Leveraging the Power of Personalized Communications

Innovative Solutions to Build Customer Loyalty

Over the years, businesses have experimented with a variety of programs and tactics aimed at improving customer loyalty.  Unfortunately, as competition intensifies, customer bonds are still not quite as strong as hoped for.  Marketing executives are challenged to find more effective and efficient ways for attracting and retaining customers.  Traditional methods of customer communication just don’t yield a satisfactory ROI.  Industry data indicates static direct mail and e-mail marketing campaigns are averaging response rates of 1-2 percent.  The question is, how do you cut through the clutter that barrages customers daily, and engage them in a way that delivers improved results? 

The following highlighted applications offer innovative solutions, enabling you to address the varied communication needs of your organization while maintaining the integrity of your brand. 

Newsletters
Corporate newsletters can be used to effectively pitch timely information to current and prospective customers—if executed properly.  However, too-frequent mailings and irrelevant content top the list of deterrents for newsletter subscribers.  With personalization, companies can provide targeted newsletter content, specific to each individual subscriber.  Targeted content not only builds relationships with readers, but also offers readers an added social benefit in that they can forward relevant newsletters to friends and colleagues.

Inform your customers and prospects of what matters most, while cross-selling additional products and services, thereby generating incremental revenues and increasing brand awareness.

College Planning Guides
When it comes to college planning, career options and savings strategies, customers are inundated with theories, tools, and advice.  The ability to personalize tips for college success, financial data, and figures based on the target audience is invaluable. 

In order to cut through the masses of materials your customers are receiving and help them take the first step in actively planning a college entrance or savings strategy, provide them with materials specific to their current educational situation, based upon personal data.  Customers don’t care to see generic, study derived or sample figures—provide checklists, handbooks and funding strategies that will help develop a complete map for their future. 

Direct Mail Promotions
Sixty-one percent of consumers in a recent InfoTrends study stated a preference for direct mail.  Within this category, personalized direct mail with messages and offers designed to reflect the consumer's needs and interests were most favored.  

Once again, by drawing on your customers’ personal data and targeted profiles, the opportunity exists to create 1:1 personalized communications.  Announcement cards, sales sheets, brochures, letters, bifolds, invitations—utilizing variable data fields on these applications and more can capture the attention of your target audience and bring to light value-added services or products your organization provides.  Integrate industry-specific text, and graphic images from your repository to further leverage this marketing technology. 

New Hire Training Kits
What better way to welcome a new hire to their first day on the job than by arming them with a personalized ‘toolkit’ geared specifically for their new position?  With a personalized new hire training kit, human resource or hiring managers can save valuable time and money, while simultaneously building company loyalty with the new associate. 

Components of new hire kits may include tax/payroll documents, health benefits information, security requirements, emergency procedures, descriptions and access information for key technology applications required for job performance, special programs for associates, and more.  Having the right information in one kit is convenient for all involved in the hiring process. 

The evidence is abundantly clear—personalized communications have a significant impact on response rates.  According to industry analyst InfoTrends, personalization increases response rates by 34 percent, order size by 25 percent and repeat business by 48 percent. 

Whether you’re goal is to improve customer service, enhance your existing customer relationships or grow your customer base, you need to be certain your customer communications will prompt the recipient to open and read – personalization via a statistic, data or image that is viewed on a personal level by the recipient is your best guarantee to make that happen and ensure lasting customer relationships. 

To learn more about tools and best practices for attracting, retaining and growing your customer base, contact Standard Register today.  With powerful, cost-effective tools for creating and delivering targeted, personalized communications, you’ll be empowered to dramatically improve customer response rates and drive repeat business.