Silverpop holds the key to effective email communication for Golden Key

Company Profile
For more than 25 years, the Golden Key International Honour Society has recognized and encouraged achievement and excellence among college and university students from all academic disciplines. With nearly 350 chapters at colleges and universities in six countries--Australia, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States--the non-profit organization strives to build global communities of academic achievers by providing opportunities for individual growth through leadership, career development, networking and service. Each year Golden Key awards its members more than $400,000 through 17 different scholarship and award programs.

The Challenge
With members throughout the world, email is an essential means of communication for Golden Key. But executing an effective and compelling monthly email newsletter was proving increasingly difficult. With many ISPs classifying its text-only email newsletter as spam, Golden Key’s deliverability was dismal. Golden Key also had no way to track what happened to its emails once they were sent, and was unable to effectively manage its lists. And, it was allocating too many resources to make its email marketing efforts pay off--with little return on investment.

Golden Key needed an outsource solution, and was seeking a provider to help manage lists, create appealing email campaigns, improve deliverability, get its email off the blacklists and into members’ inboxes, and track its email campaign performance. After an extensive search, Golden Key determined Silverpop was the only provider that could successfully fulfill all of these needs. “Silverpop provides the best turnkey email outsource solution in the market today,” said Golden Key CIO/CTO David Anbari. “Its ability to provide feature-rich content, effective list management and best in class analytical tools, makes Silverpop the ideal choice for us.”

The Solution
Golden Key needed a solution, and Silverpop delivered. Using Silverpop’s technology and expertise, Golden Key was able to create and execute an on-going email marketing campaign that is more enticing, better-coordinated and more effective overall. Golden Key’s newsletters are now filled with compelling content presented in an appealing format. The organization has improved deliverability and ensured compliance with CAN-SPAM.

With Silverpop’s extensive and detailed tracking and reporting services, Golden Key now knows not only which members are receiving its emails, but also if they’re opening them, and if so, which links they are clicking. Anbari explains that “solving the deliverability challenge alone was not enough.  We have used Silverpop’s reporting to tell us what our members were actually viewing, which has helped us refine our messages to meet our customer’s needs.”  The ability to view and analyze meaningful results is the number-one benefit Silverpop has provided for Golden Key. And, with ongoing campaign results, Golden Key is using this data to better communicate with its members in other channels, further improving its overall brand value.

The Results
Results were immediate. The first campaign alone generated a 30-percent increase in deliverability. With Silverpop’s technology, the Golden Key newsletter is now presented in a visually pleasing manner that entices recipients to read the message. And, by using the comprehensive reporting data to tailor newsletters to individual members’ interests, Golden Key is able to increase customer loyalty by reinforcing its brand value. Furthermore, by putting its email marketing efforts into Silverpop’s hands, Golden Key was able to decentralize its efforts and eliminate one full-time position, dramatically improving its email marketing ROI.

Silverpop has helped unlock Golden Key’s success with email marketing. As Mr. Anbari puts it, “We had a laundry list of problems with our email marketing and Silverpop has solved them all.”

Golden Key International Honour Society
www.goldenkey.org/GKWeb