Pitney Bowes Business Insight Reinvents Marketing Campaigns with Uplift Modeling

Predictive Customer Communications Management Tool Increases Campaign ROI and Effectiveness

TROY, N.Y. - Pitney Bowes Business Insight, a global leader in customer data, analytics and communication software and services, says marketers are increasingly turning to their Portrait Uplift solution to better target customers and increase campaign ROI. Uplift goes beyond traditional modeling approaches which predict customers likely to buy, and, instead, predicts how much a marketing interaction will increase, or decrease, a customer’s likelihood to purchase.

Without knowing which customers want or need to receive marketing campaigns, businesses can actually push customers away with multiple emails, impersonal messages or irrelevant offers. In addition to being at risk of losing customers, this causes the marketer to spend more money and waste time and resources. Strong customer communications management (CCM) programs allow businesses to create, distribute and manage multi-channel communications for greater customer satisfaction, improved operational efficiency and lower costs.

According to Gareth Herschel, Gartner research director, “Uplift analysis is a must-consider concept for every organization with significant campaign management activities” (“Predictive Modeling Now more than Ever,” Gartner Customer 360, March 2011).

By understanding customer segments, marketers can easily determine the best target customers for greater campaign ROI, increased relevancy, improved retention and more effective cross selling. Uplift allows marketers to reap the full benefits of campaigns by focusing on the most important 30-40 percent of their audience – the “Persuadables.”

“In our industry, reminding a customer that their phone contract is about to expire with a marketing campaign can actually have a negative effect and influence them to evaluate competitor’s offers in search of a better deal,” said Christian Reder, Marketing Analyst, T-Mobile, Austria. “By better understanding the types of customers we are targeting with Portrait Uplift, we’ve not only cut back on our marketing expenditure, but also have increased the overall effectiveness and profitability of our marketing campaigns.”

“Today, marketers are measured by not just the amount of campaigns they implement, but by the true success and net effect of them,” said Patrick Surry, Global Solutions Owner-Customer Analytics at Pitney Bowes Business Insight. “With the powerful insight that Portrait Uplift provides, marketers are now able to easily prove the value of their campaigns and provide the highest level of customer communications management.”

Patrick Surry will be featured in a free webinar New Segmentation Approaches to Better Target the Right Customers and Improve ROI at 1 pm, Thursday, May 12, 2011. To join the webinar, visit http://www.bai.org/bai-events/EventDetails.aspx?ec=0437.

In addition to the “Persuadables,” Portrait Uplift divides the target audience into segments of “Sure Things,” “Sleeping Dogs,” and “Lost Causes”:

“Sure things” – Customers that will purchase no matter what. They are willing to pay full price, and therefore they do not need to receive discounts or promotions.
“Persuadables” – Customers that are more likely to take action when prompted and enjoy receiving offers. Marketing efforts should be focused on this segment.
“Sleeping Dogs” – Customers that want to be left alone and will only purchase when ready. These customers can actually be prompted into unsubscribing by communications they consider unwarranted, or communications that lead them to consider alternative offers.
“Lost Causes” – Customers that rarely purchase, even when they receive deals. Targeting these customers with marketing is a waste of time and money.

Uplift modeling empowers an organization to go beyond traditional analytic segmentation and focus marketing on only those customers that will react positively to a message, while weeding out those that will buy anyway, will never buy, or could react negatively. For more information on Portrait Uplift, please visit www.portraitsoftware.com.

About Pitney Bowes Business Insight

Pitney Bowes Business Insight, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI), is a software and services company that helps organizations to acquire, serve and grow relationships with customers and citizens. The firm’s suite of customer communications management solutions integrates data management, location intelligence, sophisticated predictive analytics, rules-based decision making and cross-channel customer interaction management to increase the value of every customer communication while also delivering operational efficiencies.

For more information, please visit www.pbinsight.com and www.pb.com.