e views - January 2009 - (Page 24)

TransInfo came to light in 2008 but simply morphed these concepts across to those regular communications which were not in the true sense transactional applications in order to widen the scope of the concepts. The smart plan is to have a customer communication strategy that is integrated across all aspects of the customer communications channels so you can manage a consistent approach to customers. Add to this the ability to manage prompt changes to those messages being received, thereby providing marketing functions with the agility to respond, and you have a winning solution. the response to a call-to-action? If it were possible to complement the source data from other databases during a data analytics process and then add location intelligence which formed part of a marketing campaign process, then you really have the power of a true integrated and targeted customer communication process which is very cost effective. So why is this not all happening today with every marketing executive developing such targeted campaigns? To answer this simply—marketing functions do not really understand what is available to them with the array of digital technology solutions to access multiple-channel communications. They are still working on In the traditional markets for digital print and variable data, the process starts with projects which seek to stand alone or be bolted onto existing programs. However, it the service providers’ customer needing to take responsibility for the structure of the is the service providers for the digital document data. The first hurdle here is how this data is communications market which are guilty of collected and stored for it to be manageable in failing to educate the marketing community, and such a way to be effective for marketing “The retail organisations need to fight this is because they speak different languages. communications. All too often the customer data is for market share as individuals have Operationally the objectives within the business collected for another purpose and the marketing are more cost driven; therefore, their view of the department then has to repurpose this data to less disposable income available ” world is focused on minimising costs by gather the relevant intelligence in order to drive a optimising processes and efficiency across the campaign. The next stage is to design the end-to-end service provision. This is not to say that marketing are not cost communications package making use of the data, image libraries, and either timeconscious but they have a different way of looking at life with the opportunity to triggered or data-driven marketing messages. Hurdle number two is managing the experiment with techniques which often require the ability to make changes quickly process so that all stakeholders in the communication piece have been satisfied— in response to market changes or customer reactions. marketing, finance, operations and legal are but a few. The customer communication needs to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing, which Today’s economic challenges for business should be the catalyst for organisations requires different deign skills. Consistency of design across all the communication to embrace the concepts of TransPromo/TransInfo for all customer communications channels and document families needs to be part of the process—not simply in order to maximise their opportunity to save costs and increase sales. But, will designing one piece for the particular application or product line. they take advantage of this opportunity? Utopia would be to have an educated marketing function which understands today’s available digital technology and the The production processes then need to be managed ensuring all elements link channels it can address for communications, combined with an agile operational together from materials through to post. Unfortunately many production processes service provider skilled in the management of change across multiple do not lend themselves to the need for the level of dynamic changes required by communications channels. Unfortunately such organisations do not exist today. marketing to adjust to market variations which is where TransPromo/TransInfo However, there is a lot that can be achieved without needing to create such an applications very often fail. The final stage is then trying to manage the customer’s organisation. Simply undertake to educate the marketing functions and develop a reaction to the communication but more importantly the response to any ‘call-tomulti-functional team focused on customer communications who are empowered action.’ In many organisations today, there is still a failure to measure the to implement change with responsibility for the ROI on all communications activity. effectiveness of any changes in customer communications. This is a team which transcends the traditional departmental functions within the What if there were two additional processes added to this traditional view for organisation with a single focus on customer communications and a purpose to production of TransPromo type applications? What if there were the opportunity to drive the business benefits. Delegating this responsibility to a service provider, utilise more of the data analytics and then to link this with location intelligence, whether they are internal or external, is not going to be the most effective use of one thereby increasing the effectiveness of the customer communications to increase of your most valuable business assets—customer communications. For more information on integrated customer communications, visit www.e-knows.me.uk James Shand, edp Principal e-knows Consultants james@e-knows.com “The need to have accurate data available to ensure the right messages are delivered in a timely manner has increased in importance” 24 e• views Journal, Xplor UK & Ireland Edition Issue 7 January 2009 http://www.e-knows.me.uk

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.