Communications 2.0

Harte-Hanks recently posted report about how emails perform. Open rates are down to 17% in 2010, while the click rate stays the same. According to report these figures are vary for different industries:

Read more on MarketingProfs

There is an interesting article “Tips on re-launching a stalled change program” posted on Melcrum’s website recently. Helen Coley-Smith of ColeySmith Consulting shares advices on how to beat employee cynicism:

1. Know your audience
2. Honesty
3. Language
4. Feedback and listening
5. Attitude towards change
6. A radical message
7. Leadership and management communication
8. Involvement

Read full article ..

There was interesting report published at Melcrum “How to use social media to solve critical internal communication issues”.

Research highlights that that top 3 technologies used over social media:

• · Video – 52,6%
• · Blogs – 51,9%
• · Instant messaging – 47%

And that’s pretty straightforward. Video is the best media for communicating idea. Sometime it’s really hard to explain using static text and imaging, you need motion to explain how to move from point A to point B. Video also is better to inspire people.

Nevertheless with the help of text we can send any message we want very quickly. Of course if we talking about subject our recipient know very well.

And a third. Timeliness. We need to reach our recipient right in time. Here comes instant messaging.

Royal Caribbean is UK cruise line that communicating with travel agents. To improve communication company created Desktop Messenger “Cruise Compass” to push instant messages. “Cruise Compass” sends news, offers, deals and product information to the desktop.

Results:

• 937 downloads March – September 2009
• Passengers booked to September 2009 increased by 26% year on year
• 59% of respondents were very satisfied with the widget; 41% were fairly satisfied
• 65% of respondents used the widget every day; 35% at least a few times a week

Source:  Utalkmarketing “How Royal Caribbean boosted sales with a Desktop Messenger”

Just found great example of Desktop Alert implementation: WOWT Desktop Alerts.

This alert application delivers news and weather right to the desktop. The perfect fit for news website.