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CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY: Robert Rose Interview

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HyperPersonalization Trends

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Changing Needs of Canadians Drive Losses at Canada Post INTERVIEW

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Content Marketing Strategy: An Interview with Robert Rose, Founder, The Content Advisory Robert Rose is one of the early evangelists of content marketing and the author of “Content Marketing Strategy”.

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Hyper-Personalization Trend Highlights Critical Nature of Unparalleled Accuracy

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The Question of Privacy Amidst Evolving Technology: A Guide for Marketers

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Small Business Struggles with Marketing; New AI Technology to the Rescue

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Sold! Now what?

If you’re marketing products that get delivered to customers in some physical form you’re likely concerned with the datadriven factors which connect ordering with fulfillment, and by extension, customer satisfaction and retention. It could seem disconnected but better marketers understand the nature of today’s customers’ behaviours. So, when a company like Geotab says their Ace Generative AI Assistant Kicks off Early Adopter Program with Enhanced Capabilities, we take note.

Customers benefit from faster time to insight in the next phase of Geotab’s AI-driven fleet management. Geotab, a global leader in connected transportation solutions, has announced the roll-out of its Early Adopters Program for Geotab Ace (Geotab’s new Generative AI assistant) began this month.

Following its unveiling earlier in the year, Geotab Ace has seen further refinement, with Geotab’s team putting a strong emphasis on further enhancing response insights and introducing new capabilities, such as an understanding of advanced engine diagnostics.

“Navigating through the world of generative AI has been a learning-rich experience. As we continue evolving, our focus remains on building upon what we’ve learned to ensure that we continue offering trusted insights for our customers,” said Mike Branch, VP of Data and Analytics at Geotab.

“The early-adopters program is just the beginning, and we are thrilled about the value Ace promises and are looking forward to observing the positive impact it will have on the industry.”

The development of Ace was made possible through a strategic collaboration with Microsoft, using Microsoft Azure’s robust cloud infrastructure to create a reliable and forwardthinking product with Azure OpenAI Service.

“We are thrilled to announce our collaboration with Geotab in the development of Geotab Ace. Our work ❱ DMN.CA

together is driven by a shared commitment to innovation, with Geotab’s advanced fleet solutions contributing to safer, more sustainable, and efficient roadways,” Sylvia MacPherson, National Unicorn Leader, Microsoft Canada.

As Geotab continues their collaborative efforts with Microsoft, this program sets the stage for the continuous improvement of fleet management practices and driving down time-to-insight—from performance and operations to safety and sustainability— through reliable and accessible data insights.

Geotab Ace processes vast quantities of data to offer predictive and benchmarking insights, making complex information manageable and insightful, which in turn facilitates the optimization of costs and overall fleet performance.

Geotab Ace optimizes the user’s experience by providing tailored responses based on the operational specifics of their fleet. It goes beyond providing raw data, interpreting inquiries with precision and presenting its findings in an accessible manner.

In a data-driven age, the integrity and security of information remain a critical priority.

Designed with a commitment to privacy and security protocols, Geotab Ace ensures user data is safely handled within Geotab’s own secure environment, reinforcing trust and safeguarding the value of the insights delivered. In line with its launch of Geotab Ace, the company recently released its Responsible AI Guide, highlighting the unique challenges posed by the development of Ace and how Geotab mitigated and learned from them.

Geotab is a global leader in connected transportation solutions. We provide telematics — vehicle and asset tracking — solutions to over 50,000 customers in 160 countries. For more than 20 years, we have invested in ground-breaking data research and innovation to enable partners and customers, including Fortune 500 and public sector organizations, to transform their fleets and operations.

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Givex’s Annual Survey: Impact of Rising Menu Prices and AI on Canadian Dining Behaviours and Attitudes.

With restaurant prices rising, more Canadians are turning to promotions, coupons, and loyalty programs. A cloud-based global customer engagement and business insights platform, Giviex’s 2024 Consumer Survey findings highlight the shifting dining habits of more than 1,500 Canadians and offer insights into dining motivations, loyalty program perceptions, and comfort with the burgeoning presence of AI in the restaurant industry.

According to the survey, conducted in April 2024, the majority (82 percent) of Canadian

diners are finding it more challenging to dine out this year owing to increased menu prices. The report underscores a noticeable shift in consumer behaviour, with nearly half (49 percent) of Canadians reporting they’re dining out at restaurants less this year than last year—a significant increase from 35 percent in 2023. These trends persist across all demographic groups, emphasizing the widespread impact of economic pressures on Canadians’ dining choices.

Meanwhile, restaurants are incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) technology into the guest experience–for instance, some are using AI-powered online order recommendations based on a customer’s previous orders and preferences. AI is reshaping the foodservice industry, and the nation is divided about how it feels. A nearly even split within the public sentiment illustrates both optimism and reservation, with almost half (48 percent) of Canadians expressing comfort towards AI’s growing role in their dining experiences.

“Amidst digital transformation and inflationary pressures, our survey reveals the driving factors behind dining decisions and emphasizes the vital role of valuecentric loyalty programs and promotions for merchants,” stated Mo Chaar, Chief Commercial Officer of Givex. “There’s been a noticeable shift in consumer dining habits across Canada. As diners grow more discerning, it’s more important than ever before for restaurant operators to attract and retain customers. At Givex, we’re harnessing cutting-edge AI technologies to help businesses curate personalized messaging, drive customer engagement, make datadriven decisions, and reward guests for dining at their establishment.”

Additional findings from the Givex 2024 Consumer Survey include:

Dining Motivations and Trends

Canadians have reduced the frequency of dining out, with 49 percent dining out less often compared to 2023.

This percentage increases to 52 percent among Canadians aged 18-34, marking a 79 percent surge compared to the prior year (29 percent in 2023).

Rising prices are impacting everyone. Of those earning $100,000+ household income, 80 percent said menu prices have made it challenging for them to dine out (compared to 85 percent of those earning $50,000 or less).

Despite the reduced frequency of Canadians choosing to dine out this year, four-in-five Canadians say incentives such as BOGO promotions (80 percent) and coupons/ discounts (77 percent) make them more likely to dine out at a restaurant.

48 percent of Canadians are also ordering less delivery compared to 2023.

This change is accompanied by 59 percent of Canadians opting to cook more at home — MAY 2024

// 5 a figure that rises to 64 percent among young Canadians.

Loyalty programs

The role of loyalty programs is pronounced; 57 percent of Canadians find them appealing for dining purposes, with preference intensifying among younger Canadians.

With rising menu prices, loyalty programs might be a win-win solution for restaurant operators and consumers: 44 percent of Canadians agree they’re more likely to order takeout/delivery if a restaurant offers a loyalty rewards program.

As food prices continue to rise, grocery loyalty programs are becoming increasingly important to consumers.

62 percent of Canadians rank grocery rewards as the single-most valuable type of loyalty program (up from 57 percent in 2023), widely outpacing any other category.

The average Canadian is a member of four loyalty programs and the vast majority (97 percent) say they use rewards or points from a loyalty program when making a purchase, with 42 percent making a purchase at least once per month.

Restaurant Technology

While feelings about the incorporation of AI in the dining experience are divided, younger Canadians (aged 18-34) show a higher level of comfort, with 59 percent expressing comfort with using AI in restaurants (in contrast to only 40 percent of individuals aged 55 and above).

The comprehensive insights from this annual survey empower restaurateurs to adapt to changing consumer behaviour, emphasizing the importance of promotions, rewarding loyalty programs, and strategic incorporation of technology. Givex is committed to helping businesses navigate the evolving landscape through innovative solutions. With a global footprint of 132,000+ active locations across more than 100 countries, Givex unleashes strategic insights, empowering brands through reliable technology and exceptional support.

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Financial Reports. Okay, but hang with us on this. Some significant results from marketers. We’ll take a look at three major firms which drive customer growth through data-driven strategies, including MAY 2024

loyalty programs and analytical insights, with some AI thrown in here and there.

TELUS reports operational and financial results for first quarter 2024. TELUS Corporation results for the first quarter of 2024 show consolidated operating revenues and other income decreased by 0.6 per cent over the same period a year ago to $4.9 billion. This decline was driven by lower service revenues in two reportable segments: TELUS technology solutions (TTech) and Digitally-led customer experiences – TELUS International (DLCX). Within TTech, higher mobile network, residential internet and security revenues, largely driven by subscriber growth, as well as growth in managed, unmanaged and other fixed data services to new and existing business customers was offset by declines in TV and fixed legacy voice services revenues due to technological substitution. The decline in DLCX operating revenues resulted from lower external revenues in the DLCX segment across most of its industry verticals. See First Quarter 2024 Operating Highlights within this news release for a discussion on TTech and DLCX results.

“In the first quarter, our team once again delivered against our differentiated growth strategy, leveraging our superior asset portfolio, consistent execution track record and proactive cost efficiency initiatives to deliver industry-leading customer additions and solid financial results against the backdrop of a dynamic operating environment,” said Darren Entwistle, President and CEO. “Our robust performance is underpinned by our strategic focus on margin accretive customer growth, globally leading broadband networks and customercentric culture, which enabled our strongest first quarter on record, with total customer net additions of 209,000, up 28 per cent, year-over-year. This included strong mobile phone net additions of 45,000, and record first quarter customer additions for both connected devices of 101,000 and total fixed net additions of 63,000. TELUS’ industryleading growth reflects the consistent potency of our operational execution, and our unmatched bundled product offerings across Mobile and Home. Our team’s passion for delivering customer service excellence contributed to continued leading loyalty across our key product lines. Notably, postpaid mobile phone churn was 0.91 per cent, as we begin the 11th consecutive year below the one per cent level.”

