As promised, here is Part Two of our two-part series with marketing specialists Sandra Zoratti and Lee Gallagher…
How has Precision Marketing evolved over the years and what ways do you see it changing in the future?
Precision Marketing has evolved to encompass all customer communications. A decade ago, most printers used the term “TransPromo” which really honed in on adding personalized content to transactional documents. It was a very focused term, one that left little room for flexibility. To top that off, it didn’t register with the marketing side of the house.
The use of customized communications has morphed to become a broadened, more dynamic channel to promote, address and inform a targeted audience. From direct mail to e-mail; a statement to a publication – customer-facing documents have often been an underused way to share a message. Today, organizations across all industries including insurance, publishing, banking, utilities and more are using precision marketing tactics with an intended goal of communicating a targeted message to a targeted audience.
In the future, we will only see precision marketing take on more forms and be implemented via more channels. Mobile and other instant forms of communications will likely be optimized as an avenue to show customers that you know them – a key goal of precision marketing.
What is one of your favorite your precision marketing best practices implementations that you have worked on?
We worked closely with the team at Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to implement a full, end-to-end operational shift, re-designing their monthly customer statements to better meet customer needs. We worked together to refresh the look and the feel by adding color, graphs and visual elements to show customer usage patterns, and made icons for each service (water, electric, gas) – making the bill easy to follow and understand. The main objectives were: to improve clarity of the information; in turn reducing call inquires by 20 percent; influence customer behavior to reduce energy consumption and emissions; and lower the cost of statement operations through process automation. The overall goal was to influence customer behavior to keep costs low, while better serving the customer’s communication needs.
Just launched in May, this new bill is sure to exceed these goals. And we’ll be eager to share that news with you once it happens.
Is there one mistake most companies make when they are looking for content to mine to create relevant messaging for their audience?
Most companies find the data daunting. Specifically, they are intimidated (and understandably so) by silo’ed data, disparate data across multiple databases, inaccurate data and multiple customer records. The mistake is that this fear of data causes paralysis.
We have devised a crawl, walk, run approach that encourages companies to start with the data they have in the format they have it in, and expand iteratively and modularly from there. This avoids paralysis, eliminates the need for huge investments in infrastructure over longer time horizons and generates proof points along the way that help justify additional efforts. We say the most important step is to get started and use the data you have or a simple data file that can be generated with simple data-gather techniques. In fact, we have generated a 3-digit ROI by leveraging one 30-day transactional data file.
What is the one strategy you would say is a must when implementing a successful Precision Marketing campaign?
Set your goals early on and evaluate post the campaign to realize what worked, what didn’t and what could be changed for the next time around to enhance results. Often times, goals are not set early on and that can cause complications, especially when tracking for ROMI. If there’s one tip to remember, this is it!
What is the number one lesson for reader’s to take away from this book?
Marketing is one of the most challenging disciplines in business because of the rapid pace of change, increase in number of marketing channels and the threat of consumers disengaging. In addition to these factors, businesses today require marketing to measure, prove and improve on a quarterly or monthly basis. The number one lesson of BMA’s Top Advice is to collaborate and learn from others so that you can shine in your B2B marketing role and deliver quantifiable value to your business.