Pitney Bowes gets personal about its multi-channel future
Mailstream services giant Pitney Bowes is repositioning itself with a new focus on customer communications management through a new advertising campaign in the US. The company founded in 1920 by two postage-stamping machine producers is now emphasising its ability to put businesses in touch more personally with their customers through the web, email and text messaging as well as the physical mail.
Using ad agency Gyro, the new campaign, “Personally PB”, will feature special events as well as online advertising, direct mail and radio spots, to show businesses how they can deliver marketing messages via specific customers’ preferred channels, personally tailor that message and follow-up communications.
It ties in with Pitney Bowes’ expansion into data quality servies and the ongoing expansion of its cloud-based customer communications mananagement (CCM) services, which include systems for electronic transactional mail and the company’s forthcoming digital postal mail service, Volly, which is due a consumer launch later this year.
The campaign also ties in with the Intellijet printing systems offered by Pitney, which offer individualised transpromotional marketing alongwide paper-based bills and statements.
Pitney Bowes’ ad campaign highlights the ability to reach customers through their preferred channel – web, email, text message or the physical mail
“People don’t have time for anything that doesn’t seem personally relevant anymore,” said Joe Timko, executive vice president, and chief strategy and innovation officer for Pitney Bowes. “So how do you compete and get business results? By making your own personal connections with your customers.”
Transformation
A $5.4bn company based in Stamford, Connecticut, Pitney Bowes has had generally flat financial results this year, though last week’s second quarter results with a 1% growth in its $1.3bn quarterly revenues was a slight improvement on the 2% decline in sales in the first quarter of 2011.
The company has struggled a little with its mailing equipment sales this year, particularly in North America since international results were assisted by currency movements, but its software revenues have been growing strongly, especially in the financial services sector.
Under its new strategic “transformation”, Pitney Bowes is currently in the process of expanding its customer communications systems for small and medium-sized businesses.
It is broadening the “pbSmart” suite of products from its existing internet-based postage system, pbSmartPostage, and email marketing system, pbSmartConnections, to add a new pbSmartMarketer product that allows businesses to find new customers among consumers who appear similar to a company’s existing customer base. Pitney is also in the process of piloting a new software system that helps businesses set up cross-channel marketing campaigns through use of Quick Response (QR) codes.
Company spokesperson Dan Kohn told Post&Parcel yesterday that the new CCM services were about extending “the world of physical communications to digital”.
The spokesperson explained: “Using PB’s location intelligence, PBSmartMarketer can pull a list of new prospects that are in the same locale, and then send out personalized marketing materials to them. This illustrates what we mean, and how PBSmartMarketer can help businesses understand their customers better, and create more personal connections.”
