A new report from customer insight and database marketing specialist Transactis has revealed that if customers see that a company is using their data to provide good products, relevant communications and efficient service, then they are more likely to trust that firm to hold their data and continue using it to ensure their satisfaction.

 In an age when consumers really have to take a leap of faith and trust companies with their data if they want to make transactions over the internet, most need to feel comfortable that those companies are handling their details responsibly. In order to determine how consumers feel about the care and use of their personal data by the companies they deal with, Transactis surveyed over 2,000 people from across the UK.

 Nearly 90% say they assume that a company is looking after their personal data carefully and intelligently if they are receiving a good service and the customer communications are sensible and relevant. And, more than 80% are happy to hand over further personal data if they see that it is being used to provide relevant perks such as special offers, discounts and loyalty bonuses.

 The vast majority of consumers – more than 92% – believe the companies that have the most satisfied customers are the ones doing the best job of looking after their personal details and using them to add value.

 However, only about one fifth of consumers see any of the firms they buy from using their personal data to make attractive offers and deliver good customer service.

 If companies do show that they are not using data effectively then they risk losing the trust of their customers. The Transactis report found that around 78% of UK consumers begin to doubt the ability of a firm to look after their personal information if the company continually asks for personal details when they have already provided them.

 Peter Thompson, Transactis’ commercial director, comments:  “Data security and the proper handling of personal information is not something most consumers think about, or are particularly concerned about, until there is a problem. In other words, consumers assume that their data is being handled in a careful and intelligent way if they receive good service and sensible communications from a company. But their confidence in a firm’s ability to look after their data can disappear completely if the wrong order arrives, or a delivery goes to the wrong place, or they start to receive unexpected and badly targeted marketing communications – or, in the worst-case scenario, they find that it has been carelessly handled, resulting in fraud.

 “The research demonstrates that customer data has to be used to inform and shape every aspect of a company’s business – from product development to marketing communications to the processing of orders.”

About Transactis

Transactis creates insight from customer transactions and enables clients to act and communicate at an individual level. Using its unique data resources, specialist knowledge and innovative technology, Transactis delivers products and services that allow its clients to make better, faster and more informed decisions to generate greater efficiencies, profit and an enhanced experience for their customers. Honours at the 2009 Data Strategy Awards and Retail Week Technology Awards are the latest in a series of industry accolades for helping clients to maximise performance and value from their customer management investment.

For more information, visit www.transactis.co.uk

I booked a well-deserved holiday this month and conducted all of my destination research online. How antiquated the thought of browsing through dog-eared brochures in a High St. travel agency now feels. Online I was able to search on price and location, view videos of possible accommodation, read reviews from other travellers – everything but dip a toe in the pool.

However, one common niggle kept distracting me like a persistent Mediterranean mosquito. Too many websites offered inadequate translations.

The language choice would be given – click the union jack for an English version. But once clicked, the resulting text read as if written by a Spanish waiter who’d learned English from touring stag parties. And that was just the French websites!

I have no doubt that many UK holiday companies are just as poor in this respect as their European counterparts. In fact, I wonder how many even offer a translation? And yet, in a world made smaller by faster, cheaper travel, what price this fudging of the language issue? How much lost business results?

Badly written English certainly made me feel less confident about spending my money with the holiday operators in question. I imagine foreign tourists feel the same about the English equivalents. At a time when every business is fighting tooth and nail for market share, surely it’s not too much trouble to find a native-language speaker to check and double-check text?

Once again, it all comes down to content. You might have the finest product known to man. But if the words you use to describe it are poor, your sales will undoubtedly suffer.

Now, where did I put those Speedos…

Campaign magazine’s table of the biggest UK media agencies showed eight of the top 10 suffered a drop in billings between 2008 and 2009 – including a more than 10% slump by number one agency MediaCom, a 16.5 % fall by number four Mindshare and a 22.5% plunge by number six Starcom UK Group. The headlines also showed that WPP Group, which owns Mindshare, saw its profits fall by 16% in 2009.

