The Wastage of Potential Advertising Opportunities through Existing Customer Communications

摘要

The results of our consumer attention survey indicate the potential marketing strength of the under-utilised media channel of existing customer communications. It is natural for consumers to spend longer looking at their bills, statements and customer correspondence than at an SMS message, as the SMS message is unlikely to be as personal or as anticipated. Yet, marketers spend far more time, effort and money designing, implementing and integrating campaigns through traditional paid-for media than they do on utilising their existing customer communications. It is critical that marketers investigate the potential of customer correspondence as a marketing medium as communications, bills and statements command more consumer attention than any other media surveyed.rnConsumer attention figures cannot predict which channels will provide the best return on investment or be most effective at retaining customers, however they are able to give marketers a strong idea about the length of time each channel has to get its message across.rnAn obvious conclusion is that all industries surveyed need to seriously take note of the advertising opportunity wasted by not utilising its existing customer communications. Marketers must examine strategies for implementing campaigns through their customer correspondence, incorporating all existing customer data. The possibility of selling advertising space to non-conflicting companies and setting up affinity programmes needs also to be explored. The power of using customer correspondence as a marketing tool is enormous, but only a few forward thinking companies have begun to explore its potential.