He added, “Within our global businesses, delivered robust profitability and cash flows amidst what remains a challenging global macroeconomic operating environment, resulting in a difficult prior year comparable.

Despite the near-term top line challenges, our TI team has executed against significant cost efficiency programs over the past ten months, positioning the business to achieve further

EBITDA growth and incremental margin expansion, along with strong cash flow generation, as we move through the course of the year. We remain highly confident in TI’s strategy and investment thesis, which is amplified by meaningful opportunities in respect of digital transformation – particularly with generative AI adoption – and the continuing critical importance of differentiated digital customer experience solutions in the market, creating a vibrant tailwind for TI’s medium- and long-term growth and profitability. In TELUS Health, we achieved first quarter revenues of $420 million, alongside 28 per cent EBITDA contribution growth. This was supported by the achievement of $251 million in combined annualized synergies, towards our overall objective of $427 million by the end of 2025.

Furthermore, we drove a seven per cent year-over-year increase in our global lives covered to nearly 72 million. We continue to make strong progress scaling TELUS Health and TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods, where we remain focused on accelerating the significant growth profile these differentiated global businesses represent by leveraging the expertise, experience, and high-performance culture and talent of our entire team, inclusive of leveraging significant cross-sell synergies across all lines of our business.”

“The record customer growth we continue to report is underpinned by our dedicated team who are passionate about delivering superior service offerings and digital capabilities.”

“Reflecting our team’s long-standing belief in the synergistic relationship between doing well in business and doing good in our communities, May marks the official kick-off of our 19th annual TELUS Days of Giving,” continued Darren. “This year, with the support of our extended TELUS family, I have every confidence that we will exceed our goal of inspiring 80,000 volunteers supporting positive outcomes in communities across the 32 countries in which we operate. It is thanks to this unparalleled level of caring and commitment that our team members and retirees, globally, have contributed 2.2 million days of giving since 2000 — more than any other company on the planet.”

In the first quarter, Telus added 209,000 net customer additions, up 46,000 over the same period last year, and inclusive of 45,000 mobile phones and 101,000 connected devices, in addition to 30,000 internet, 19,000 TV and 22,000 security customer connections.

This was partly offset by residential voice losses of 8,000. Our total TTech subscriber base of approximately 19.2 million is up 6.8 per cent over the last twelve months, reflecting a 4.7 per cent increase in our mobile phones subscriber base to over 9.8 million, and a 23 per cent increase in our connected devices subscriber base to more DMN.CA ❰

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secondary students who are facing financial barriers and are committed to making a difference in their communities through the TELUS Student Bursary program. During the first quarter of 2024, the Foundation supported 265,000 youth by granting $3.2 million to more than 200 Canadian registered charities. Since its inception in 2018, the Foundation has provided $50 million in cash donations to our communities, helping 15.4 million youth reach their full potential.

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than 3.2 million. Additionally, our internet connections grew by 5.5 per cent over the last twelve months to approximately 2.7 million customer connections, our TV customer base stands at 1.3 customers, and our security subscriber base increased by 7.8 per cent to approximately 1.1 million customers. Lastly, our residential voice subscriber base declined slightly by 2.8 per cent to approximately 1.1 million.

Digitally-led customer experiences — TELUS International (DLCX). DLCX operating revenues (arising from contracts with customers) decreased by $74 million or 9.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2024. The decrease was primarily attributable to lower revenues from a leading social media client and a reduction in revenue in other industry verticals, notably in eCommerce and fintech and travel and hospitality reflecting macroeconomic conditions, which were partially offset by growth in services provided to existing clients, including Google, as well as new clients added since the same period in the prior year. Changes in foreign currency exchange rates did not materially impact our DLCX revenue growth. Revenues from contracts denominated in U.S. dollars, European euros and other currencies will be affected by changes in foreign exchange rates.

Giving Back to Our Communities.

Currently, there are 19 TELUS Community Boards operating in Canada and around the world. Our Community Boards entrust local leaders to make recommendations on the allocation of grants in their communities.

These grants support registered charities that offer health, education or technology programs to help youth thrive. Since 2005, our 19 TELUS Community Boards and TELUS Friendly Future Foundation® (the Foundation) have supported more than 33 million youth in-need in Canada and around the world by granting over $126 million in cash donations to more than 10,000 initiatives. The Foundation provides grants to charities that promote education, health and well-being for youth across the country. Additionally, the Foundation provides bursaries for post❱ DMN.CA

strength of the Cinema advertising channel.

Digital Place-Based Media also reported first quarter revenues of $9.9 million, an increase of $1.9 million or 24.0 percent over the prior year. Began operating a network of 200 digital displays in 18 Cadillac Fairview shopping centres and selling digital and static media, sponsorships, and activations for Cadillac Fairview’s extensive network of highly desirable shopping destinations across Canada.

Membership in the Scene+ loyalty program increased to over 15 million members as at March 31, 2024. Celebrated National Popcorn Day on January 19, 2024, by treating Scene+ members across the country to a free bag of popcorn. Additionally, theatre teams across Canada gifted first responders with popcorn as a show of appreciation.

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Meanwhile, Cineplex Inc. released its financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2024.

Total revenue increased to $294.8 million as compared to $291.4 million in the prior year, net income was $5.2 million in Q1 2024, an increase from a loss of $30.2 million in the prior year, all time Q1 record BPP of $12.74 and CPP of $8.95, surpassed records set in Q1 2023, and they outpaced the Q1 North American box office relative to Q1 2023 by 664 basis points.

They also completed national rollout of online mobile concession ordering, while increased Digital Place-Based Media revenue by 24 percent over prior year due to expanded digital-out-of-home network. “In the first quarter, we made tremendous strides towards strengthening our balance sheet with the closing of the strategic sale of P1AG, which accelerated our de-leveraging and comprehensive refinancing plan, designed to improve financial flexibility,” said Ellis Jacob, President and CEO, Cineplex.

Cinema Media reported first quarter cinema media revenues of $12.4 million, a decrease of $1.9 million or 13.1 percent over the prior year, due to the prior year including advertising deals related to expanding the Scene+ loyalty program, and revenue related to advertising campaigns that were previously deferred during pandemic periods. In March of 2024, Cineplex Media released the results of its proprietary Canadian Cinema Attention Results from Lumen, a well-known and respected global research company. These results far outperform any other video media option in the marketplace, and highlight the

Finally, let’s take a look at Canadian Tire Corporation’s Report for First Quarter 2024. Canadian Tire Corporation results for the period ended March 30, 2024 show consolidated comparable sales were down 1.6 percent, compared to a 2.5 percent decrease in Q1 2023.

“Our operational resilience enabled us to navigate the ongoing macroeconomic environment and we’re pleased with the performance of the business this quarter.

Our Retail segment delivered solid results, underscored by product margin appreciation for the quarter, while also reducing inventory MAY 2024

// 7 levels, and our Financial Services business continued to perform well, driving profitability in the quarter. We continue to leverage our investments in our assets and capabilities, manage costs, and adapt our assortment to meet the changing needs of our customers,” said Greg Hicks, President and CEO of Canadian Tire Corporation.

“Through the increased issuance of Canadian Tire Money and successful launch of our Petro-Canada partnership, we are providing additional value to Canadians when they need it most and strengthening our connection with our customers,” added Hicks.

Consolidated comparable sales were down 1.6 percent. Traffic to retail stores was only slightly below last year, although consumer spending remained down in a challenging consumer demand environment.

Strong in-stock positions and enhanced store experiences contributed to improved customer Net Promoter Score (“NPS”) across our banners.

Mark’s comparable sales1 were down 1.2 percent. Effective use of loyalty incentives contributed to traffic growth and growth in casual footwear and outerwear categories.

These increases were offset by industrial and workwear declines. Financial Services delivered IBT of $95.7 million. The 19.3 percent decrease against a strong 2023 result was primarily due to lower gross margin, with net impairment losses and funding costs trending higher, as expected. Cardholder engagement remained strong, with Gross Average Accounts Receivable1 (“GAAR”) growth up 4.5 percent and account growth of 0.6 percent. Card spend contracted slightly, down 0.6 percent.

Better Connected strategy investments in loyalty, supply chain, digital and stores are driving operating benefits as well as improving the omnichannel customer experience: Investments in loyalty partnership capabilities resulted in the introduction of our Petro-Canada partnership at the end of Q1.

This initiative has driven an increase in the issuance of Canadian Tire Money (“eCTM”), with the anticipated redemptions poised to generate incremental sales across our network of stores.

Enabled a richer digital customer experience with the launch of “CeeTee”, an artificial intelligence (“AI”) shopping assistant designed to streamline the shopping journey around tire selection in CTR’s automotive division, and the most recent output of the Company’s work and investment in generative AI technology.

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Check us out online dmn.ca Are your clients driven by data, powered by insights, and fueled by tech innovation? More than 3,000 of DM Magazine’s multichannel, data-driven readers are welcomed every day on our website and through our email campaigns and social platforms which explore all aspects of customer-engaged marketing.

What’s more they’re not anonymous, transient skimmers. We welcome them by name, title, company, contact details, interests, accomplishments and planned initiatives. We populate our channels with appropriate longform, short-form and news-based content tailored to our loyal audience’s individual responsibilities. They’re senior leaders with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake as they pilot the biggest companies and make the most impactful decisions for their organizations.

Your opportunity? Entice our readers into becoming your customers.

Test a fixed period of marketing via our channel(s) (print, digital, web, email, in-person, social, content, mail, courier, lights in the night sky) and we’ll provide you with data. Lots of data. Live leads, real contacts, analytics, tracking results and our own suggestions and advice on what to do to build your momentum. We’re known for bundling full programs for an appropriate discount that you can justify confidently and comfortably through measured results and long-range success.

