You do just what a good marketer is supposed to do: using research, you create targeted campaigns with relevant messages and excellent value. And yet, your customers don't respond. So what did you get wrong? Results from a Pitney Bowes survey of 6,000 respondents from France, Germany, the UK, and the US might have the answers you need.

"The findings are important because a few larger marketing trends amplify the consequences of effective vs. ineffective customer communications," writes Dan Kohn at MarketingProfs.

Among the trends Pitney Bowes identified:

• With information at their fingertips, consumers can research your brand and judge the authenticity of its promise in a matter of seconds.
• Interaction with customers is a real-time, two-way conversation in the channel of their choosing.

"Consumers are clear about what they want from their business interactions, yet many of the techniques and initiatives being deployed are simply not having the intended effect," Kohn writes.

The survey asked specific questions about communications, and learned this about:

• Personalization. Most customers enjoy a customized website experience, but dislike phone representatives who get too chummy.
• Frequency. While a majority of the survey's participants liked once-monthly offers, an even great majority disliked once-weekly emails.
• Charitable promotion. A full 84% had a negative response to brands that asked them to support a charity.

→ end article preview
Read the Full Article