GMC's MD: adopting new cross media strategies and technologies is a must

Successful customer communications in this new decade will be about the effective use of all possible communication channels, offering customers – and businesses – more choice in the ways they talk to each other. It will also see an increasing use of all customer communications, including transactional correspondence, as marketing tools.

The driving force will be a fiercely competitive marketplace and the key to success will be software that enables businesses to offer an enhanced service, and to grow the business and customer loyalty with a sophisticated mix of media choices, while still saving money on print and postage costs.

It sounds simple, but it will need a change in thinking in the way most businesses approach their communications strategies. Indeed, for many it will mean putting in place an integrated communications strategy for the first time.


More choice or less?
The push towards electronic communications, at the expense of traditional printed media, has been the accepted wisdom that has ignored both the benefits of print and the resistance from customers. The mindset behind this approach is that the future of communications is a paperless one. It isn’t. Just as the paperless office, predicted as the inevitable result of the computer age, has also failed to materialise.

Certainly many elect to be contacted by text or email rather than by print, but even with incentives, many remain reluctant to do away with this most traditional way of receiving information, particularly financial information. And printed financial information is potentially the most effective communications tool for any business.

We know from research that the one item of written correspondence – or indeed any correspondence – most likely to be read and retained is a financial one. People, especially the more mature, also trust paper information more. Rather than run something off the internet, receiving it as a customer is a physical connection which is not to be dismissed lightly when customer loyalty can be taken less and less for granted.

But there’s no need to force out print and further alienate those already resenting the pressure towards receiving information in the way companies want them to, rather than the way they prefer. Instead, businesses should use print as part of a new communication mix and make more of the opportunity that each printed item offers.

In effect, every piece of written correspondence should be seen as a potential marketing opportunity, rather than the specially designed marketing campaign alone.

By using one medium to reinforce messages delivered by another, and fitting in with the personal preferences of customers and potential customers, companies can strengthen both the impact of their messages and the cost-effectiveness of their marketing.

Sounds a nightmare to manage? Not so. As they say, we have the technology.


Crossing boundaries
The first hurdle to overcome is the traditional company structure that divides marketing from sales, sales from finance and all of them from IT. A truly integrated communications and marketing strategy needs to cut across all these boundaries to reap the rewards the new generation of personalisation that technology offers.

The key is an easy-access single software platform to design and produce all personalised customer correspondence. Marketing, design and sales personnel can input into the all-important layout of this new type of printed material without having to go through the IT department first. Full colour images bring the pages to life and the wastage of printed inserts or separate marketing mailings, which so often end up in the bin, can be avoided.

The new software also means an end to weeks and months of lead times in trying and testing new layouts – up to now another formidable barrier to change. Sophisticated personalisation properties ensure that any information, offers or advice is tightly targeted and highly relevant. This adds to the feeling that the business really does know who it is talking to and cares that the contact is timely and relevant.

By combining different information streams it is possible to use written material in new ways: in the financial sector this may be electronic contact for day-to-day matters and a colourful printed quarterly report with financial summaries and seasonal offers, for example.

Nor does it mean a business has to have its own printing facilities: the software enables personnel to outsource the print via the web to anywhere in the world while retaining the security and control of its own data management.

In fact, the technology is there to make your response to each customer as individual as they are. This has to be the best way to keep ahead of the competition.


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