Remember: readers + content + offer + action = results.

Your results are from in-depth, pre-qualified, high-value proven users of the types of services you’re offering. They’re proven because we started the qualification process long before you made your offer.

Drop me a note now, and I will send you a complete, no-obligation 2024 Media Kit, a sample reader list, a marketing options sheet, and so much more. DM Magazine (CMOs and their teams at Canada’s major companies and organizations, covering all forms of marketing, loyalty and service delivery) www.dmn.ca Remember, every reader is a reader because we understand their responsibilities, authority and planning. Here’s my email.

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steve@dmn.ca Steve Lloyd, Publisher & Editor in Chief

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DIRECT MAIL

Changing Needs of Canadians Drive Losses at Canada Post OTTAWA, ON – Canada Post recorded a loss before tax of $748 million in 2023. Results were negatively impacted by the postpandemic surge in parcel delivery competition, the ongoing erosion of Transaction Mail, and continued growth in addresses and delivery costs.

The postal service has confronted significant new challenges in recent years. In the post-pandemic parcel delivery landscape, competition has accelerated at a pace not seen in the company’s history. Canada Post’s estimated parcel delivery market share has eroded from 62 percent prior to the pandemic to 29 percent in 2023. At the same time, Transaction Mail continues to decline in both volume and as a revenue source. In 2006, Canadian households received an average of seven letters per week; in 2023, they received two. Delivering fewer letters to a growing number of addresses is compounding the financial pressures on the Corporation.

In 2023, revenue fell by $240 million, or 3.3 percent, compared to the prior year, dropping across ❱ DMN.CA

all three lines of business – Parcels, Transaction Mail and Direct Marketing. The 2023 loss before tax widened by $200 million from a loss before tax of $548 million in 2022.

The cost of operations in 2023 rose by $11 million, or 0.1 percent, compared to 2022, largely due to higher labour costs, non-capital investments and depreciation expenses. This was partly offset by lower employee benefit costs driven by an increase in discount rates.

Under the Canada Post Corporation Act, the postal service has an obligation to serve all Canadians in a financially self-sustaining manner based on revenue generated by the sale of postal products and services, not taxpayer dollars.

But like so many other businesses, Canada Post needs to adapt to the dramatic changes in how Canadians live and work today to remain relevant and viable.

Over the last 20 years, the amount of mail Canadians receive has declined by more than 50 percent, while the number of addresses has increased by more than three million. This has resulted in lower

revenues and higher costs.

Since 2019, Canada Post has been increasing parcel capacity and improving service across the country, as consumers have shifted to more retail spending online. However, growth in the parcel delivery business has not been enough to make up for the declining mail volumes and revenues. Intensifying competition in the parcel delivery landscape has created significant new challenges that the Corporation must address to ensure the viability of the national postal service.

Without changes to align the postal service to the needs of Canadians today, Canada Post projects larger, unsustainable losses in future years.

“Canadians understand our business model must change,” said Doug Ettinger (left), President and CEO, Canada Post. “They can see it in their mailbox. An operating model designed to deliver nearly 5.5 billion letters in 2006 cannot be sustained on the 2.2 billion letters we delivered last year. This trend is not unique to Canada.”

He added, “Like other

businesses, we need to adapt to what Canadians need, where they live, how they shop and use our services. Canada Post is committed to leading that change, building on the improvements we’ve made across the organization over the last few years. Canadians still value the importance of their national postal service, which is why we’re working in partnership with the Government of Canada to put it back on the path to long-term financial sustainability.”

The Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Public Services and Procurement commented that, “Canada Post is an essential service that connects Canadians from coast to coast to coast. The Government of Canada recognizes that Canadians have changed the way they use the postal service, while continuing to view its role as vital to the country, particularly in rural and remote communities.

We will continue to work closely with Canada Post to secure its long-term future. As announced in Budget 2024, the government is also considering how to leverage Canada Post’s portfolio of federal MAY 2024

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DIRECT MAIL

COURTESY CANADA POST

million pieces, or 5.0 percent, compared to 2022. This was largely the result of consumers and mailers continuing to shift to digital channels. Throughout 2023, regulated stamp prices remained at 2020 levels. In April 2024, Canada Post received Governor in Council approval to increase its regulated postage rates, which take effect May 6, 2024.

properties to build more housing for Canadians. We will ensure postal service is maintained as part of Canada Post’s mandate as a ‘service first’ organization focused on delivering the mail.”

Parcels In 2023, Parcels revenue declined by $91 million, or 2.5 percent, as volumes rose by 10 million pieces, or 3.7 percent, compared to 2022. Volumes rose due to increased competitive offerings, higher online shopping returns, and additional business from new and existing eCommerce customers. Improved service performance, the introduction of late induction in key markets like the Greater Toronto Area, and the 2023 launch of carbonneutral shipping, also contributed to domestic volume growth.

Domestic Parcels revenue declined despite an increase in commercial rates. The decline in revenue was partly due to decreased consumer spending, more lightweight items moving through the Canada Post network, and a decline in fuel surcharges linked to market rates. Competitive commercial consolidators also took more business from the conventional inbound postal network.

Transaction Mail Transaction Mail revenue fell by $126 million, or 5.2 percent, in 2023 as volumes declined by 117 MAY 2024

Direct Marketing Direct Marketing revenue declined by $3 million, or 0.4 percent, in 2023 as volumes increased by 17 million pieces, or 0.4 percent, compared to the prior year. Total volumes in 2023 were below prepandemic levels, with the decline in revenue driven by economic uncertainty and businesses choosing digital marketing options.

Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail™ revenue increased mainly due to new customer relationships and product development. Direct Marketing remains an important revenue generator as the company continues to look at solutions to help businesses and consumers connect.

Group of Companies In 2023, the Canada Post Group of Companies¹ recorded a loss before tax of $529 million, compared to a loss before tax of $292 million the previous year. The Group of Companies results were due to the Canada Post segment loss.

Purolator recorded a profit before tax of $293 million compared to $317 million in 2022, while SCI’s profit before tax was $14 million compared to $16 million the previous year.

In early 2024, Canada Post and Purolator announced the divestiture of 100 percent of the shares of SCI Group Inc. (SCI) and Innovapost Inc. (Innovapost). The SCI transaction closed March 1 and the Innovapost divestiture closed April 15.

The Canada Post Group of Companies’ operations are funded by revenue generated by the sale of its products and services, not taxpayer dollars.

For the 2023 reporting period, the Canada Post Group of Companies consisted of the core Canada Post segment and its wholly owned subsidiaries Purolator Holdings Ltd., SCI Group Inc., and Innovapost Inc.

Canada Post Considers Options, Raises Stamp Prices In an interview with the CBC, Public Services Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said that Canada Post might consider ending daily letter mail delivery as part of a solution to the falling numbers of letter mail in this country. Duclos said the government will support Canada Post, but the mail carrier will be needed in the future to serve all Canadians. He would not commit to giving the Crown corporation more funding.

A legislative change would be required to permit a change in letter mail delivery. Duclos said he would speak all parties if needed, to consider “whatever is necessary to support Canada Post and Canadians. We need Canada Post in the future.”

“The habits of Canadians are changing but the role of Canada Post would not change,” he commented, adding that CPC is there to serve “all Canadians wherever they may live.”

When asked if the government would provide more funding to help, he suggested CPC “would need to see what options they can present” to reduce the shortfalls and losses. He observed that there is an opportunity to increase revenue with the options for package delivery across the country while potentially reducing costs through cooperation with workers and suppliers while protecting their “health and safety.” He suggested these options are a “work in progress” that could take several years, but that options are being considered for faster adjustments.

Duclos noted that competition for package delivery services, particularly those which launched and flourished during COVID means that competitors are able to pay their workers “low wages” but they focus on specific geographic areas and “don’t serve those Canadians” outside these markets.

Stamp Prices Rise

On May 6th, the price of a domestic stamp rose to 99 cents as Canada Post receives regulatory approval to raise postage rates.

Canada Post’s proposed postage rate increase took effect. For stamps purchased in a booklet, coil or pane, which represent most stamp sales, the rate increases by seven cents, to 99 cents per stamp. The price of a single domestic stamp increases to $1.15, up from $1.07.

Prior to these changes coming into effect, domestic letter mail rates increased twice over the last decade (five cents in 2019 and two cents in 2020), with the last major pricing change made on March 31, 2014.

Canada Post understands the importance of the delivery service it provides and works to minimize the impact of price changes on all customers, ensuring any increases are fair and reasonable.

Regulatory approval of new rates

Changes to Canada Post’s regulated letter mail rates are made according to the regulatory process outlined in the Canada Post Corporation Act. The proposed rate changes were published in the Canada Gazette in February 2024 and received final regulatory approval in April. As an organization funded by revenue from the sale of its products and services, not taxpayer dollars, rate changes are a reality.

Canadians can continue to use their Permanent™ stamps, which will always be accepted at the current domestic postage price. The rate changes also affect other products, including U.S., international letter-post and domestic Registered Mail™ items.

Commercial price changes, also effective today, correspond to the regulated letter mail rate increase.

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KICKER

CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY: An Interview with Robert Rose, Founder, The Content Advisory

Robert Rose is one of the early evangelists of content marketing and the author of “Content Marketing Strategy”.

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MAY 2024

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INTERVIEW

BY STEPHEN SHAW

W STEPHEN SHAW is the Chief Strategy Officer of Kenna, a marketing solutions provider specializing in delivering a more unified customer experience. He is also the host of the Customer First Thinking podcast. Stephen can be reached via e-mail at sshaw@kenna.ca

MAY 2024

hen you stop to consider the numbers, it must be very hard these days for any content creator or producer not to be completely cowed by the odds of building a meaningful audience.

