Follow up, its important!

I thought I would post a note about a great outbound customer service call I just experienced. This call got me thinking about how we no longer get many of these types of personal service interactions anymore and how there is opportunity for marketers to pick up where these once common customer interactions left off.

Here is a quick plug for Jigsaw. I use this web service, Jigsaw (http://jigsaw.com) as it helps me identify the appropriate contacts within the organizations that I prospect. I like the service because it allows you to purchase and earn points that you then use to buy the contact info for individual employees, one at a time. The great part about their system is you pick and choose based on employee title. They reward you for providing updated or better information with additional points so they have the communal contribution going for them too. It’s a great service for sales and marketing professionals and I recommend it.

Embarrassingly, I haven’t been using my available Jigsaw points as effectively as I should be and I am carrying quite a balance of points. Brad from Jigsaw just called to discuss my account, provide his contact info for any needs that I might have and provide some suggestions to get more from my current membership. No up-sell and he was obviously well versed in the program. Generally, it was a refreshing call and I’m impressed that a fairly large organization is making out-bound customer calls for a $25 monthly membership. They have a lot of customers.

We just don’t get these “customer nurturing” calls very often anymore. Even for big ticket purchases, I’m not getting the hand holding calls very often. Case in point, my wife and I bought a new car well over a year ago. The rep hasn’t called. He hasn’t emailed. He didn’t even send a thank you note. Maybe he’s just one bad car rep. I would argue that his company shouldn’t leave it up to an individual rep. Brand experience is too important for individuals and his marketing department certainly wasn’t watching his back for him. His lack of communication has more to do with the fact that this guy has to meet his numbers this month. He’s too busy with new sales and his company is short sighted by not recognizing my potential future business. They missed out. I bought another car just about a month ago from a different dealer.

The personal telephone call worked well for Jigsaw – here I am writing about it. I’m not here to doubt what they are doing right. But for all the other companies that can not afford, implement or find it i logistically impossible to directly communicate with their clients, consider one-to-one trigger communications as an alternative. Send a thank you note two months after purchase, send an email if your customers have gone silent after 3 months, or better yet, create a client communication map - make sure they are happy, content and ready to buy your next product.

Technology now allows us to systematically deliver personal or customer relevant communications. The cost to manage and deploy is much more reasonable… and the return on your marketing spend to existing customers is generally much higher then with prospect communications.

So what if we don’t get the service calls anymore… relevant communications across print, email, web and SMS text can achieve the same result as the outbound call…only systematic broadcasts take the bad rep out of the equation.

What Do You Mean by “On Demand”? - by Jeff Lazerus

Not everyone agrees on the definition of “on-demand”. They’re all right, AND they’re all wrong, too.

How many ways can you make change for a dollar?
The phrase “on demand” is pretty self explanatory. Software makers use it, video services use it. Even “print on demand” has been pretty much lumped into the book publishing domain.

Digital printers and marketing service providers have taken “print on demand” a step further to include things like web to print, short run reprints of marketing collateral (maybe digital, maybe not), pick and pack fulfillment, and there are others lurking in the shadows. All of these processes are different in a lot of ways. (BTW, there are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. And probably more ways to define “on demand”).

Where did they go? Where did they come from?

At risk of clouding the issue even further, we would like to take our own stab at defining “on demand”. Perhaps the best application of the phrase for us is “on demand communication”.
Customer relationships change quickly. As marketing experts, our job is to anticipate those changes and act on them before they happen. We can’t end up like the Ancient Anaszi. Relationships are built and maintained with customers through communication, whether it is straightforward like a phone call or direct mail piece, or below the conscious level, like brand awareness efforts. When customer needs change, successful marketers need a way to change the messaging, the channel, the target and the timing at will. That is what we mean by on demand.

To be effective with your marketing communication, you must deliver a relevant message to the right person at the right time. Technology and recent advances in workflow solutions allow marketers to truly create automated, “on demand” marketing messages that not only hit the target, but add to the mix with better and better response information that allows us to alter marketing tactics on the fly. Generating distinct relevant messages, when customers want them, is the promise of all this on demand stuff. Call it what you like. The important thing for customers and marketers alike is the result. With well planned database marketing solutions, marketers can adapt to changing conditions within all the groups and sub-groups of customers at all the different points in the buying cycle and still treat them like the individuals they are. If you can accomplish this, sales naturally follow.

Jeff Lazerus is a cross-channel and database marketing professional, focused on Variable Data Printing and new marketing technologies. You can visit his personal blog at
www.jefflazerus.com

Think BIG Results featured in the Denver Business Journal!

Please check out our article featured in the Denver Business Journal on our new Division Think BIG Results! http://Download Denver Business Journal article on Think Big Results href="http://Download Denver Business Journal article on Think Big Results" target="_blank">Download Denver Business Journal article on Think Big Results

Launch of Think BIG Results!

We are excited to annouce that we have opened a new division of Think BIG Solutions called Think BIG Results! Think BIG Results combines three main elements (we like to call it the majic triangle) to help every company market sucessfully.

- Data
- Brand
- Cross Channel deployment

With our integrative approach and hybrid of solution technologies we help our clients reach their marketing goals - from ideation to production - with quanitative, real-time trackablity!

We team with advertising, marketing and design agencies, as well as internal marketing organizations, to deliver communications which resonate with today’s consumer and business customers. Our focused approach to marketing production systematically broadcasts the right message to the right people, at just the right time. We tailor messaging to each prospect or client and reach them on their time-line and on their terms.

Please let us know how we can be of help to your marketing needs.
303.286.7200 or info@thinkBIGresults.com