Better email marketing (and beyond)
We're not *just* an email marketing software company, and if you read on you'll see why that's a good thing! We love what the guys at dotMailer, Campaign Monitor and Mailchimp are doing, but (when you're ready) we want to help you take your marketing a little further than just email - into better customer experience and loyalty (our blog post explains more).
When you start out with email marketing you may just want to send some very simple emails linking through to pages on your website. That's fine - and we make it very easy to do that. But you'll soon want to start experimenting with different email layouts, with custom landing pages and sign-up forms, and with social sharing links that help your subscribers to spread the word.
Horizon has all the features you need to do this, and we can also help you to go beyond email into multi-channel campaigns.
All the email marketing features you need
With Horizon you can create fully customisable email layouts and then re-use these quickly and easily for future campaigns. You can personalise your content for each contact in your address book, and you can even create variable content in your emails so that everyone gets the content that's most relevant to them. People aren't the same, so why send everyone the same emails?!
Talking about people, we help you to build detailed profiles and opt-in preferences that will give your customers complete control over the information they want to receive, and we help you to target your content at these subscribers in some amazingly powerful ways (like drawing an area on a map).
We also let you create personalised subject lines, A/B splits and all kinds of calls-to-action (social sharing, forwarding, downloading...). And all of this can be tracked and measured, through some easy-to-use reports. You'll find lots of "how-to" guides and best practice articles in our Knowledge Base.
Create beautiful emails and landing pages
The best thing you can do for your email campaigns is create useful content (If you need inspiration, here's a great book on the subject) - but looks can certainly help! You'll find a range of pre-built email and landing page templates to get started with, and you can import new ones from sites like themeforest.net. And If you're an experienced designer, Horizon gives you full control over your HTML and styles.
Horizon landing pages can be hosted by us, or embedded into your own website to give your site visitors a more streamlined experience. Landing pages can also include multi-step forms and surveys, with auto-responders and team notifications to help you automate your marketing and know when someone new signs up!
All of your built-in emails and landing pages (subscribe and unsubscribe pages, forward-to-a-friend forms etc) can also be completely styled to match your brand.
Run real "campaigns", not just one-off email blasts
All email marketing vendors talk about "campaigns" - but is their idea of a campaign the same as yours, or are they really talking about one-off email blasts?
Horizon campaigns can be just a single email, but they can also be so much more. For a start, Horizon lets you plan your campaign objectives up-front and then track your achievements over time. It also lets you create a time-driven sequence of emails that are all aimed at achieving your objectives. For example, let's say your first email doesn't get the response rate you were hoping for. Horizon will let you create a follow-up email as part of the same campaign, that will only be sent to people in the original target group that didn't open the email / click on a certain link / fill out the landing page form (you decide).
Or you might want to send a "thankyou" message to all the subscribers that did respond. Or wait a few days and send them another follow-up offer. And did we mention that Horizon campaigns can include emails, SMS text messages, voice calls, social media posts, web publishing... we think it's pretty neat, and we hope you'll love it when you give it a try!
Why use multi-channel marketing
It’s a mobile world. People use all kinds of methods and devices to communicate; from their business phone to their personal mobile, and from email to SMS and social media.
Consider that 97% of SMS text messages are read (compared to just 25% for email), with 75% of SMS being read instantly.
But to get the full advantages of multi-channel marketing, you need a tool that can handle all of your email marketing, SMS text marketing and other channels in one place. Don't let the limitations of 'email-only' or 'SMS-only' marketing tools stand in the way of building better customer relationships!
'Big business' tools at SME prices
Horizon lets you move from email marketing into "Multi-Channel Campaign Management", quickly and easily without the headaches of running several different systems.
Through a single campaign engine you can accurately profile and segment your prospects and customers, create personalised e-forms and landing pages, send content-rich emails and mobile messages, and track inbound response rates.
Horizon can be integrated with your CRM system or used as a stand-alone platform, and it even has a range of standards-based APIs for your developers to hook into.
Build lasting customer relationships
As a smart marketer, you’ll know that opening-up new communication channels with your customers is vital to success.
From direct mail and email through to social media and mobile, each channel has its part to play in the overall customer dialogue.
Opening-up new channels and delivering timely, relevant and engaging content means that your opt-out rates will be lower, and you’ll build customer loyalty that converts into cross-sell opportunity time and time again. Horizon gives you that power.
Track your (fantastic) marketing ROI
You want to track your campaign spend, and you want to track the value of leads and opportunities generated. And you want to measure it across all channels, at the same time. You need Horizon.
Using simple metrics and a funnel-based, channel-independent, approach to lead scoring and conversion, you’ll be able to track the success of your campaign minute-by-minute.
Customer service automation
Emotions drive value. It’s been shown that the quality of the product you sell, and the price that you sell it at, will account for at most 50% of the customer loyalty to your brand.
The more significant part will come from the experience you serve-up. Horizon can transform the customer experience from good to great! Using low-cost automation in a smarter way, you can improve loyalty to your brand and then convert that loyalty into profit.