Estimates vary but there are something like 600 million blogs in the world. There are an estimated four million podcasts. About the same number of videos are uploaded to YouTube every day. More than three million photos get uploaded daily. No one knows the exact number of brand newsletters but no doubt it’s also in the millions since a large majority of businesses report having one.

Marketing consultant Mark Schaefer once famously called this meteoric growth “content shock”, by which he meant the “intersection of finite content consumption and rising content availability”. Anyone producing branded content these days is not simply sparring with close rivals for the attention of highly distracted customers, they are up against every influencer, opinion leader, web publisher, blogger and creator, all of them just as keen to get noticed. No wonder much of the content that brands produce today is ignored. The content glut simply suffocates the chances of discovery.

Yet brands keep trying. Content marketing has become a mainstream strategy. No company dares to rely exclusively on paid media anymore to get their message noticed. Owned media is heavily counted on to generate organic web traffic. And customers today expect to find the information they want on demand, whether through search or social media, using whichever device is most convenient.

From the early to mid-2000’s, marketers began to slowly catch on that quality content was the key to earning higher search engine rankings and generating more inbound web traffic. Which is why content marketing quickly became indispensable. By the time the Content Marketing Institute was founded by Joe Pulizzi in 2010, a burgeoning class of content specialists had sprung up, drawn from the journalism world. Today many businesses have a dedicated cadre of specialists whose job it is to produce content that can be consumed across all forms of media.

Yet despite the ubiquity of content marketing, the problem remains: how to crack the code of building an engaged audience. Which explains why only “28 percent of marketers rate their organization’s overall level of content marketing as extremely successful”.1 After all, marketing’s main remit is to generate demand. Most of the time that means one thing: turning prospective buyers into qualified leads who can be nurtured through the sales funnel. Certainly that is all Sales cares about.

Product management too. And those internal groups are the ones clamouring the loudest for more and more content they can use. So that means the content team is chained to a production assembly line, churning out as many promotional assets as they possibly can, with the sales KPIs of the organization foremost in their minds. No one is thinking too deeply about what the information seeker wants or needs.

That is where most organizations are going wrong, according to one of the world’s foremost experts in

content marketing, Robert Rose. Content producers need to start thinking like publishers, he argues. More than that, organizations need to turn their content operations into media businesses with the dedicated goal of attracting and monetizing a captive audience.

It is a radical prescription. Getting organizations to think less in terms of selling and more about sharing takes a huge mindset shift. But with the right content strategy, Robert Rose believes it is achievable. And so in his latest book “Content Marketing Strategy”, he presents a detailed blueprint for success. Ever since he co-wrote the landmark book “Managing Content Marketing” with his fellow evangelist Joe Pulizzi thirteen years ago, Robert Rose has been on a mission to convince organizations that the only way to break through the content clutter is to offer information of unique value that someone might actually be willing to pay for.

STEPHEN SHAW: You’re one of the world’s leading authorities on content marketing. Yet you had early ambitions to become a screen writer. Is there a part of you that still yearns to be one?

ROBERT ROSE: Oh, every day. Every single day. What drove me away from that whole idea despite some limited success was the business side of it. The job of being a screenwriter or a playwright or a songwriter is a sales job. It’s not just about creating great work, and then, yay, somebody finds it. You actually have to market it and sell it and sell yourself, which I was not great at. And so, that was what drove me away. But, yes, I do miss it very much.

SHAW: How did you end up in the marketing world?

ROSE: I went to work for Showtime on the B2B side of their business in marketing, supporting the field sales team as they developed relationships with cable providers like Comcast. And to this day, I will tell you, it’s the best job I ever had. I mean those people were super sweet, lovely to work with. Taught me so much that it actually gave me quite a passion for marketing, which I didn’t know a lot about at the time. And so I dove into marketing books, just went headfirst into it, because I was having such a good time. And then my wife and I moved to Washington, D.C. where I joined a different cable network as their marketing research guy.

My first project was figuring out this new thing called the Internet. It was everything I wanted to do — writing, multimedia, technology, music. I had found my home.

And so digital became a huge focus for me.

SHAW: I just remember that era as a time when there were a lot of digital crusaders thinking they were going to change the world.

ROSE: Not unlike today!

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INTERVIEW SHAW: Later you headed up marketing for a startup technology company and transformed your marketing team into what you call in your book a “publishing unit”. Was that when you first realized that “content was king”?

ROSE: That was back in 2002. We were selling enterprise web content management. When we got our first round of funding they literally plopped millions of dollars on my desk and said, “Go build a marketing team”. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Our competition at the time was IBM, Hewlett Packard — and of course Microsoft was in the game, Oracle as well. These were huge brands that we were never going to beat doing any of the things that I had been trained on, like brand and search engine optimization — we were just never going to beat them on any of that. And so the only option I could come up with was we needed to be subject matter experts. So when potential customers came to talk with us, we could offer knowledge that they weren’t getting from the competition. I hired journalists, writers, content creators and just built this thought leadership machine around software as a service and cloud computing because that was all brand new then. We were cloud computing before cloud computing was cool. And so we started to get more inbound leads. We started to really build a reputation as not only one of the smartest of the companies in the space, but one of the smarter companies in cloud computing. And so we started getting asked to speak more, we started getting asked to contribute articles and all of that generated more and more business.

SHAW: And the company grew as a result.

ROSE: That’s exactly right. When we started to see that it was working, we had to build and scale that, right? So the early days we were doing a white paper a month, we were doing blogs, we were doing events, we were doing a webinar program, we were speaking at events — that was really our marketing strategy. We didn’t know it was even called content marketing then — not until I read Joe’s book, “Get Content, Get Customers”.2 And that’s when I went to seek out Joe. I saw that he was speaking at this conference. So I did what any good marketer would do: I used some of my budget to purchase a sponsorship, which got me a speaking slot, which meant I had an excuse to go. And I stalked him, basically. And he and I had a dinner which we still talk about to this day, where we became instant friends.

SHAW: You then decided to form the Content Marketing Institute. How did that come about?

ROSE: Joe came out of the publishing world and at the time he was running a matchmaking service between brands and custom publishers.

So if a company wanted to do a magazine, he would find a print company that could do it and he would take a small commission on that ❱ DMN.CA

service. It didn’t scale very well and so he said “I want to do something different. I want to go all in on this content marketing thing. I’m thinking about starting this new evangelizing event.” I loved the idea. And he said, “Would you help me think this through?”. After a period of 18 months, I finally said, “I’ll be your Chief Strategy Officer”. When I joined there was only three or four people on board. So I was an early part of it, but he was always the visionary behind it.

SHAW: But you did bring to the table your own content marketing experience and practical knowledge.

ROSE: Yeah, it was always his vision from the media side, and it was always my vision from the marketing practitioner side. That was the whole idea of us launching a consulting practice.

We always knew that consulting was not going to be the most valuable part of the business, but it would keep us close to what was actually going on, and it would keep me fat and happy.

SHAW: Was there an inflection point when the marketing world really sat up and took notice of content marketing?

ROSE: I’m not sure it was a moment in time as much as it was a period in time. We founded the Content Marketing Institute at a time when everyone was putting money in their mattress and freaking out about the economy. And so coming out of that, from 2010 to 2013, there was a real leaning into this nascent thing called social media, this new thing called inbound marketing, this new idea of search engine optimization. It was all about being found and being trusted. HubSpot became the voice and the face of inbound marketing as a practice, which of course is just marketing automation, right? But HubSpot did something that Marketo and Adobe and all of their competitors didn’t do, which was to put a thought leadership program in place. And that really drove this idea of content marketing.

SHAW: That was over a decade ago and yet in the book you state that most companies have still not figured it out: Content marketing remains a “new concept”, you state. Is that because most companies still think of it as non-working media, that they’re still stuck in a campaign mindset?

ROSE: Yeah, in a headline, that’s it. Where many companies struggle is they take the way marketing has been done for the last 60 or 70 years and apply it to content marketing. And this is what the book really gets to: content marketing is a different operational approach.

You have to think about promoting content, you have to think about updating it, you have to think about how consistently you’ll post.

You have to think of it like a media company would. And treating content with the same care and affection that a media company does is just a different operating model than looking at content as a campaign. And it’s that operating

model that trips companies up. For most of them, content is just a vending machine, churning out more and more stuff that’s intended to serve a moment in time.

SHAW: Let’s talk for a moment about the undisputed content leaders out there right now, and you name them in the book - Red Bull, Cleveland Clinic, HubSpot, Arrow Electronics. All very different businesses.

What do they have in common that accounts for their particular success?

ROSE: They changed the way that they looked at content. Someone once said that Red Bull was basically a media company that happened to also sell a soft drink. But the whole birth of Red Bull Media House was purely by accident. They started by dragging a printing press down to the local racetrack, where they would print the race results as they happened in real time, and then hand them out to people. And they started to realize that it was working. It was an accidental thing. And so operating like a media company was a way to market their product without resorting to advertising. HubSpot did the same thing, right? They just knew that creating a relationship with an audience was a good business strategy. What do both those kinds of companies have in common? They operate like a media company.

SHAW: You write about the ability to monetize an audience, and that does sound awfully like a publishing model. How do you monetize an audience? And what’s your definition of an audience? Is it a prospect pool? A marketplace? A community? All of the above?

ROSE: It’s really all of the above because it expands our notion as marketers of what a customer is. An audience is all of the people — groups of people — who can add wealth to our business. Now, typically, I’m going to say they’re addressable, right? But when I say they’re addressable, I mean that you have a relationship with them. It is not through an intermediary, like a Facebook or a podcast feed or some other intermediary that controls when and where your content is seen by that audience. They are addressable in the sense that you choose to have the relationship with them and can address them when you want to.

