I’ve written before (on my other blog, etailology) about the power of “service communications” in the etail and direct marketing landscape. To put it simply, people pay more attention to shipping confirmations, bills, and other administrative communications than they do “marketing messages.”  So… the real trick is ensuring that service communications do all of the following:

• communicate critical service information
• demonstrate your value proposition and your latest offers
• show your desire to continue and expand the customer relationship
• embody and express your brand difference

These opportunities are routinely overlooked.  We haven’t all gotten 300-page phone bills, but most of us have faced over-complex, poorly organized, and often-wrong billing statements.  (I once got a letter from Citibank telling me that my HELOC application had been turned down because I was a foreign-national, even as my all-American self received a box of checks for the same account!)   Colleen Jones at the UXMatters blog has an excellent overview of dos and don’ts for billing statement design.   It’s worth a look.

If billing statements don’t excite you, what about shipping notifications?  Nothing gets me more excited than a UPS tracking number.  I read those emails!  And even post-purchase follow-ups and surveys get my attention far quicker than a standard “acquisition” communication.  (My Saab dealer sends three post-service messages asking for feedback… and the next order.)

The point is this: direct marketing is the process of translating a moment of consumer attention into a lifetime of Brand Membership.  Service communications represent moments where consumer attention is extremely focused on your brand.  Do more than get it right … make it exceptional!