BrandQuantum - NEWS #SME Tech Guru

SME TECH GURU | Sustainable technology: small changes for conscious living

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 02:16:01 -0500

Article first published on smetechguru.co.za on 22 April 2022, written by Paula Sartini

We rely on technology daily to improve our lives and workplace efficiencies yet these same technologies have an impact on our environment. Many of the devices we use today from laptops to mobile phones rely on resources and energy that contribute to increasing our carbon footprint and waste.

It is estimated that the carbon footprint of our devices, the internet and the systems supporting them account for approximately 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, similar to the amount produced by the airline industry. Further, these emissions are predicted to double by 2025 unless we do something about it. We can all make small changes to limit the impact of the technologies we use on the environment and work towards more conscious living.

The amount of time spent on electronic devices from laptops to mobile phones all adds up. For example, a study conducted by OVO Energy[2] explains that an email sent with an attachment is estimated to use the equivalent of 50g of carbon dioxide. If you consider that approximately 4.9 billion[3] people have access to the internet and thereby email, the carbon usage of all emails sent by these individuals adds up. According to OVO Energy, if each email user in the UK sent one less unnecessary email daily, it would reduce carbon emissions by 16 433 tonnes which is equivalent to 81 152 flights from London Heathrow to Madrid.

To help reduce our carbon footprint, here are a few tips that we can use to make a difference to our planet together:

Sending smaller emails can reduce your carbon footprint

While sending emails may not be on the top of the list as a key contributor to CO2 emissions, according to Mike Berners-Lee, a professor at the Environment Centre at Lancaster University, computers use energy when you type up the email, when you hit send they move to a network and then when you store the email to a data centre that uses a lot of energy[4]. Based on this process the average carbon footprint of an email can be anywhere from 0.03g CO2e to 26g CO2e depending on the time taken to draft the email and the content included in the email from the body copy to the images.

Using predeveloping content to draft the email could save time in writing the email copy. By ensuring that the correct email content and attachments are sent in the first email, it prevents the need to send several emails about the same issue to the same person, making a difference in reducing the number of emails sent daily from 333.2 billion around the world and minimising the impact on the environment.

Send only the attachments you need to send

Emails containing attachments can release up to 50g of CO2e. By limiting the number of attachments that are sent via email, individuals and companies alike can make a difference in their carbon footprint.

This is supported by a study conducted by The Shift Project[5] that found that exchanging office documents on a shared platform, rather than emailing them across the organisation led to a 40% annual reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions. In addition to modifying how the files are shared, the number of versions of documents archived was also reduced, thereby reducing the need for increased storage on the servers thereby reducing the impact on the environment.

By giving employees easy access to the latest versions of predeveloped content, brand resources and documents that are managed centrally, employees will no longer find it necessary to save various versions of documents or email multiple versions of documents to colleagues that are struggling to find the right version, thereby minimising the impact on the environment.

Reduce the size of images used in your emails

Email signatures and banners often aim to be eye-catching and reinforce the brand, using logos and images to achieve this. However, in addition to adding to the large size of emails before the body content has even been added, these emails can be blocked by recipient servers, resulting in additional emails needing to be sent. This has a knock-on effect on increasing the carbon footprint of an email.

Companies can reduce the size of emails by lowering the resolution of images used in banners and even compressing the size of the images used in email signatures without compromising the quality of the branding. In doing this, it will reduce the size of the emails and help move a step closer to reducing CO2 emissions.

Today we all need to make changes to the ways we use technology if we are to lower the impact on the environment and help our planet. By making small changes to the emails we send and store, we are already on a path to helping to reduce the carbon footprint of the technology we use daily to improve efficiencies and our lives. Let’s make a change together. To help employees achieve this, software solutions, such as BrandMail, should be used to help eliminate the need to store documents and content unnecessarily, send documents to colleagues that can be accessed centrally, and spend time developing content that is frequently used. At the same time every email should carry beautifully branded and functional email signatures and eye catching banners that don’t add to the size of the email. In doing this, employees will be able to reduce their carbon footprint one email at a time.