SHAW: In other words, an owned audience.

Is it a correct distinction to say that an audience has common or shared interests, whereas customers have shared needs?

ROSE: Yeah, the way you framed it is fantastic.

So it’s not just the buyers of your product or service, but all the people who serve the needs and interests of your particular market and can help you add wealth to the business.

SHAW: You also say in the book that you really need a cultural shift in an organization to make this happen. In fact, you advocate MAY 2024

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INTERVIEW starting from scratch, just rethinking everything. It’s asking a lot to give up half a century of marketing practice for something that seems a bit intangible.

ROSE: This goes back to where do most companies trip up. Usually, companies will hire a bunch of journalists and make a team out of them. But then those people become a vending machine of content. So immediately they’re producing content because they’re good at it.

But the content team’s job is not to be good at content; the content team’s job is to make the business good at content. And so that means putting in place standards and processes.

SHAW: And that’s one of the gifts of your book: you go pretty deep on process. But one of the tension points, if I may put it that way, is this dichotomy between what brand marketers want to say and what customers actually want to know, which comes down to, “How can you make my life better?”. How do companies resolve that tension?

ROSE: There has to be a marketing strategy to sort all that out. The challenge on the content marketing side, to your point, is that there’s often no one who can say no, right? So there needs to be an arbiter of good. But it comes back to standards and operating procedures — because without standards, there can be no arbiter of good. When sales says, “I don’t need a white paper, I need a better brochure”, they’re right if no objectives have been set against either of those things. There’s no way to go back and say, “No, you don’t need a new brochure.”

SHAW: Increasingly budgets are being diverted from long term brand building to performance marketing. And I think content marketing suffers as a result of that because it’s really about building brand equity over time, right?

ROSE: Absolutely, yes. I mean, it is crazy how we’re still having this debate over what’s better, long term brand building or short term performance marketing. And of course, they’re both important. It’s not a question of either/or, it’s a question of balance. Balance doesn’t mean equal. Balance means that we are applying the right level of weight to each one according to what it is that’s needed. There’s that wonderful Chinese saying, “The best time to plant a tree was 100 years ago, and the second best time is yesterday”. And so that’s the problem with something like content marketing. The best time to start content marketing was five years ago; the second best time is yesterday.

SHAW: One of the points you make in the book is the audience should be thought of as an asset. The same could be said of a relationship marketing strategy where the payoff is long term growth in the value of a customer base. And this goes back to the whole concept of audience versus customer.

Is one really a subset of the other? Is MAY 2024

relationship marketing the actual goal here?

ROSE: That’s it. You’ve nailed it. That’s exactly it, right? It’s all about how do we develop a relationship with that broader audience. People still argue that nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “I need a better relationship with my butter provider”. That always struck me as very cynical, but it’s true. We don’t wake up and long for a better relationship with really any provider.

But that doesn’t negate the importance for the butter provider to have a relationship with us. Because no matter how brief, there is a relationship there when we purchase that stick of butter. All we’re suggesting is that in today’s marketing world, that window of time needs to be longer, it needs to be more expansive, it needs to be more meaningful. So if I’m the butter provider it’s incumbent upon me to create reasons for my consumer to have a deeper, more meaningful relationship. We need to extend the time for deepening a relationship with customers so that we have more of a chance of being top of mind when they actually are in a buying window.

SHAW: The way to avoid being substitutable is in part by offering a one-of-a-kind experience. Red Bull is certainly an example of that in a highly competitive category, using content and events to distinguish itself.

ROSE: That’s right. When I was at my web content technology company in the early 2000s, nobody knew what cloud computing was.

Nobody knew what software as a service meant.

Nobody knew anything about any of that. It was too new and weird and strange. So our entire goal was to educate people. Because for them, technology of any kind was always a capital expense. The idea of a subscription was so alien to them.

SHAW: In the book, you have a couple of different frameworks that really struck home with me. At the highest level, you have three pillars of content strategy: Communications, Experiences and Operations. Can provide a brief overview of what you mean by those three pillars?

ROSE: Visualize a Venn diagram. One circle is Content as a capability in your business.

This is making sure your people do the right things. This is not having the team be good at content, but having the team help the business be good at content. Then we have a circle called Experiences where we’re looking at different kinds of expressions of that content, whether that be a blog post, a PDF file, a video, a podcast, whatever the expressions are of those ideas and producing them so that they can be consumed by our audiences. That means we need to understand our audiences, we need to understand our story, we need to understand all the things that we’re doing to build these content products. In the middle, straddling those two circles, are what we call Operations or

content orchestration through the creation of standards, workflows, technology, training, and all of those kinds of things.

SHAW: You also have your content marketing version of the 4 Ps: Performer, Promoter, Professor, Poet.

ROSE: Yes. I couldn’t resist. I’m a sucker for alliteration.

SHAW: Again, can you provide a brief overview of that framework?

ROSE: That’s really about business storytelling and how to express those ideas. When we talked earlier about that arbiter of good, well, what does good look like? What defines good content? And, of course, what defines good content is the impact on the audience. So I broke that down into four categories. One is the Poet which is content that changes behaviour.

This is the highest level of content, where we’re trying to actually change someone’s mind on something. We are trying to inspire someone to do something. Then you have what we call Professor content, which is meant to teach something. That’s the second highest order.

It has to impart knowledge, it has to impart wisdom. Then you have Promoter content. And that is simply content to promote something.

And then Performer content is at the very top, which is just supposed to draw out an emotion from you. It’s not supposed to tell a story. It’s not supposed to do anything. It’s literally just there to elicit an emotion from you.

SHAW: No conversation about content marketing is going to be complete these days without some mention of AI. How will AI change how content is produced?

ROSE: We don’t know yet. That’s the real answer. Because without knowing your content strategy or without understanding what it is you currently do from a process or an operational standpoint, you can’t understand how AI can be effective. But I think where we will see AI begin to make real inroads is, of course, in helping speed the idea of iteration in the content creation process. AI is much more interesting as a research assistant, as a way to summarize docs, as a way to find patterns which are hard to find. Those are the things that it’s really good at. Things it’s not so good at is original ideas or bringing wisdom to bear, or generating something that you’ve never thought of before, right? That’s the hard part. With the growth of AI, with the growth of misinformation, with the distrust that’s in our culture right now, it is incumbent upon all of us to create great, wonderful, interesting, true things. I used to say that content marketing was the biggest opportunity that businesses are not availing themselves of. And now I say content marketing is the biggest responsibility that businesses have that they’re not availing themselves of.

1. Source: NYTLicensing 2. Joe Pulizzi, 2009, McGraw Hill

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MARKET TRENDS

Trends and Insights in Customer Experience 2024 Methods & Participants

This report, the 2024 CX Leaders Trends & Insights: Corporate Edition, was developed based on results derived from a custom 90-question survey delivered via the SurveyMonkey online platform. Surveying occurred from October 20 through December 22, 2023. Private invitations to partake in the survey were delivered by email to the Execs In The Know community and via promotion within Execs In The Know’s private online community, Know It All. Invitations targeted individuals responsible for managing the customer experience and customer care programs of large Businessto-Consumer (B2C) and B2C/ Business-to-Business (B2B) organizations, primarily in the United States and Canada.

The survey benefited from the participation of 117 CX leaders with individual question sample sizes ranging from 86 to 117 responses. Forty-two percent of survey participants held a title of Vice President or above. We have a detailed breakdown of this year’s survey participants, including details about participation by industry, revenue, and customer type. ❱ DMN.CA

STAFF

T

his year’s CX Leaders Trends & Insights survey results confirmed many of the trends first established last year.

Spending on artificial intelligence (AI) powered customer experience (CX) technology continues to expand, as does the appetite of CX leaders to learn more about how to apply and maximize this rapidly advancing technology. Ironically, this investment is occurring at the same time as many CX leaders are stymied by legacy systems and outdated tools. Although the shift toward greater digitization is well underway, there are no shortages of challenges that could seek to derail further progress. Budgetary pressures continue to mount and increases in layoffs and hiring freezes means a “do more with less” mindset is emerging.

The 2024 CX Leaders Trends & Insights: Corporate Edition report, a follow-up to the Consumer Edition report released this past September. This new report introduces more than a dozen new and revised questions, along with more than 70 existing data points, providing unrivaled insight into the report’s four key areas: Workforces and Workplaces, Touch Points, CX Strategies, and CX Technology.

It is our hope that this information will help inspire and guide our readers as they tirelessly work to improve the customer experience at their esteemed organizations. Special

thanks to project partners, TELUS International, who have been exceptional teammates in shaping and evolving this research. Be sure to check out the special commentary and analysis of findings from Kory Laszewski, VP, Global Sales at TELUS International. You can find Kory’s commentary on page 6.

Also, a very special thank you to the 11 CX leaders who contributed their time and insights in reaction to a number of survey results.

You can find their contributions throughout the report, as illustrated below.

There’s Good News The good news: It appears the industry is succeeding in doing more with less, while also succeeding in taking an opportunistic approach to innovation. Companies are winning by establishing closer internal relationships, unifying goals and objectives, and putting the customer first. CX and customer first thinking is gaining strength and influence, and the timing could not be better. In fact, more CX leaders than ever before (46 percent) feel their organizations are doing a good job of driving loyalty with their CX operations, and a newly introduced question this year reveals that CX operations wields “Extreme” or “Moderate” influence at 76 percent of organizations (page 54).

The coming year promises to

be an interesting on many fronts.

While AI is exciting, CX leaders shouldn’t lose sight of their most important asset — their people.

A shift back into the office has begun in earnest, and engagement and cultural immersion remain critical for a significant portion of the workforce, especially as that workforce slows in growth.