But is there more to these figures than just the recession? We are now living in an age where companies are realising that they can rely less on traditional media vehicles such as newspapers, radio and even television and can instead speak more directly with their customers through digital media.

We already see print media owners struggling as newspapers and magazines grapple with ever-shrinking page counts and staff cuts. The long-term trend may be that the fragmenting TV marketplace, radio and other conventional media will be facing similar issues sooner rather than later.

Before the recent news on media agencies seeing their billings slump, we had a lot of talk in PR Week about Richard Sambrook, former head of global news at the BBC, jumping on the PR bandwagon to become “chief content officer” at a global PR agency to help clients create written, video and audio pieces.

This recognition that, in future, communicating with customers, stakeholders and the public at large will be about more than traditional PR – ie. placing articles in print publications or arranging broadcast interviews for clients – is nothing new to us here at Lindsell Marketing. Generating content that can fuel PR initiatives, marketing campaigns, websites, sales programmes and other ways of talking to the marketplace is a future that has already arrived here.

So while the recession may have accelerated the process, the change we see taking place in the way companies, government departments and other organisations communicate with the world around them is a permanent shift we have seen coming – and that includes PR as well as other traditional ways that companies communicate. The key going forward will be to develop the right content to fuel the new communication engines that are replacing traditional media vehicles.

Your story needs to be well written, with clear messages and talking the reader’s language.  It needs to be crafted to appeal to vertical media – those industries which you want to actively reach and sell to.  And finally it needs to be handled by an experienced team of media professionals who understand the importance of real journalist relationships and hand placing each story.

Lindsell Marketing’s content rich approach to Press Relations delivers all these things and more. Through the development of market research that is branded to your organisation, we create research reports and white papers that are of interest to your target market and the media. The result is a PR programme that supports commercial efforts and positions your organisation as a thought leader.

What is the Lindsell difference?

• We understand the marketplace you operate in and the industries that you want to sell to
• We have an experienced team of media professionals
• We develop thought leadership materials branded to you
• We understand the developing nature of online media and the right balance between offline and online coverage for your organisation
• You can trust us to take it off your hands.

What does content rich Press Relations include?

• Targeted coverage in vertical, trade, national, broadcast media
• Optimised coverage for the web
• Hand placement of stories
• Centralised press relations delivered throughout EMEA in the local language
• All the content for successful media relations including: press releases, case studies, white papers, research reports, award entries.
• Thought leadership materials that can be repurposed across all marketing channels for campaign and lead generation activity.

At Lindsell Marketing, we know that the proof is in the eating.  If you’re hungry to find out how we do this, read a selection of our case studies.

Lindsell Marketing’s content rich approach to Analyst Relations and Events means that you can make the most out of the ‘air time’ you have with these influencers. By identifying key issues that affect your target market and creating real market research that brings a new perspective on these issues, we can generate content that is a central interest to analysts and C-Level influencers.

The results are effective analyst relations and engaging speaking opportunities where high level contacts sit up and take notice of you.

What is the Lindsell difference?

• We understand which analysts and events are key to your market
• We undertake thorough market analyses, giving us the edge when it come to understanding your marketplace and the industries that you want to sell to
• We develop thought leadership materials branded to you
• You can trust us to take it off your hands.

What does content rich Analyst Relations and Events include?

• Identifying key analysts and selling-in your products/services for inclusion in their industry reports
• Arranging analyst meetings
• Briefing spokespeople on how to position the wider picture and your company as a thought leader
• Opening up speaking opportunities at key industry events
• Events speeches and presentations.

At Lindsell Marketing, we know that the proof is in the eating.  If you’re hungry to find out how we do this, read a selection of our case studies.

Lindsell Marketing’s content rich approach to Digital Communications means that we can deliver interesting digital communications that are tailored to the many online channels out there. We create blogs, e-bulletins, video scripts and presentations which are thought provoking and contain consistent and relevant messages across all online channels.

