. According to Haigh 00), AOL has so far spent $2 billion on building its brand identity and Yahoo! 00 million.

Web site promotion is becoming more sophisticated, but there is always the danger of targeting the wrong audience, which was estimated to be the case in many as 70 per cent of 1999 campaigns. This has led to a quest for a more effective way. Some companies have been quite creative. For example, Orange Technologies, during the launch of a special youth product, offered to repaint its customers' cars free of charge. The only condition was that Orange would choose the colour. (Guess which one!) After just one day, 24 cars had been painted, at the cost to Orange of $4,200. Even giants like Yahoo! have resorted to creative, inexpensive offline promotions. Chauffeurs holding signs at airports to pick up 'Mr Yahoo!' have actually been corporate promotions (Lindstrom 1999). Gimmicks like this resulted in extensive free publicity for such companies in the media in the early days of the Internet. Small companies have found it hard to compete with these levels of expenditure, and hence need to be particularly creative in order to maximize the value of small promotional budgets. Many advertisers have adopted the now widespread use of banner advertisements as branding tools rather than transactional tools. 'There is absolutely a branding opportunity for advertisers on the Web,' says Jim Nail, senior analyst at Forrester Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Heim, 2001). A good example is the Visa credit card company (ww w.visa.com), which in the past has blanketed the Web with banner advertisements. The consistency of the Visa brand has been likened to a reader consistently seeing the same advertisement on the back of a magazine. This in effect is helping Visa to solidify its brand image. Nevertheless, research undertaken by Dahlen (2001) on banner effectiveness has found that there are major differences between the performances of banner advertisements for familiar and unfamiliar brands. Unfamiliar brands initially perform badly, with very low click-through rates, but with repeated exposures the response rate increases. Familiar brands initially attract interest but customers quickly get bored with their campaigns, and response rates fall. Moreover, major differences were found between novice and expert Internet users with regard to their relative susceptibility to Web advertising. Dahlen therefore recommends that unfamiliar brand banner advertisements should have long-term goals, allowing multiple advertising exposures. For familiar brands, on the other hand, there should not be a long-term goal, as the advertisements quickly 'wear out'.

BRAND CONVERGENCE

Creating a strong brand both online and offline involves far more than the 'look and feel' of the Web home page, the logo or the new brochure. The very essence of a strong brand philosophy is the way in which the staff serves customers - a key part of creating brand convergence. Whether the customers are surfing the Web site or using the service offline, the organization must ensure consistency of all 'customer touch points' to create a single, comprehensive and memorable brand. This involves significant management and staff training, motivation and constant follow-up. Striking the right balance between online and offline delivery systems to satisfy and deepen customers' relationships and maintain the uniqueness of the brand has to be the key to success. A convergent brand strategy has to address some or all of the following issues:

• Which are the channels that the customers find best suited for delivery of each service: a branch, telephone or online?
• Are the marketing strategic plans adequate to support integrated delivery through all the channels?
• Are the staff motivated and appropriately trained? Remember, a `convergent brand' will have an impact on all areas of the organization.

Ensuring integration of high-touch/high-tech delivery channels, creating consistent, differentiated brand and maintaining acceptable operating costs customer will be essential for survival. Offering customers relevant services building a strong brand image in this way are seen as vital for the future of industries such as banking (Weber and Seibert 2001).