By focusing on people first, including both customers and employees, brands will develop the relationships needed to overcome any of the challenges they currently face.

Highlights from this year’s research: Seventy-three percent of organizations are currently investing in AI for their CX operations, up from 48 percent year-over-year The most significant challenge for CX operations is “Legacy Systems/Processes/Tools,” with 35 percent of CX leaders naming this as their biggest challenge ❯ Seventy-six percent of respondents described the influence of CX at their organizations as either “Extreme” (25 percent) or “Moderate” (51 percent), with only 7 percent describing CX’s influence as “Little” or “None at All” ❯ More “Leadership Engagement/ Recognition” is thought to be the top motivator for CX agents, with 59 percent of CX leaders naming it as one of the MAY 2024

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MARKET TRENDS most effective More CX leaders than ever before (46 percent) feel their organization does a good job of using CX operations to drive customer loyalty ❯ The average percentage of outsourced agents working from home has fallen to 41 percent, down from 60 percent year-over-year ❯

Verticals and Business Types This year’s pool of 117 survey participants carry a vertical profile very similar to that of years past, with most individuals falling within one of three categories: 1) Consumer Electronics, Technology, and Software (23 percent); 2) Retail (16 percent); and 3) Financial Services and Insurance (14 percent).

The breakdown of business types, like the above industry breakdown, were also reflective of past reports, though there was a year-over-year bump in B2Conly businesses, up seven points compared to last year’s result of 25 percent. Businesses that operate in the B2C space typically have more complicated CX operations requiring more agents, support technology, and program support personnel. This slight shift toward larger, more complicated programs is work bearing in mind as readers digest this year’s results.

About the Participants’ Businesses Revenue and the State of the Business MAY 2024

Revenues of Survey Participants How would you generally describe the state of the business over the past 12 months? As hinted at in the business type breakdown on the previous page, the demographic for this year’s survey participants skew slightly larger, and is also reflected in the revenue breakdown. This year’s survey cohort contains fewer companies with revenue of $1 billion or less (50 percent versus 54 percent last year), as well as slightly more companies with revenue of $50 billion or more (14 percent versus 9 percent). This, again, is worth consideration as readers examine trendlines and compare this year’s results with those of last year.

While it appears the companies of most survey participants are

continuing a trajectory of growth, the energy of that growth has slowed in each of the past two years of surveying results. In this year’s results, 71 percent of companies are indicating some level of growth compared to 72 percent last year, and down from 82 percent when compared to results from two years ago.

Addressing Economic Uncertainties The impact of economic uncertainties has expanded yearover-year, with the latest results indicating nearly half of all survey respondents (48 percent) are not only discussing conditions, but are also taking significant action. This represents a 25 percent increase

in the percentage of companies who are actively and significantly addressing the uncertain economic conditions.

and Seasonal Resources also experienced slight bumps upward, which could be a sign that brands are trying to do more with less.

Has your company begun discussing or acting on the uncertain economic conditions?

In exploration of the types of actions being taken to address the uncertain economic conditions, there was a significant rise in the percentage of companies that have instituted hiring freezes and/or have committed to laying off employees. Making cuts to human resources are often viewed as the least appealing option for companies looking to reinforce the business against economic headwinds. At the same time, as the lump in layoffs and hiring freezes, there was a nine-

Which types of frontline workforce resources are deployed by your CX operations?

While this year’s cohort is generally the same as last year’s in terms of FTEs, there was an offsetting shift to smaller operations for In-House FTEs, and larger operations for Outsourced FTEs. Last year, 59 percent of In-House operations had 100 FTEs or less compared to 68 percent in the latest results.

Conversely, only 5 percent of Outsourced operations had 5,000 or more FTEs last year compared to 10 percent in this year’s results.

Most operations continue to fall into the 500 or fewer FTEs bucket, regardless of whether operations are In-House or Outsourced.

point drop in the percentage of companies reducing budgets for new programs. Taken together, these indicators seem to suggest that companies are now battening down the hatches in the expectation that economic uncertainties will only grow more severe in the coming quarters.

Workforces and Workplaces — Workforces Type of Deployed Workforce and FTE Count In the second year of asking about frontline resources, “Internal Agents” remained the most common type of workforce among survey respondents with very little year-over-year change. Shared

Headcount Changes, Agent Performance and Adjustments As hinted at by the dramatic year-over-year rise in Layoffs and Hiring Freezes (page 14), workforce reductions are strongly reflected in the below results, showing both significant year-over-year increases in the percentage of companies experiencing headcount decreases, as well as moderate to significant decreases in the percentage of companies experiencing headcount increases.

Headcounts, including both In-House and Outsourced operations, were especially hardhit, with a 10-point increase in the percent of companies seeing a headcount decrease, combined with a 13-point decrease in the percent of companies seeing a headcount increase. That all said, the story is generally one of expansion, just not as rapid as last year. For companies that are in a position of growth, now is shaping up to be an excellent time get the best possible candidates while staffing up.

After four years of data, it’s apparent that agent performance has grown quite comparable regardless of whether an agent is trained in a WFH environment or in-centre. The gap between “Better” and “Worse” has remained tight between the two groups, indicating (along with the below results) that companies have made effective DMN.CA ❰

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MARKET TRENDS

58%

changes across the board and are perhaps better at honing in on the right set of hiring requirements.

Furthermore, several training technologies, like AI-powered simulated training, have come along recently, helping agents have a better onboarding experience and get up to speed faster.

How do agents trained in a workfrom-home environment perform against agents trained in-centre?

Compare Your Operations Percentage of companies that have adjusted their recruiting, hiring/ onboarding, training, and/or coaching practices as a result of the shift to work-from-home.

58%

Meetings, One-on-Ones Enhanced Pre-Screening Greater Use of Standardization ❯ Updated Hiring Requirements ❯

Our approach has been slightly different than the results we see in the survey. Our highest impact initiatives were automation and our growing partnership with our third party contact centre.

Over the past two years, we lifted and shifted transactional and repeatable tasks from our internal Tier 2 support teams to our external Tier 1 provider. At the same time, we began to leverage RPAs and other automation to continue delivering better experiences for our customers. As

this work migrated to lower cost channels, we clearly saw the role of our Customer Support Associate had changed significantly. Many were hired for basic phone and data entry roles. In our evolving environment, the basics were covered elsewhere and the Tier 2 team needed more problem solving, critical thinking, and continuous improvement skills.

We had analog associates working in our new digital world. We partnered with our HR team, re-evaluated job descriptions, priced them appropriately, and did a full gap analysis to understand the impact to our current team.

We moved forward with new job descriptions, pay scales and team/

individual training plans to ensure our team members could move with us into our elevated Customer Support team of the future. This change recognized the hard work of our teams, helped us to scale the business in a cost effective manner and positioned us as we continue exploring the myriad of new technologies available to improve both our associate and customer experience.

Workforce Motivation In yet another question previously presented as an open-ended question, some of the most effective workforce motivators have been greater leadership involvement and/or recognition,

Changes of Impact In a question previously delivered in an open-ended format, the implementation of more and better virtual tools has been the most impactful way companies have adjusted agent-related processes.

Many companies also continue to benefit from borderless recruiting, indicating that WFH is still very much alive and well. Finally, companies appear to be focusing on improved agent engagement, doing so not only in terms of touch points and meetings, but in terms of engaging to support agent wellness and higher levels of job satisfaction. ❯ Borderless Recruiting ❯ More Frequent Touch Points, ❱ DMN.CA

MAY 2024

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MARKET TRENDS more schedule flexibility, better compensation, and higher potential for career advancement.

Companies should consider implementing one or more of these motivators within their operations so those ideas that can be quickly implemented, building up to the most effective motivators as time goes on.

enhancing the quality of customer interactions.

Incorporating workforce flexibility into contact centre operations significantly enhances agent retention and customer experience. Flexibility, including remote and hybrid work options, addresses key agent concerns such as work-life balance and

Do you find WFH, in-office, and hybrid agents to be motivated by similar or different things?

In a new question for the CX Leaders Trends & Insights series, survey respondents were asked whether work environments impact what motivates agents.

Interestingly, about a third of respondents (32 percent) indicated that these different groups of agents are motivated by different things.

Although no followup question was provided to drill into the difference, results on the next page suggest more regular touch points, fun activities, and collaborative opportunities all go a long way in generating motivation and engagement among WFH agents.

Workforce Motivation As the 21st century unfolds, contact centres have become pivotal in shaping customer experience, evolving from traditional call centres to sophisticated, technology-driven communication hubs. This transformation, highlighted in the “Workforces and Workplaces” section of the 2024 CX Leaders Trends & Insights: Corporate Edition report, reflects a paradigm shift toward digital fluency, remote work flexibility, and a global talent pool. By leveraging virtual tools for recruitment, training, and engagement, contact centres are not only expanding their reach, but MAY 2024

job satisfaction, leading to lower turnover rates. Happy, engaged agents are more committed to delivering high-quality service, positively impacting customer interactions as well as the positive impact to the overall customer experience.

The strategic emphasis on nurturing agents’ passion for the brands they represent underpins the importance of aligning employee motivation with customer satisfaction goals.

The report provides insights into the growing trend of work-fromhome arrangements, signaling a shift toward more adaptable and resilient operational models.

This evolution underscores the industry’s response to changing consumer expectations and the need for innovative solutions to meet these demands. In essence, the future of contact centres lies in their ability to integrate technology, people, and processes to deliver exceptional customer experiences, highlighting the critical role of human-centric and technology-enabled strategies in driving the next wave of customer service excellence.

