CRM meets the Customer Marketers’ targeting and personalisation efforts are finally reaching a majority of consumers. Research, conducted by CDMS in April 2005, indicates that over half of top UK companies are now able to translate sophisticated database analysis into highly personalised and segmented campaigns, where creative, message, and enclosures are varied for different types of recipient. The survey, conducted amongst UK top 1000 company marketers, assesses the performance of various industries in terms of performing ‘end-to-end’ marketing. The primary findings of this research are as follows: · While the importance of getting targeted CRM and marketing communications out of the door has achieved mainstream awareness, there is still considerable potential for improved return on investment from CRM systems · Telecoms comes in surprise first place (60%), probably under pressure from the combination of high corporate debt and fierce market competition, plus the increasing richness of new information services available over mobile phones · Banking and Credit Card has slipped into second place (59%), a matter of concern given the sector’s need to improve marketing delivery sharpened by the sector’s massive investment in CRM systems · Mail Order – the pioneer of many modern direct marketing techniques – has recovered (53%) from its low in 2003 (44%), possibly the result of major retailers’ involvement in the remote shopping industry · Less than half of retailers can deliver end-to-end marketing and CRM, possibly showing a polarity in the sector between mass advertisers and database marketers · Hotels and Travel companies score lowest of the sectors studied (43%), a warning flag for the two sectors that are both feeling the economic squeeze, but the hotel trade is improving at the fastest rate of any industry studied. Ian Hubbard, CDMS Director of Data Services, comments “Huge sophistication is possible at the database level. With the availability of a wide variety of data on consumers – both internal customer information and commercially available attributes - CRM systems are able to interrogate and analyse the customer and enquirer database in order to define these different groups of customers, usually known as ‘segments’. In theory, different offers, or packages, can then be constructed to meet each group’s needs or interests. However, until recently, the process of delivering segmented messages to different customer groups had proved a bottleneck. This is no longer the case. There is now no excuse for failing to reach the customer with sophisticated targeted marketing messages; campaign management tools allow email, mail and phone to be integrated, individual documents can be easily generated by the call centre agent in reply to an enquiry or customer service call, variable printing is now economic and mailing enclosures can be automatically individualised.”
Source:  About CDMS: CDMS is a data management and document services specialist, with a 45-year pedigree in the direct marketing industry. CDMS is committed to helping businesses extract maximum value from their direct marketing communication: from data cleansing and enhancement to hosted campaign management; from billing and statementing to fulfilment, CDMS provides the whole range of direct marketing services to ensure maximum campaign return on investment .CDMS’s DataHealthâ software, and the company’s position as sole European MSP for Unica’s Affinium campaign mangement software further supports the outstanding client value delivered by CDMS’s expert staff. CDMS has a diverse client base spanning many industry sectors. Clients include: Lloyds TSB, Royal Mail, British Gas and the Daily Telegraph.
Links:  For further information, or a management summary of the report, contact: Bilal Mahmood at Lindsell Marketing on; (t) 020 7434 2090, (e) bilal@lindsellmarketing.com