BrandQuantum develops software solutions to help companies deliver compliant customer communications and documents. The tamperproof email signatures that are sent out with every single email via Microsoft Outlook have built-in verification tools to give customers added peace of mind that your company emails are authentic. The BrandOffice solution offers permission control to company documents so that only those employees that need access to your documents have it. In addition, access to company documentation and templates is tracked and audited to give companies line of site of document usage and overall documentation compliance.

SME TECH GURU | Data gives marketers a voice and insights to connect with customers

Sat, 07 May 2022 13:57:49 -0500

Article first published on smetechguru.co.za on 1 February 2022, written by Paula Sartini

The world changed more in 2020 than at any other time in history. Employees experienced the benefits of working remotely and are resisting the move back to the office. Consumers have exercised their ability to demand what they want. Companies now need to listen to what people want if they are to survive.

Marketers find their voice

The Covid-19 pandemic brought accountability and measurability to business as many people were allowed to work remotely for the first time in their careers. This pushed analytics to the fore as people questioned the value of working from the office verse working remotely. However, this quest for value and measurement is not isolated to employees. Marketing departments are now also looking at analytics to understand the performance of their marketing campaigns and initiatives.

Historically marketing departments focused on implementing campaigns with limited insight into whether they worked or not. Now with the rise in technology adoption, marketers are turning to the data to determine what is working and can push back to the top-level to let them know, able to substantiate with real-time data and compare campaigns giving them a voice in the boardroom.

With customers exercising the right to choose, brands need to be purpose-led and cannot make promises they don’t deliver on as people are increasingly aware of what they believe is and isn’t fair.

The buffer removed

Before the pandemic, employees had to follow the right channels for communications and could not go directly to management for information. At the same time, companies had hierarchies in place whereby certain employees would handle customer queries or engage with customers directly.

With employees now working remotely, the communications channels have changed and there is no longer a buffer in place to withhold company information from employees. With fluid communications, internal and external communications have aligned to a consistent voice. This is also driving the authenticity of communications as companies can no longer filter and clean up information as they want to portray it, with customers looking for information to be made available immediately, there is no time to hamper with it but rather make it available to them as it is needed. In addition, measuring responses is now done within minutes, hours and days rather than within months.

Immediacy replaces perfect moments

Traditionally marketing departments spent months creating the perfect campaign. However, with communication channels changing so rapidly, marketers no longer have the luxury of time they once did. Today marketers need to run campaigns quickly, test the results and force correct as necessary.

This is a more strategic approach to campaigns as marketers can see what is working in real-time based on immediate customer responses and feedback. While this has several benefits in terms of the ability to measure the success of campaigns in real-time, it also adds additional pressure on teams to be ready and make adjustments as and when they are needed.

While technology makes it easy to measure the success of campaigns in real-time, it cannot replace the creative process or handle unpredictability which is where human ingenuity comes in.

Marketers to embrace technology and data

Traditionally marketers have shied away from technology, however, in an age where consumers are creating a sea of data, marketers need to sit up and pay attention. With an estimate of 2.4 billion emails being sent every second, consumers are spending more time online and marketers need to hone in on this, and lean into the data to deliver what customers want.

This can only be achieved by using technology solutions such as AI and machine learning which improves marketers’ ability to work better, fast and cheaper. For example, while many tasks within the marketing department remain repetitive, these can be outsourced to machines that would be able to do it quickly and efficiently.

This would free up marketers to use these data and analytics to understand customers’ behaviour and gain insight into what they want. This can only be achieved by leveraging the information that is available to them and using this to develop campaigns. The data and quality of data are critical to meeting customers’ needs and marketers will not be able to give customers what they want without the data.

However, while customer experience is increasingly important, how marketers gather and use the data comes under the spotlight as customers are looking for transparency and control. As such many marketers will need to go back to basics in terms of data collection and data analytics to get marketing right and prepare for 2022.