How Custom Alarm Won the 2017 SAMMY Award for Best Long Form Company Newsletter
Custom Alarm leverages its best performing weekly blogs as foundational material for its monthly electronic newsletter.
For its monthly electronic newsletters, Custom Alarm includes popular blogs, along with a community-centric or informational piece.
All of it is useful, educational material along with providing “subliminal information” about security, explains Custom Alarm Marketing Specialist Samantha Rossi.
As an example, located in Minnesota with all its outdoors amenities, many Custom Alarm customers and prospects are likely to own a cabin.
Hence the recent inclusion of “8 Cabin Security Ideas” that headlined the following newsletter blurb and hyperlink to the tips: “You’re careful about keeping your home secure. Make sure your home-away-from-home is safe, too! – READ MORE”
“We found that this has worked best, as most people prefer inbound marketing practices,” she says.
Custom Alarm adheres to originality and readability as two key conventions in its approach. The blogs that form the foundation for each newsletter are penned weekly and disseminated each Monday.
“We analyze each weekly blog and include the top two or three best performing blogs to include,” Rossi says. “We use concept worksheets to start the creative process, while focusing on our branding standards, best marketing practices, security-minded information, and community-focused content.”
These procedures have helped the company to be successful in multiple ways, such as targeting its audience by focusing on buyer personas and understanding the three stages within the buyer’s journey.
In June 2016 the monthly newsletter underwent a facelift of sorts. “We updated the look to show more images and less content, with an option to read more. We also personalized our newsletter, so that when people receive the email, they know who it is coming from, which has provided us with many more replies.”
Before the update the company averaged between .1% to .4% click-through rate, which is the percentage of people visiting a web page by accessing a hypertext link.
“We have now have increased to an average of 4%, well above the industry average of 1.9%. We have also increased our opens from an average of 20% to an average of 29%, also above the industry average of 16.7%,” Rossi says.
2017 SAMMY Winners: Read up on the rest of this year’s SAMMY winners here.
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About the Author
Rodney Bosch, Senior Editor
Although Bosch’s name is quite familiar to those in the security industry, his previous experience has been in daily newspaper journalism. Prior to joining SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION in 2006, he spent 15 years with the Los Angeles Times, where he performed a wide assortment of editorial responsibilities, including feature and metro department assignments as well as content producing for latimes.com. Bosch is a graduate of California State University, Fresno with a degree in Mass Communication & Journalism. In 2007, he successfully completed the National Burglar and Fire Alarm Association’s National Training School coursework to become a Certified Level I Alarm Technician.
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