Southland Industries Build Email Brand Consistency Across 2,000 Employees

Faced with inconsistent design and out-of-date contact details across its company email signatures that damaged its brand, Southland Industries approached Rocketseed. Here’s how we helped a billion-dollar company bring its signatures on-brand and up-to-date for all its 2,000 employees across the U.S. as well as building over 50% engagement through email signature banner marketing.

The Client – Southland Industries

As an MEP building systems expert, Southland Industries provides integrated, full lifecycle solutions that optimize the design, construction, operation, and efficiency of buildings. Through collaborative client partnerships and the collective expertise of its people, Southland creates premier built environments and future-ready spaces where communities and businesses can thrive. Southland Industries is a national company with offices across the U.S. and a strong ‘people first’ culture that drives its success.

The Challenge

For years, Southland and its employees had inconsistent email signatures. Despite the best efforts and guidelines put forth by the company via annual email reminders, the signature styles were not being adhered to. As the company grew to 2,000+ employees, the signatures needed to be consistent and professional as they represented the brand through email communications.

Signatures also needed to be compliant with government regulations, provide flexibility with names, titles, credentials, and phone numbers, as well as provide tracking and additional links to the website and social media portals.

Since the whole company used one email platform, it was important that any solution also met the aims of Finance, Human Resources, IT, and Marketing.

The Solution

Rocketseed and Southland identified the areas of concern and developed a process to execute the change, including a roadmap as to how these changes would be implemented.

Initially the company opted for Rocketseed’s ‘Signature’ email signature management product plan, subsequently upgrading to ‘Campaign’ to benefit from its advanced email banner marketing, analytics, and reporting capabilities.

Email Signature Design Solution

To start the process of consistent company-wide email branding, Rocketseed worked with Southland Industries on a new email signature design. This professional design keeps all contact information streamlined and is clearly branded with the company logo and colour palette, including eye-catching orange text highlights. The signature design also enables direct engagement via a clickable website link and interactive social media icons.

Email Signature Management Solution

There were three database components that needed to sync together. Alternate signature options were made, rules were executed depending upon the department or group needs, and an approval process was set up for title changes.

Over a three-year period, the signatures were rolled out to each of the seven divisions across the U.S. These rollouts included a spreadsheet that was exported from Rocketseed and then distributed to the division and its employees to verify that their information was correct. Once the data was inputted, the division would be moved onto the email signature system. Any additional clean-up happened after the division launch. Then the next division would be targeted.

Once Rocketseed synced with the company’s Directory, any further changes made to an employee’s contact details in the directory automatically updated on their email signature. This provided peace of mind for stakeholders that all email signature contact details were correct and current.

Additionally, there were huge benefits for Marketing…

Email Banner Campaigns Solution

Southland Industries was quick to recognize the enormous engagement potential of adding email banner campaigns to all their employees’ emails. The examples below show their branded design format with concise headline copy and striking background imagery. Interactive call-to-action buttons enable recipients to click through to the company’s key content.

The company has used email banners for a wide range of marketing tasks, including:

• Raising awareness of the company’s service hotline for those needing immediate response.

• Keeping all stakeholders informed of the company’s updated COVID-19 measures.

• Informing recipients of the rebranding of Southland Energy to Southland Industries.

• Promoting the company’s upcoming webinars and enabling recipients to book places directly through the banners.

The Results

Now with the migration completed, there is no risk of Southland’s data reverting back into disarray. When a new employee is brought on, they are automatically entered into the system. If a person’s information changes, they submit an IT support ticket, and the information is updated into the system. It then syncs to the other databases and can be monitored by the signature. The process is cyclical in nature and does not result in bad data.

From a brand impact, Southland saw (on average) a +23% increase in engagement to the website and social feeds. Email signatures and banners became the third highest source of traffic to the site based on Google Analytics (behind only direct and Google searches), and when a banner has been used, Southland has seen increasing engagements as high as +54%.

Southland Industries say…

“This project was a success not only from a branding aspect, but from an operational efficiency standpoint for the company as it impacts everyone.”

Jason Dydo | Creative Director | Southland Industries

Looking for centrally controlled business email signatures that’s always on brand and displays perfectly on every device? Want to boost marketing engagement with every email? See how Rocketseed can help you.

Need email signatures for more than 50 users? Start your Rocketseed free trial today.