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Ensuring consistent visual branding in affiliate email campaign
Hoseasons, the leading self-catering holiday provider, asked Digital Overload to develop a marketing email that would deliver a consistently branded marketing message, regardless of which email package recipients were using.
Client aims
Hoseasons is the UK's leading self-catering holiday specialist, offering a choice of over 12,000 places to stay throughout the UK and Europe.
The Hoseasons website is a key part of the company’s marketing mix, giving visitors an attractive introduction to the brand and the facility to book online or order a catalogue. Affiliate marketing plays an important role in driving traffic to the site, with attractive commissions, a range of incentives and useful technical tools available for affiliates.
Hoseasons wanted a reliable way to promote the opportunities available to a wide range of potential partners, and had identified an HTML email newsletter as the optimum channel for their needs. However, the diverse range of recipients involved in the campaign meant that the email would be seen with many different email clients (software packages).
Our brief was to ensure that it appeared the same on all the popular clients, so everyone who received the newsletter would see the same visuals and experience the same consistent brand message.
Our approach
First, we identified which of the major email clients would be involved. Having done so, we developed the HTML email to work within the limitations of each one, using methods proven by our previous experience.
Once the HTML was built, we tested it with every email client to make sure that its visual integrity would be preserved in every situation. The testing process was fully documented.
As is usually the case, the testing process threw up some refinements. Once these had been made, we carried out another phase of iterative testing to make sure everything was perfect.
Time was tight – we had just two days to carry out planning, building and testing before the email was due to be sent. As ever, we delivered on time and on brief.
Results
Armed with their 'bulletproof' email template, Hoseasons could distribute their newsletter safe in the knowledge that it would render successfully no matter what. Each recipient would see a well-formatted, on-brand email every time.
Because we had added comments to the email’s HTML code, Hoseasons’ own technical team can easily modify and re-use it, or use it as a reference source for future campaigns.