The future of the contact centre lies in embracing workforce flexibility to enable both agent retention and customer

experience. By integrating virtual tools and fostering a culture that prioritizes agent well-being, contact centres can achieve superior levels of customer experience.

Encouraging Engagement With so many companies still heavily committed to WFH, survey participants were asked an openended question about the ways in which they encourage employee engagement among their out-ofoffice staff. Not surprisingly, a big chunk of the responses received were centreed around in-office time, in-person meetups, and investments in connectivity and communication solutions.

Several CX leaders also talked about providing WFH employees with company funds to purchase equipment to make their WFH environment as comfortable and conducive to success as possible.

Below are a handful of verbatim from the responses received:

for team members to re-engage with coworkers.”

“Utilizing a hybrid approach where all employees are in-office 3 days per week. Scheduling most meetings during in-office days to encourage in-person collaboration.”

“We’ve made serious investments in data systems and technology that enables workforce efficiency, regardless of location. We even provided for employees to purchase equipment and expense it to offer comfortable WFH environments.”

“Leadership and management that actually listens to employees and customers and knows how to actually architect/design an environment designed to succeed.”

“Virtual contests, video meetings and meetups”

Passionate Agents Certainly, engaged agents are better suited to help customers.

But what about agents who are passionate about the brands they represent? According to both CX leaders and, to a lesser extent, consumers, passionate agents are important. So perhaps brands should be asking themselves what they are doing to draw agents closer to the brand, including products/services and culture.

CX leaders are correct in believing their customers value agent passion for the brands they represent.

“Volunteering in the community is a big part of our organization and these events provide opportunities

ALL MATERIAL is drawn from and is copyright of The 2024 CX Leaders Trends & Insights: Corporate Edition report.

What are some of the ways your organization helps encourage and/ or maintain employee engagement for work-at-home staff?

“We have scheduled collaboration days at our locations one day per week where we hold social events and encouragement workshops, as well as team meetings.”

In your opinion, how do you think YOUR CUSTOMERS feel about the following statement: It is important for customer care agents to be very passionate about the brands they represent.

DMN.CA ❰

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TACTICS

Hyper-Personalization Trend Highlights Critical Nature of Unparalleled Accuracy STAFF

I

n the high-stakes world of mass mail manufacturing, the cost of printing errors can be significant. Not only is mail manufactured at extremely high speeds, but the range of high-value personalization features utilized today to increase response rates makes matching variable printed materials, envelopes, and attached cards without errors increasingly challenging.

Despite the rise of digital marketing, direct mail is still broadly utilized by retailers, educational facilities, non-profits, financial companies, healthcare, and political organizations to get their marketing messages out to target audiences.

For some time now, this type of mail has already used variable digital printing techniques to personalize marketing materials and envelopes. This was already considered “mission-critical” given the internal contents of an addressed envelope may contain sensitive financial or health information and should not get into the wrong hands.

Now, with a growing return to trends toward adopting a hyperpersonalized approach, matching the various component parts of a mail piece — messaging, addressing, envelope, attached cards, etc. — is even more critical.

Hyper-personalization in direct mail is a strategic approach where marketers leverage past ❱ DMN.CA

purchase records, browsing habits, demographic details, and other available data to customize messages and offers for individual recipients. A hyper-personalized strategy can significantly improve the efficacy of marketing endeavors by increasing open rates, click-through rates, and ultimately, boosting sales.

For these reasons, securing the right mail manufacturing system is of paramount importance. Most systems are a combination of technologies from inkjet systems that employ different types of technologies and even inks, to inserters, card attaching systems, and tracking and cameras that verify printed information is correct, and that items are properly matched together. Software often ties the entire process together.

Unfortunately, critical components such as the software, the camera systems, and even the inkjet printer may be sourced overseas – a factor that might not be immediately evident without digging deeper. This approach can limit the equipment manufacturer’s ability to make any changes to hardware or software given there are no engineers or product designers on staff.

“Sometimes direct mail service providers view inkjet systems as ‘just a printer’ that doesn’t need to be that high integrity, and they don’t know that until they have a problem,” says David

Loos of MCS, Inc, a company that designs, manufactures, sells, and supports industrial inkjet imaging, tracking, and inserting systems and solutions for the mail manufacturing industry.

Alternatively, there can be significant advantages to working with suppliers that can offer a customized, end-to-end mail manufacturing solution.

“By owning and controlling the technology in-house, company engineers can make changes or customizations as issues arise to provide a superior solution with full accountability for results from design to implementation to nationwide support,” says Loos, adding that this is the best way to ensure the end-to-end system delivers error-free results.

Hyper-Personalization “If [the mail] doesn’t get opened, nobody wins,” says John Barber, President of Summit Direct Mail.

“The more personalized you make something, the better it performs and the higher the response rate.”

The company is a provider of print, mail, and fulfillment services in addition to other multichannel marketing and digital communication solutions. The company offers digital printing, offset printing, direct mail, product/literature fulfillment, and transactional mail, web to print/ecommerce, and complete online marketing automation services.

“The amount of data [for personalization] that is out there now is so immense compared to what it was, and now the technology allows us to use it,” adds Barber. “Every way that you can mail it to make it look personalized, we do it.”

Today, this can include a laundry list of techniques designed to stimulate and track responses to an individual from Unique Offer Codes to Personalized URLs, and intelligent mail barcodes.

Outbound phone calls, SMS, and text messages to an individual can be tied to these items.

For example, a custom Personalized QR Code is a unique branded appearance of a QR Code.

With customization options like varying colors, patterns, and background, or adding a logo and CTA frame, one can design a unique QR Code that represents the brand.

A company’s prospects and customers will scan the QR code on their direct mail postcards, brochures, letters, and envelopes, etc. with a smartphone camera, and they will be immediately sent to a website, personalized landing page (PURL), social media platform, YouTube video, given a digital coupon, and more. The possibilities are endless. Barber says they have seen an increase of over 80 percent in scans from these codes since 2020 when going online via mobile devices.

According to Barber, to stay MAY 2024

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ISTOCK/ VECTORMINE

TACTICS

at the leading edge of hyper personalization, Summit Direct Mail continually invests in new technologies. Since the company was founded in 2003, Barber says he has worked with MCS to acquire high-speed inkjet systems, high-speed inserters, and TK 1000 high-speed web press.

A leading supplier of high-speed mail manufacturing equipment since 1989, MCS’ inkjet and tracking products are designed and manufactured in the USA. With thousands of systems installed in the mailing and marketing industries across North America and the world, MCS equipment has been used for many missioncritical mailings including two U.S. Censuses and many vote by mail elections.

According to Barber, MCS provides all the features that, “puts the sizzle in [direct mail].”

One example is MyFont, a new way to address mail with real handwriting using MCS high speed inkjet technology. As an optional feature in the new MCS Raptor 10 inkjet software, envelopes and teasers can be printed in natural and customized handwritten fonts — not pre-designed selections.

For years, nonprofits and financial services industries have used this proven technique to increase response rates for advertising mail.

“We put our vision on paper and allows people an easier way of responding,” says Barber.

MAY 2024

The speed of the entire endto-end system is also important when considering the ideal mail manufacturing equipment.

Summit Direct Mail recently purchased one of the fastest inkjets in the industry, the TK 1000, that can run more than a thousand feet a minute.

“It’s one of the fastest inkjets in the marketplace, and the lowest cost per impression,” says Barber.

He was also impressed with the speed of the card attaching technology. MCS’ Card Attaching lines are available as single stream or dual stream, which increases productivity with the option for 2up production at up to 20,000 pieces per hour.

“The technology matches the two [cards] and then allows us to lay down two cards at one time so we can put them down twice as fast,” says Barber.

Super Accuracy Art & Negative is another top print and fulfillment solution that offers a wide range of commercial printing services, including direct mail. The company can produce up to 30 million pieces of mail per month on its high-speed printing equipment including newsletters, nonprofit mail, postcards, as well as enrollment kits, credit card marketing, and promotions for universities and colleges.

According to Jim Myers, vice president and one of the owners

of Art & Negative, the company purchased its first inkjet system in 2004 for printing self-mailers, promotional material such as postcards, brochures, or catalogues mailed without an envelope.

Myers says he was familiar with MCS equipment having worked at another printing company before returning to his family business in 2001. He says most of his competitors also utilize MCS equipment.

MCS offers the largest family of inkjet technology, including the Falcon Eagle, Osprey, and Condor, all driven with one platform, MCS’ Raptor software. All MCS products can drive multiple print heads, even if they use different technologies like piezo and thermal ink jets, that can deliver a variety of water-based dye pigment, polymer pigment, and UV inks.

Art & Negative later purchased a FlowMaster high speed mail inserter from MCS that can achieve speeds up to 12,000 envelopes per hour. Inserting machines automate the process of inserting documents, flyers, or other materials into envelopes or packages. As Art & Negative grew and needed more capacity, the company continued to purchase additional FlowMaster inserters.

The system includes MCS’ Perfect Track Tracking System that includes Match Mailings, Read & Print, Output Verification, Electronic Double Detection, Insert

Verification along with extensive logging of data including time, date, operator name, machine ID, piece ID, and destination of piece.

“The tracking system can also take a picture of the item. If it’s in the healthcare arena, they want verification that person passed through your machine, it can take a picture and track [every piece of mail],” says Myers.

Myers says he appreciates having one company to contact.

MCS has its own network of support technicians nationwide for technical support as well as installation and training.

“If there is ever an issue with the equipment, you can call them, and their technicians can remotely access the machine and fix any type of software updates or see any error codes you might be having to troubleshoot issues via the internet.

Then, if needed, they can send a technician in to help,” says Myers.

Myers says MCS also works with him to find solutions that fit within a defined budget. “If I have to come in at a certain price, most of the time they have been able to work with us by offering solutions or other models that will get the job done,” explains Myers.