Better customer experience
Every time your customers sit in a queue or ‘push 1 for this, 2 for that’ IVR menu, you create feelings of frustration, anxiety or even anger that erode their loyalty and slowly destroy your brand value.
Part of this problem is that customers feel that, like cattle, they’re simply herded from here to there with no real consideration for their needs, wants and desires.
By personalising each and every customer interaction, based on your CRM data and other acquired knowledge, Horizon can provide a significantly improved customer experience of IVR and other automated contact channels.
Build loyalty to your brand
But it mustn’t stop there. To create the kind of loyalty that can turn a customer into an advocate, you need to make them feel pleased, valued and cared-for. You need to exceed their expectations.
Horizon can help you to achieve greatness by sending timely, relevant and engaging messages to your customers. Go the extra mile, with proactive outbound service that will delight your customers.
Convert loyalty into profit
Customer service and marketing should work hand-in-hand. Research has shown that experience leaders have customers who are 14.4% more willing to buy additional products or services, 15.8% more loyal and 16.6% more likely to recommend the brand to others.
Those are big numbers. Horizon won’t just save you money with low-cost service automation; it will provide a single customer-view that can be shared right across your business and right through the customer lifecycle, from acquisition through to retention and growth.
Business continuity
Whether it’s a server outage or a large scale security threat, Horizon can be relied upon to deliver resilient, secure, two-way messaging to unlimited numbers of staff, customers and suppliers.
As an approved supplier on the government buying solutions framework, we naturally take security and resilience very seriously. All HTK staff are security cleared, and alongside our internationaly-recognised ISO 27001 information security accreditation we’re working towards BS25999.
How it works
Horizon is a secure web-based application, rather than software that you need to install. This not only means that you can access the service anytime, anywhere worldwide, but it also means you’ll have no capital outlay on purchasing expensive servers or phone lines – we’ve already taken care of that.
Utilising SMS, email, phone, pager, fax and social-media channels, Horizon offers you the greatest opportunity to reach your contacts on the device that suits them best. This truly multi-channel approach will maximise your chance of success, in the minimum time possible, as cost-effectively as can be.
The extensive role-based permissions and data-segmentation capabilities within Horizon mean that you’ll be able to provide your team with the exact tools they need to manage their part of your business continuity plan. It’s been designed to keep things simple and practical. Different departments can even have their own set of usage reports, allowing you to control the roll-out of Horizon and cross-charge by global location or department if you want to.
Reach the right people
We understand that during an incident you need things to work – and fast.
Horizon allows you to quickly and easily segment your contacts into groups, in advance or in real-time depending on the incident, to ensure that you’re sending the right information to those who need it. Groups can be defined however you like, using business-rules and even based on the geographic location of your contacts, with no need to manage lots of list. This can really help to simplify things, and save you – and your team – valuable time.
And if you already store all the contact information you need in your HR database, you might want to consider integrating Horizon for automatic updates. Horizon should be a seamless extension of your business, not another stand-alone IT system to manage. We can help you to get things joined-up.
It doesn't stop with a message
Notification is at the heart of Horizon, but it does not stop there.
Opening-up inbound communication channels by SMS, email, web and IVR means that you’ll be able to collect real-time updates on staff safety, and track exactly who has (or hasn’t) received and acted on your outbound messages. Inbound voice lines can also be set-up in seconds, and Horizon can easily be configured with different routing plans for your staff, suppliers and customers – it’s a great tool to help manage your supply-chain and customer communications.
Horizon reports are second to none, so you can report on the progress of an incident in real-time. The built-in Horizon file store is also a great place to keep a copy of your business continuity plan, along with other important documents. And naturally, Horizon includes a full audit-trail of all user activity.
Public warning and informing
Horizon can warn and inform the general public and your staff, quickly and cost effectively.
Whether you’re a government department, small business, large enterprise or COMAH site, we can help you to meet your duty of care and requirements under the Civil Contingencies Act.
HTK Horizon is used by organisations including the Metropolitan Police, Birmingham City Council, Norfolk Constabulary and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
How it works
Horizon goes a step further than most of the ‘fire and forget’ solutions on the market, by enabling a fully interactive and personalised two-way dialogue with your staff and the public.
You’ll quickly be able to set-up web forms and mobile SMS numbers to capture interest. New campaigns can be set-up in a matter of seconds, so when a crisis happens you’ll be ready.
Using the power of GIS mapping technology, Horizon allows you to send targeted messages based on each person’s location, interests and contact preferences. Inbound replies can also be handled in a personal way, for example to forward regional messages to a local control centre or to prioritise elderly and vulnerable callers.
Maximise public uptake
Because your messages are personalised and micro-targeted, recipients are more likely to view them as timely and relevant. You can manage the sign-up process online to control the information you want to capture.
Not only will this improve your opt-in rate, but it will encourage referrals for other people to sign-up too – reducing your marketing costs.
Reduced operating costs
And because you can send through multiple channels, your messages can be disseminated in the fastest and most cost-effective way.
Timely outbound contact will help to avoid inbound calls, so not only will Horizon provide a value-added public service but it can reduce your staffing costs too.
