1 May: Yesterday's 30 per cent stamp price rise will be the catalyst for UK businesses in a definitive shift away from traditional, impersonal mailshots, towards highly targeted electronic forms of communication, says OpenText.
“For businesses, customer communication through traditional direct mail has never been more expensive,” says Adrian O’Gara, OpenText UK’s Director of Field Marketing, Northern Europe. “This is the biggest postal cost hike since 1975, and it has huge ramifications not only on direct marketing campaigns and budgets, but also other customer communications such as invoicing, as many businesses continue to rely on this traditional form of paper billing.
“Unfortunately the return on investment in traditional marketing inserts, which is already low, is now going to be even less compelling. Direct mail has increasingly delivered a very poor return on investment due to rising design, print and now mailing costs, as well as the inability to personalise or target individuals,” comments O’Gara.
He continues: “With an increased understanding of the importance of managing the customer experience, at every customer touch-point, many organisations are assessing their customer communications management strategies to focus more on what customers want from this important medium.”
O’Gara highlights that British organisations seem keener to hold onto traditional mailing practices, as European businesses have been quicker at embracing electronic forms of messaging and billing. In the switch from paper to electronic documents enterprise-wide, OpenText customer BMW France saved 60 per cent on printing costs in one year by switching to e-invoicing; similarly OpenText has worked with the mobile operator “3” to improve personalised customer communications while reducing costs in Sweden. By employing a “transpromo” strategy to place targeted marketing messages on e-invoices, “3” reduced its distribution costs by 30%.
O’Gara adds: “Transpromo enables organisations to combine billing and highly personalised direct mail, which automatically brings document creation in-house, increases revenue and reduces distribution costs. All the better if it is available in an electronic format too. However, organisations need to be aware of compliance and security issues – particularly cross-border – and ensure these challenges are carefully considered.”