Summit Direct Mail’s Barber agrees. “It’s not only speed and personalization, but also the price efficiency,” says Barber. “At the end of the day, we have to give our customers what they want, and they want it at a low cost.”

DMN.CA ❰

// 20

INSIGHTS

ISTOCK/ IGOR KUTYAEV

The Question of Privacy Amidst Evolving Technology: A Guide for Marketers

BY MARIA PALLANTE

T

he growing use of generative AI over the last year has placed the use of consumer data and its regulations — or lack thereof — under a microscope. As a leader in managing the loyalty data of clients, Bond’s solutions operate and are founded within the ever-changing global regulatory framework. This framework touches many topics, including the use of consumer data, analytics, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).

In this article, we’ll uncover emerging themes, recommendations, and our own approaches to the global regulatory framework, keeping technology, operations, and people in mind.

First, Some Key Themes Growing Data Protection Regulations - Regulations, such as GDPR in Europe and the California Privacy Rights Act (and its predecessor California Consumer Privacy Act), continue to evolve with growing requirements around how data is collected, stored, and processed along with customer access rights. Other markets are following their lead.

Overall, these regulations outline an organization’s responsibility to manage a consumer’s data securely, transparently, and, ultimately, that the consumer has the right to access that data and ask for it to be removed; this is known as the “Right to be forgotten.” Giving the appropriate conditions, failure to comply can result in financial consequences.

For example, failure to comply with GDPR requirements can result in fines of up to 4 percent of global revenues, with organizations such as Facebook having faced these for violating consumers’ privacy.

Data Location Matters Depending on the geography ❱ DMN.CA

and location of the customer, there are new requirements emerging related to where the data is captured and stored. Data residency is the location of the data and where it’s stored, while data localization is the requirement to keep data in its country of origin. In other words, it’s vital to keep your data localization requirements in mind depending on your data’s residency.

Consumer Manipulation Should Be Avoided - There are policies taking shape around an organization’s responsibility to avoid manipulating customers to take actions they would not normally take; for many, this simply translates into operating ethically.

For example, making it difficult for a customer to unsubscribe from a subscription by having them navigate multiple screens and checkboxes would fall under this category of operating unethically.

The Desire for AI Transparency Is Real - As the use of AI technology changes by the minute, there is a growing desire for transparency from consumers on how their data is being used to create the end-result in front of them.

How exactly are their shopping behaviors being tracked to deliver personalized birthday recommendations? For many consumers, the trade-off is worthwhile. In fact, 56 percent of Gen Zers prefer product recommendations that have been tailored to them (Survey Monkey).

The opportunity for AI to help brands deliver more personalized experiences is undeniable, but those same brands will benefit greatly by helping their customers understand just how their data is being protected and used to improve their overall experience.

Our Answer to An Evolving Question Privacy by Design - Bond applies this approach across our solutions for clients, from helping them design their engagement strategies through to technology solutions — including how we continue to evolve our proprietary technology, Synapze LX & XI. So, what does privacy by design look like? It means limiting data collection to strictly that which will drive value back to the customer. It means protecting that data in motion or at rest and ensuring that consumers can access the data we’re collecting — or, that we can support their request to be removed from a program or database. We’re also constantly monitoring other techniques, including Differential Privacy, which is being used by other organizations such as Apple.

Monitor Evolving Technology Policies - Bond continues to monitor evolving policies related to the management of data, including GDPR and CPRA, which tend to lead internationally in requirements. For those unsure of how policies and regulations may apply, we recommend seeking legal counsel on how these laws and regulations can apply to your organization. In doing so, you can determine if a self-audit and/or external audit requirement exists.

Compliance can — and should — be treated as a differentiator within an organization’s competitive set.

Be Transparent About AI Usage We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: transparency is key. It’s our true north when approaching this rapidly changing space. As such, we recommend the same for others: Be clear on how AI is being used in your marketing and customer engagement activities along with the impacts, risks, and associated biases.

Always consider how the use of

AI can be transparently shared with customers when asked, and monitor the direction of regulations, such as the EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act and the US Algorithmic Accountability Act. On December 9, 2023, the EU reached a provisional agreement on the Artificial Intelligence Act. This regulation aims to ensure that fundamental rights, democracy, the rule of law and environmental sustainability are protected from high-risk AI, while boosting innovation and making Europe a leader in the field.

Keep Your People Informed & Processes Up to Date - From an operational standpoint, we have policies in place and have outlined expected practices for our employees, which is reinforced with compliance training. This helps employees understand expected practices around topics such as data collection, storage, deletion, AI, and more. Annual compliance training ensures that these expectations are reinforced annually, along with any new information or evolution of these policies.

The answer to the question of evolving technology policies and privacy ethics is nuanced and complicated. Perhaps unironically, it’s one that blends both human-centricity with technological agility. Approaching data collection, use, and storage without an equally as nuanced approach is to do a disservice to the trust built between brand and customer. The customer, along with their data, should be handled with an equal amount of care, discretion, and attention. This fundamental principle is core to how regulatory bodies are looking at policy evolution and will shape its future.

MARIA PALLANTE is Executive Vice President, Technology Solutions of Bond Brand Loyalty.

MAY 2024

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Resource Directory 10-1634-DCM-Resource Directory-OL.pdf

DATA ANALYTICS

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DIRECT MARKETING

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INSIGHTS

O

ur recent study

by Constant Contact illustrates that the biggest barriers to marketing success for small businesses are a lack of time and marketing expertise. Over half of SMBs have less than an hour each day for marketing, and 73 percent express doubt that their strategy is effective.

Fifty-six percent of SMBs globally say they only have an hour or less each day to spend on marketing, and 34 percent feel working more efficiently is the key to achieving their goals in 2024.

Notably, small businesses in Canada report the least time available for marketing of any country we polled.

Fifty-two percent of SMBs globally routinely put off marketing in favor of other activities, The most timeconsuming marketing tasks are posting on social media, planning and strategy, and determining what’s working. Those are also the areas small businesses are most likely to push off for later.

Small businesses wear a lot of hats, so it’s not surprising that marketing takes a backseat to other responsibilities. But, what’s surprising is exactly how little time for marketing most SMBs have, and how frequently they put it off for later.

That’s why we’ve launched Campaign Builder, a gamechanging new way for SMBs to automate their marketing.

Campaign Builder leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge technologies, like Constant Contact’s customer data platform (CDP), to automatically generate turnkey multi-channel marketing campaigns for SMBs in minutes. Constant Contact is currently the only marketing platform offering this depth of automated multi-channel campaign generation for SMBs. Currently, just 16 percent of SMBs feel very confident that they have the correct channel mix to reach their customers, and 60 percent say they don’t have the time or knowledge to try new tactics.

Campaign Builder leverages Constant Contact’s AI platform, along with best practices from its ❱ DMN.CA

Small Business Struggles with Marketing; New AI Technology to the Rescue

ISTOCK/ TECHA TUNGATEJA

BY RUSS MORTON

decades of experience as a digital marketing pioneer, to automate the areas where SMBs are most likely to get stuck — creating content and choosing the right channels to reach their audience.

Campaign Builder helps Constant Contact customers set a goal and expand it into a strategic plan they can execute easily. It analyzes the customer’s goal and, in seconds, develops a recommended set of marketing tactics that

will help achieve the intended outcome, complete with detailed recommendations for the best content, channels and timing for each communication.

Small businesses know they need to market themselves, but they rarely find the time they need to do it well; the process is timeconsuming, complex and there are too many places to get stuck if you aren’t a marketing expert. We want to alleviate that stress for our

customers by being the marketing arm they don’t have and enabling them to maximize their results with minimal effort. Campaign Builder transforms an SMB’s ability to market their business through a quick and easy experience that empowers them to spend less time on marketing while expanding their tactics and instilling confidence that they are making progress toward their goals.

“Campaign Builder is like a three-second thing; I tell it what I’d like to accomplish, and then it gives me a week’s worth of marketing content that I can just post in different channels at the recommended times,” said Constant Contact customer, Jenn Polito, Director of Business Development at Netcom Paysystem. “It’s a time-saver, big time, and the best part is that it doesn’t give me a migraine walking through the process.”

In addition to Campaign Builder, Constant Contact also recently launched BrandKit, a fullyautomated experience that helps SMBs maintain brand consistency across their marketing campaigns.

Constant Contact’s BrandKit leverages AI to automatically import an SMB’s creative assets from its website into Constant Contact. Once imported, BrandKit creates a tailored theme and template that can be easily applied to future campaigns. This one-click process helps SMBs work more efficiently by eliminating the need to manually upload fonts, logo files, colors and images into every new email, and empowers them to start marketing quickly. It also prevents customer confusion stemming from inconsistencies in the company’s look and feel.

Small businesses are feeling the squeeze from all sides, grappling with economic worries and a lack of confidence in their marketing strategies. Many are preparing to invest more time and resources, but more isn’t always better.

What’s crucial is investing wisely by focusing on strategies that actually deliver.

RUSS MORTON, chief product officer at Constant Contact , which makes digital marketing easy and effective for small businesses and nonprofits around the world.

MAY 2024

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To advertise or get more information and media kits: Steve Lloyd 905-201-6600 ext 225 | 1-800-668-1838 | steve.lloyd@lloydmedia.ca

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Toronto CSD by Dissemination Area

2020

2021

March

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India

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China, People’s Republic of

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Dominant Country of Origin

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Retailer B

Changing Demographics

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People know well enough to ask favour (none)

51.5%

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14.9%

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91

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24.6%

Index:118

Index:235

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Close relatives in same city (0-2)

34.7% Index:156

47.1% Index:110

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29.9% Index:107

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