The result is that your company stands out in a crowded online marketplace whilst making the most out of each digital communication channel with hard hitting, relavant messages for your target audience.

What is the Lindsell difference?

• We understand the different online channels and can develop strategies and messages to fit the digital communication
• We understand the marketplace you operate in and the industries that you want to sell to
• We have an experienced team of copywriters
• We develop thought leadership materials branded to you that can be adapted for all digital communications
• You can trust us to take it off your hands.

What does content rich Digital Communications include?

• Fresh content in a digestible format for your website, blogs, e-newsletters, videos, and social media outlets
• Recommendations on frequencies, messaging and media
• Up-to-date content through third party news sourcing and editing
• Content tailoring for each digital channel.

At Lindsell Marketing, we know that the proof is in the eating.  If you’re hungry to find out how we do this, read a selection of our case studies.

Lindsell Marketing’s approach to content rich SEO is different.  Our knowledge of the vertical markets means that we have a thorough understanding of your prospects’ industries and the language used.  The result is an SEO strategy which identifies the keywords that will drive hot prospects to you online.  Integrate this tool with your digital communications strategy and you get a powerful online presence that generates real leads.

What is the Lindsell difference?

• Our understanding of the marketplace you operate in and the industries that you want to sell to mean that we can identify, analyse and recommend the key terms used by your prospects
• We have dedicated research and senior marketing consultants to develop your SEO strategy
• We develop thought leadership materials that can incorporate key metadata to give you a joined up approach to SEO and digital communications and increase your online presence effectively
• You can trust us to take it off your hands.

What does content rich SEO include?

• Marketplace and keyword analysis
• Competitor metadata analysis
• Strategy recommendations and testing
• Advice on how to repurpose this knowledge for marketing campaigns, both on and offline.

At Lindsell Marketing, we know that the proof is in the eating.  If you’re hungry to find out how we do this, read a selection of our case studies.

Lindsell Marketing offers its content rich Marketing Campaigns service to enable a joined up approach to lead generation.  An effective campaign will have: strong messaging written in the customer’s language, accurate data and intelligent data analysis for effective targeting, design that impacts and is relevant to the content, quality execution platforms to deliver the campaigns, and finally, campaign analysis to identify how the campaign performed and the lessons learnt.

Lindsell Marketing can deliver all this and more, helping organisations to enrich their marketing campaigns and generate real leads.

What is the Lindsell difference?

• We immerse ourselves in your organisation and understand the markets your prospects and customers operate in
• We create campaigns that speak the customer’s language
• We can build and deliver an integrated lead generation machine that
• We can drive web traffic through the development of content rich newsletters, mail shots with white paper access, to name a few.
• We ensure that messaging is integrated and consistent across all communication channels with the customer (web, PR, email, newsletters)
• You can trust us to take it off your hands.

What does content rich Marketing Campaigns include?

• Building effective marketing databases
• Market profiling
• Generate original content to suit tactical campaign themes
• Matching right content with the right customer profile
• Campaign creative and execution
• Campaign analysis to gauge ROI and feed back successes and lessons learnt.

At Lindsell Marketing, we know that the proof is in the eating.  If you’re hungry to find out how we do this, read a selection of our case studies.

For any organisation undergoing some form of change it can be difficult to get a clear idea of how to effectively adapt strategies to suit changing market requirements.

Lindsell Marketing works with companies across Europe to provide Strategic Research and Consultancy service that allow them to develop strategies that are based on real market intelligence and trends.

We can help you identify how the market is changing and what direction it is going in, understand what your customers and prospects think of your business and competitors, and advise on the different messages will resonate with your target audience.

The result is a clearer picture of the marketplace that enables your business to adapt itself successfully to change.

Our core services include:

• Stakeholder surveys: customers, prospects, employees, the media.
• Market analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Media training delivered by senior PR professionals
• Strategic marketing consultancy
• Value proposition development & high-level messaging

To find out more and discuss your needs, get in touch.