How many consumers remember receiving a particular offer in their letter box or inbox?  A comparison between various forms of direct shows that consumers are more likely to remember personalized mail (73%). Only a third will remember unaddressed direct mail.

It is already known that targeted campaigns have a much better success rate than mass distribution campaigns. Studies also confirm that by far and away the most important factor in a direct campaign is defining and selecting the target group. The next most important factors are the product and the offer. But how can we create a successful outcome for the campaign, when there are ever more and more pieces of the puzzle? Continue reading →

Next January Finland will elect a new president. As gallop polls hot up, voting engines overheat and candidates clash, Sisäsuomi has been preparing carefully for its most important end of year project.

Printing and posting polling cards for the 2012 presidential election will be Finland’s biggest ever addressed and personalized campaign, in which the margin for error will be practically zero. Over four million polling cards will be printed by our own printing house in Vaajakoski, Jyväskylä, using our state of the art production line. Continue reading →

Multi-channel direct and interactivity are central to customer relationship marketing. A versatile direct palette built upon a thorough understanding of customers’ needs and preferences will help develop an interactive and dynamic customer dialogue.

The most productive direct campaigns use many channels, each one of which has its own particular role and strength in supporting the overall objectives of the campaign. An integrated campaign is indeed more than the sum of its parts. Skillful management of each individual channel is essential. Together with our selected partners we take complete charge of realizing your campaign – including integrated multi-channel direct. Continue reading →

The Finnish Direct Marketing Association (ASML) and Avaus Consulting’s latest Customership index 2011 report (www.asiakkuusindeksi.fi) once again confirms my opinion about the importance of being customer oriented. Well-known firms and brands are now being overtaken by smaller companies, whose operations are based on understanding the customer and catering exactly to the customer’s needs.

Customer orientation has become a real competitive advantage. This is something that is close to all our hearts here at Sisäsuomi. We help our customers develop and maintain an ongoing interaction with their customers, through active contact and customer dialogue. We have the tools and the expertise to build effective personalized and targeted campaigns.
Customer experience and loyalty are gained by long-term work, to which the customer is genuinely central. Expertise in multiple channels, and an ability to fully exploit these is also necessary. We at Sisäsuomi can offer just this, throughout the entire spectrum of channels.

According to Avaus Consulting, companies’ investments in customership development have increased in recent years. These days, a continual discourse is preferred to individual campaigns. It’s time for dialogue.

Jarmo Porkka

Jarmo Porkka is Sisäsuomi’s CEO, and a member of the board of both The Finnish Direct Marketing Association (ASML) and The Graphic Industry Association.

Customer relationship marketing is not really marketing, it is an organisation’s way of thinking and working. That is why, when an organisation decides to make the shift to customer relationship marketing, the organisation’s entire operations must be thoroughly reviewed from the customer’s point of view.

As the main goal of customer relationship marketing is to get the customer to experience and perceive clear added value, the organisation must realize on all levels that it is the customer who pays everyone’s salary. Everyone’s input influences the customer’s perception of value. Therefore customer relationship marketing must begin with the organisation’s internal marketing and training.

Customer relationship marketing is based on seeing the customer as an individual, and on treating that customer individually right from the beginning of the customer relationship. This requires knowledge of the various segments of the customer base, as well as continual collecting and analyzing of feedback. This means that customer relationship marketing requires considerably more work than traditional mass marketing. However, such an approach also collects information, which may be used to achieve better results, and to ensure future successes.

The customer relationship marketing concept gives an organisation superior customer control, and therefore the tools to control marketing. Whatsmore, the customer relationship marketing concept works right from the beginning, even better than traditional marketing concepts, as long as it is done well. Without exaggeration, openly and honestly. And best of all, the customer relationship marketing concept develops itself automatically from procedure to procedure, round after round. Systematically tailored, it builds competitive advantage that leaves others behind.