5 REASONS TO INTRODUCE MORE PRINTED CLIENT COMMUNICATION

In business, there are a series of strategies to build loyalty from your clients and prospects. There are companies which include loyal programs to encourage their customers to reach goals, such as an amount of points collected, to receive discounts or other benefits. Moreover, they also know their purchase behaviour and help to target and promote products suitable for them and reduce excessive printed membership communication.

Likewise, arts and other organisations have implemented membership schemes, which allows them to segment their offer depending on the type of level chosen by the member.

The result of this segmentation is a series of targeted communications that might have to be released at different times throughout the month, dependent on when the customer or member joined, their member status, their associated benefits, renewal state or when they should receive their monthly bill or magazine.

Whilst sending the same generic communication, across both digital or printed mediums, to all the clients and/or members is common practice because it is 'easy', it does little to engage the member with your brand further or helps you to increase engagement. The consequence is a lower response ratio, less loyalty and fewer renewals.

Undoubtedly, printed communication has an essential role in marketing strategy. Research confirms how physical advertising and communication is more successful because it is more readily absorbed by the brain, involving more emotional process across multiple senses, not just sight. As a result, it produces more brain responses which help to reach a brand recall 70% higher than digital communications.

Here you have five reasons to introduce more printed client communication:

1. Increase your client’s satisfaction – Welcome pack

Email open rates are around 20% depending on the industry, according to Royal Mail MarketReach, 83% of people read and 69% interact with a mail with information update. Furthermore, as soon as your client or member receives their loyalty or member card in a neatly presented welcome pack, the likelihood that they will buy a further product or participate in an event increases significantly: 97% of people were influenced to make an online purchase as a direct result of receiving mail.

2. Personalised printed communications increase sales

Personalisation is crucial in your communication and with printing, you can achieve better results. A targeted letter is more than “dear name”, if you want a big impact, you must include variable printed communication that utilises alternative text and images for every target group within your campaign.

For example, charitable organisations used personalisation to request a different amount of donations according to each donor’s annual income, which is obtained by profiling the database. This targeted communication made a big impact in their funding campaigns.

The Salvation Army received on average £22.53 via mail compared with the £2.08 with paid search.

Personalised printed communication helps to increase the number of sales, the value of each purchase and influence renewals within a loyalty programme.

At Romax Marketing & Distribution we use software that matches each record that you have in your database with the correct content collateral. Clients such as the retailer Emma Bridgewater use it on their catalogues and other communications because it increases their campaign ROI.

3. Increase the client’s renewal target and ROI

It’s a fact that a physical targeted communication has a greater impact than an electronic one alone, but, when we talk about the annual membership renewal, the combination of targeting and printed communication makes a big difference.

Using mail in a campaign can increase the ROI by 27% and 40% for sales and acquisition respectively, according to Royal Mail MarketReach.

4. Printed Membership communication management optimises the overall process

Sending a print communication takes time: preparing it, proofing, printing and then sending it. Add to that managing the returns/response. If you have, for example, nine types of different members – or clients, and every one of them has a different level, benefit or list of products, that can be 30 different types of text alone. Automating the process will reduce time on proofing and pre-press and shorten the time it takes from a member joining or a new client signing up until they receive their welcome pack.

Managing the communication with a direct marketing supplier, set up on with an automated workflow to service the requirements for your member or client, which includes, variable text, images and whatever you decide is crucial content. You only have to upload your member/client database and they prepare, proof and send your communication to your client, releasing you and your team to focus on acquisition rather than administration.

The amount of time saved is massive with a high impact on your brand and productivity.

5. Outsourced printed membership communication management saves money on postage – £30,000

Discounts for volume is something that can help you save a lot of money. At Romax we work with many membership organisations, reducing their postage costs substantially for both UK and Overseas postage.

By making recommendations to Sadler’s Wells we demonstrated an average saving of £7,500 in postage alone for every brochure season mailing, that meant an annual saving of over £30k.

Of course, the discount depends on multiple factors such as the type of letter or welcome pack, weight, volume, etc. but we are here to help guide you through that complexity.

If you are still not convinced about outsourcing your communication management, then challenge us to see how Romax can help you to manage your clients and/or member communication better. With our 20 years of experience supplying personalised printed communication services for organisations such as Southbank Centre, DKMS and Mercedes-Benz, you've got nothing to lose.

References: Royal Mail MarketReach.

Romax Marketing & Distribution, London.