e views - January 2009 - (Page 22)

business with you any harder than necessary. If you get to this point and you are comfortable, it is time to take what you know about your relationship with your customers and use it to educate them on how to be more informed customers. We will call this TransEd, and it involves adding educational content to the transaction document that is specific to the customer. Bar charts, graphs, and other visual content that informs the customer about the status of their business relationship is a great way to add value, but the addition of other text-based content is also valuable. The important part is the personalization of the content so that it is relevant and timely for the recipient. We have walked a good way down the path and still have not put a marketing message on the bill. The goal was to begin with a change to the nature of the communication to make it more useful. This provides a lot of customer value, and does not cross the line into true marketing. In fact, for some industries you may never do any marketing on the bill or statement because it would be inappropriate. Some regulated industries may not permit marketing on the transaction document, and in some countries it changes the postage required. TransInfo and TransEd can always be used, while adding marketing— TransPromo—may have some limitations. If you are ready to make the move all the way to TransPromo, it is important to know that it takes both art and science to use what you know about the customer to create targeted, relevant marketing messages. This may sound like one-to-one marketing, but in most cases customers fall into a handful of well-defined buckets. If the offers are well targeted, it may only look to the customer like it is one-to-one marketing while the marketing department breathes a sigh of relief that they are creating fewer than a dozen specific offers each month. In fact, they may simply be reflecting offers already developed for direct marketing and web marketing campaigns, simply reinforcing them using the transaction document. structure, which may include brand agencies, marketing agencies, direct mail agencies, and a variety of advisors and consultants. Do not forget the web people and their supporting infrastructure. Did I mention the search marketing team and the email marketing team? It should stretch to the CMO, CIO, and CTO—all of whom have a stake in making an integrated approach to the customer succeed. If you cannot believe that all of these folks can come together, I do understand. Many companies locate these people in different offices and rarely encourage them to get together. To be successful, however, this is what has to happen. For even the basic TransInfo approach to the document, it is necessary to know what the corporate style is and apply it to the transaction documents. It is necessary to ensure that the type faces, colour schemes, and basic look and feel of even the transaction documents participate in the scheme designed for the direct mail, the mass media communication, welcome kits, and other touch points. It is a big job! If you can, start by taking the temperature of where you are in terms of integrated communication. That means finding copies of the current transaction statements; inserts that go into the statements; solicitation letters; direct mail pieces to current, lapsed, and prospective customers; web pages; banners on non-corporate websites; mass media advertising; and anything else you use to communicate. Do not forget to check your own mailbox and to go online to look at the company communication methods. Check news stands, newspapers, and billboards. Find as much as you can and then set it all up so you can see it. Are the type faces the same? Are the logos correct? Is the colour scheme the same? Are the messages on the current transaction document the same as those in the current advertising and marketing? Once you know how things look, ask the hard question. How well do you really know your customer? There is customer data that is used to generate the transaction documents. Is it mined and used to create better customer communication? Is that reflected in the direct mail, their visits to the web, or in the transaction mail? Remember that everything you do to keep your customer longer is reflected on the bottom line, so using what you know about your customer can help keep them longer and make them more profitable. Integrated customer communication—no matter what level you want to engage—has only one goal. That is to inform the customer, provide a call to action, and to make it easy for the customer to heed that call. Anything you can do to leverage data points and use them to create the best experience for the customer enhances your customer’s experience and keeps them coming back. Bar charts, graphs, and other visual content that informs the customer about the status of their business relationship is a great way to add value Crawl, walk, run Think of the path as the training you do for any sport. We think of it as the crawl, walk, and run proposition. The team includes all of the people involved in the billing cycle, from the line of business/product owner to the forms designer, from the printing department or outsource provider to the workflow owners. It also includes the marketing department and all of their support For more information on integrated customer communications, visit www.graphics.kodak.com and www.growyourbiz.kodak.com Pat McGrew, edp Data-driven Communication Segment Evangelist Eastman Kodak Company pat.mcgrew@kodak.com “ it is important to know that it takes both art and science to use what you know about the customer to create targeted, relevant marketing messages.” 22 e• views Journal, Xplor UK & Ireland Edition Issue 7 January 2009 http://www.graphics.kodak.com http://www.growyourbiz.kodak.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of e views - January 2009

e views - January 2009 Contents Technology Management Creating a Print Intelligent Enterprise The Future of Broadband Connectivity: @ 320 kph? TPE Master Class Cover Story TransPromo and the Credit Crunch Xplor Europe News Service Directory

e views - January 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.