Data made personal: Making information work for your customers’ cross-media marketing campaigns

A combination of mail, email and other channels is now essential to reach customers in a meaningful, captivating way. How do marketers and marketing service providers grapple with the changing media environment? I recently spoke with Digital Publishing Solutions magazine about just that. Here are some highlights of our conversation that get at the heart of how companies like yours are managing information workflows to successfully deal with the new marketing landscape and your customers’ demands for cross-media marketing (CMM):

• If used correctly, a marketer can utilize data to identify a customer’s purchases over time and offer up a targeted mail piece that touches on items that a customer might want a discount on, or a new item that would complement past purchases. That same marketer can use cross-media software to add URLs to the mailer for a specialized site that includes viewing offers.

• With the recent increase in postal rates and regulations, the direct mail channel has changed. In order to realize the best postal rates and not have overall marketing campaign costs skyrocket, mailers have had to meet stricter regulations in how mail is dealt with — from the original generation of the piece all the way to the delivery. New trackers need to be implemented to deal with returned and mislabeled mail.

• CMM solutions attract marketers and MSPs. They include tracking and other important data handling tools to ensure that mail is organized, being used to its greatest potential, and comply with United States Postal Service regulations.

• Data can easily become a hindrance when there aren’t appropriate processes and infrastructures in place to control it. But that is where automated workflow, advanced reporting, data analytics, and digitized in-bound mail solutions often come into play.

Careful attention must be paid to all campaigns leaving the print shop. Rate increases and stricter regulations mean it isn’t worth wasting money and time to create a CMM campaign that won’t go anywhere. Print and marketing service providers must evaluate all campaigns to ensure what they are saying and who they are targeting are indeed on the correct track.