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Cutting through the noise: Fighting spam with simplicity

B07a Banking spam blog- Imbedded photo

The invention of spam

On May 3rd, 1978, the first spam email is sent. We didn’t know it, but our lives as internet users would never be the same. A marketer for Digital Equipment Corporation went down in digital history that day simply by sending an advertisement to 400 people. He opened a virtual Pandora’s box of generic, oftentimes irrelevant digital advertising that consumers today are all too familiar with.

Fast forward to 2016, and email overload has become the status quo. We’re so familiar with a crowded inbox that it’s almost second nature to ignore anything that appears spam-like. Of course, there’s one major risk here for consumers: important and relevant messages can easily get lost in the sea of junk mail.

The real risks of junk mail

In many cases, even organizations with high-quality consumer information are also guilty of messaging overkill. Consider this scenario: a bank is running short on its monthly quota of credit card sign-ups. In the hopes of boosting sign-ups, it sends a credit card offer to thousands of its customers over email. At first, this approach makes sense from the bank’s perspective.

However, the bank’s automated email program cannot make informed distinctions between customers. Sending promotional email means cluttering the inboxes of customers who recently declined a similar offer in the branch, those who recently canceled a credit card, and those with outstanding service complaints. And digital junk is only part of the story: banks waste tremendous amounts of money and paper every year on credit card advertisements sent in the mail.

So, while a massive, non-specific email campaign may receive a few positive responses, it is likely to do more harm than good. It annoys existing customers and makes them less likely to pay attention to future messages. Without a more targeted messaging approach, this bank might as well be sending its emails directly into thousands of trash folders.

Drive customer-centric marketing with Veripark Next Best Action

Next Best ActionVeripark Next Best Action ushers in new possibilities for customer-centric marketing in the banking world, enabling banks to address each customer individually. The software-as-a-service solution collects customer information and interprets it into meaningful insights, and uses these insights to recommend targeted offers and personalized service. It aggregates data from multiple customer touchpoints, including interactions in the branch, calls to contact centers, ATM use, emails, and mobile interactions.

Next Best Action’s Campaign Response Models determine the likelihood that a targeted customer will provide a positive response for a specific offer. This allows banks to limit their interactions with customers to only the ones that are most likely to have an impact. The result is more cost-efficient advertising for banks, minimized inbox clutter for customers, and more positive customer engagement.

The solution also goes beyond just making offers through email: it instead looks holistically to recommend whatever next action is the most appropriate for each customer. This may be resolving a service complaint, capturing a missing document, or simply sending a thank-you note for a new account opening. The suggested action could be an email, an in-person conversation in a branch, a message sent through physical mail, or on an ATM prompt. Each interaction, across every channel, operates seamlessly and is tailored to the customer’s needs.

And banks using Next Best Action can transform their marketing practices with confidence that their customers’ data will be kept safe in the process. The solution is built on Microsoft cloud technology, which offers matchless security alongside its industry-leading intelligence and analysis capabilities.

Stand out from the noise

Since the inaugural spam email, marketers have misused digital advertising for forty years. Don’t add to the marketing noise. Make your interactions with customers personalized, meaningful, and simple.  With Next Best Action, you can transform your advertising strategy and trade quantity for quality messaging.

Check out the solution today at AppSource.com.