Messaging News - October 2008 - (Page 15)

that the purchase transaction constitutes an event. A powerful event that is a marketing opportunity and you better figure out how to leverage it.” Lewis adds that it is much more effective to talk to a customer about ancillary products and services that relates to something just purchased than to three weeks or three months later communicate with them in a form letter format through an email blast. “You need to be thinking about how to leverage those things more effectively and not just the positive things, but also the negative things, like resolving complaints successfully, and converting that complainer into a brand-loyal customer. The better customer service reps and marketers have always done those things, but they have done them in a kind of 1:1 format, where it is person to person. What we are talking about now is being able to make intelligent use of data in the digital channels.” The Role of IT Once a social strategy has been determined, the next step will be integrating the variety of digital messaging into the business processes. “I think the challenge for technology companies and marketing services companies that might utilize that technology, is to deliver it in a way that enterprises can easily use it and integrate it,” continues Lewis. “That is the challenge. You cannot be asking them to completely throw out the way they do business. It is not only costly, but also extraordinarily disruptive. It has to be done in a way that is easy to use and integrates well, and quickly into their existing process. That is where the challenge is in terms of their adoption. I think the first mover here – the providers that figure it out, as well as the companies that use the technologies to improve the experience of their own customers—both of them are going to have powerful advantages.” The Economist report notes, “Online communities will proliferate. Webbased customer communities will play a much greater role than today in gathering—from customers and others—innovative ideas for products and services, and also to assist in providing product support. Voting and other mechanisms will help to channel customer input and filter for the best suggestions, but firms will need to be wary of according too much influence to communities, lest the latter’s suggestions prove unprofitable to implement.” Finding the balance will be key as we move towards 2013, as Lewis says, “It is not just a technology issue, it is about how you use technology to improve your interactions. The technology is the enabler of best practices that can enrich the experience for customers and enrich the company that does business with them. But the motivation to use the technology in that area, in that way has to be a company that is customer aware. It ought to start with the customer. Do a good job in targeting the customer, not the message to the target. Frankly, the channel used to reach them should be secondary. It shouldn’t be the driver, but it is today. Why not change that paradigm? Apply the channel on the fly closer to the actual deployment of the message, perhaps the message goes to email, perhaps it is an SMS message. I am not suggesting that you spam across multiple channels, just that you keep the customer preference in mind.” Miller agrees with Lewis in that organizations should allow technology to enable but not control the marketing message. “We are in a communitybased world, it is not broadcast and it is not commerce in that way. Commerce, in its true form, is I put up a product and you buy it. There is too much competition, and too much dialog to pretend that that is how people shop anymore.” SJ/TMP FOR YOUR REFERENCE The Economist www.economist.com Forrester Research www.forester.com Message Systems www.messagesystems.com Return Path www.returnpath.net http://www.economist.com http://www.forrester.com http://www.barracuda.com http://www.messagesystems.com http://www.returnpath.net

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Messaging News - October 2008

Messaging News - October 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Short Takes Targeting the Technology-Wise Customer The Insider Threat: The New Era of Disaster Recovery Making Collaboration Tools Pro-Knowledge Sharing Botnets Go Marching On Dissecting Email Forensics Next in Messaging News “On Message” with Ben Gross The World is Not the Center of the Universe, and Filters Don’t Stop Email Spam Making the Case Learn More

Messaging News - October 2008

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