If you’ve automated communications for credential management in the past, you know they can be a great way to build candidate notifications and reminders into the certification process. That is, as long as they work. But what if they aren’t working in the way you had hoped?
Email tracking reports aren’t just for your marketing functions. They can also assist your operations team in two key ways:
- Are you reaching your candidates and certificants?
- If yes, are they taking the desired actions?
Email delivery tracking offers insight into the impact of your communications. Knowing what aspects of your emails to examine and change isn’t always clear at first. In the event of speedbumps, detours, and delays, email reports can help you determine the best way to iron out your application flow.
The Strategic and Tactical Impact of Email Tracking Reports
By analyzing email performance for the characteristics that lead to more effective communications (e.g., frequency, timing, content), you can improve your open rates, meaning more people will see your messages. You’ll also be more successful in promoting desired candidate and stakeholder behaviors, which means more people will do what you need them to do.
We have a favorite saying regarding an automated communications strategy: “I didn’t forget; you were supposed to remind me!” From a tactical perspective, nobody can claim they did not see communications the system tracks as opened. Whether or not a message was sent is a matter of much quicker and easier determination. Email tracking is also a great way to see if your contacts need cleaning up.
Communications Breakdown: What to Look For (and What to Change)
Here’s how analyzing your email tracking reports can help maximize the success — and therefore, the value — of your automated communications program:
When Your Communications Aren’t Delivered
We can all agree that a successful notification has to reach its intended destination. If it doesn’t, there can be any number of reasons why. Have your candidates changed emails? Are they able to log in? Is your AMS integrating with your system correctly? Are you in compliance with best practices to avoid spam filters and flagging?
Analyzing your bounce rates can help you diagnose potential issues with your candidate data. Program staff can run a bounce report and return the list of who was not delivered a selected communication. If the numbers are small, they can then follow up with the candidates to find the source of the error. If the numbers are large, there’s likely something else causing the problem.
When Your Communications Aren’t Opened
What if the notifications are reaching their intended recipients, but aren’t being opened? Consider this an opportunity to examine your messaging. How hard will it be to tweak both your broadcast and targeted communications?
LearningBuilder provides a diverse array of tools for companies to convey their communication content. The Automations Engine oversees email templates, enabling organizations to craft personalized text for various stages in a member’s journey. Each template conveys the message that an organization wishes to communicate to all recipients, while also facilitating the use of substitution variables to access information from the member’s profile or application. This personalized approach aids in establishing context and enhancing engagement.
When the Desired Task Isn’t Completed
At the end of the day, notifications and reminders are meant to impel certain behaviors. The ultimate measure of successful communication is those behaviors actually happening. If many candidates are still missing deadlines or the certification process is otherwise not functioning smoothly, it might be worth looking at what triggers the associated notifications. Is it process-based, or date-based? Would it better serve a candidate to receive this communication at a different point in the application workflow? What changes could you make to the frequency and timing of your communications? Can you re-configure your automations if needed?
At this point, it’s also possible that recipient task completion has more to do with the task itself and less with the communications around that task. Can the task be simplified? Can you take steps to improve the experience of completing the task?
Maximize the Value of Your Certification Management Software Investment with LearningBuilder
LearningBuilder is a low-code solution built from the ground up to streamline certification, with automations that keep the wheels of your process turning. Meanwhile, our robust and user-friendly reports keep you in the loop on your program metrics — including your communications. Schedule a call with our team to explore how we can help streamline and optimize your credentialing processes.
