Patricia Gordo, Director of Agency Services at MailTecK & Customer Comms
He and his team are responsible for the strategy, planning, design, development and production of customized marketing, legal and transactional communications for MailComms Group clients. Patricia has worked as a strategic consultant and executive creative director for major national and international communication, advertising and marketing agencies. He has more than 19 years of experience in Business Intelligence, New Business, Strategic Consulting and Campaign Planning. Patricia has a hybrid profile, thanks to her strategic and analytical vision, as well as a broad technological knowledge of the Digital Transformation processes of communications. His challenge now is to bring technology closer to the customer and provide it with a layer of value, based on the enhancement of the Customer Experience, UX and brand image, so that communications transcend and generate connections and solid links between the brand and its customers.
-Agency Services is one of the MailTecK & Customer Comms Group’s major commitments. What value does it bring to the omnichannel personalized communications offered by the company?
We are a disruptive and hybrid agency with very solid strategic, technological and branding expertise. These are the three standards of our differential value; in addition to always prioritizing to offer a differentiating concept focused on providing service and solutions that adapt to each of our customers. Providing an end-to-end service from a strategic, technological and brand-knowledge point of view allows us to offer our clients an integral solution for their multichannel campaigns.
-The Agency Services department is made up of a multidisciplinary team, specialized in different areas. What kind of profiles make up the team?
I would like to emphasize that all Agency Services profiles have a solid technological background. This is necessary when creating or designing a campaign, a communication, be it marketing, transactional or legal, and even more so if we are thinking of multichannel; for example, we always have as a reference the launch or production system we are going to use to achieve maximum cost optimization and improve the Time-to-Market. Advanced technological knowledge is also necessary to be able to provide a differential value in personalized campaigns, since it allows us to perform tasks such as processing or improving the quality of the databases, as the origin of the success of communications, integrating with our Data Quality service.
-Agency Services has a technological approach, which differentiates it from its competitors. What role does technology play in your service portfolio?
We live in an environment focused on CX and Digital Transformation of communications, and even of companies. This means that right now the weight of technology is maximum, but let’s not forget the printing channel because, although we can consider that it is a residual communication in the face of technological growth, brands need and demand physical support. At this point, regardless of the channel, the agency contributes the concept of homogeneity for the benefit of the campaign and the communication itself.
-Your department helps to improve the Customer Experience of customer communications. How do you do it? How is the channel selected for each customer? How far can a communication be personalized?
We are fully aware that the quality and optimization of databases are the secret of success to reach a connection between brand and customer, whether in B2B, B2C or B2B2C environments. In our case, communication is 100% customizable. For us it is not a handicap to personalize any communication at all levels and raise the CX or UX, increasing the functionality and interactivity of our communications.
Enhancing communications with this Customer Experience layer is only possible if we know the target, as well as what the brand needs to generate engagement with the end customer or the consumer of that communication. In short, it is a matter of providing value through concepts, visuals or messages to reach the consumer and ensure that each communication meets its objective.
-Can you automate shipments to optimize and speed up communications?
Of course, automation is essential. It would make no sense to position ourselves as an advanced technological solutions company if we did not use this possibility for the benefit of our customers and the optimization of communication processes. We try, whenever possible, to work with a schedule, under business rules and to achieve the greatest effectiveness and efficiency in our services.
-Do you have any advanced analytics service to measure the results of these actions?
Of course, and we are not satisfied with pure metric analytics alone. For us, delivering analytics with the main KPIs is not a challenge, we incorporate the concept of analytics we call strategic analytics. When I say strategic analytical capacity, I am referring to an analysis of communications, including heat maps, semantic content analysis and image loads, programming code, the layout of the communication itself (mainly HTML), etc. This allows us to replicate the parameters of success and improve those critical points, since the communication process is a process of constant improvement.
-You offer a complete Email Marketing service. What sets you apart from the competition? What degree of scalability and integration does it allow?
We offer a Full Service, from design, creativity, layout or programming of the piece itself or in a campaign concept, with planning of several outputs, A/B testing possibilities, etc. We also have the ability to insert videos, we use advanced programming codes and, of course, with customization variables. In addition, we embed within the Full Service contact list management, database processing and development, segmentation, automated workflow, and we are even able to manage unsubscribes, or any type of Robinson List crossover (which we also offer to our clients) or specific exclusion lists that each client can specifically arrange. Finally, I would like to highlight optimization, in the sense of orienting all our work towards data analysis and results. This point is essential.
In terms of scalability, we work with a specialized platform that allows for any type of integration with platforms such as Salesforce, Oracle, Google, etc. It is true that we analyze each project and client in a specific way so that the integration is perfect. On the other hand, we also have Communicalia, our own platform for launching, managing and monitoring communications, with a more transversal orientation of communications and greater capacity for tracing and monitoring, apart from the Email Marketing tool we usually work with from the agency, focused on marketing communications.
-Another of the services you offer are dynamic communications. Could you explain what they consist of and mention some of their main applications?
Dynamic communications are very much on the market trend, since we are moving towards a communication concept with a higher level of personalization, I would even dare to say with a maximum micro-segmentation, reaching the single record and 100% of variables of personalization of content aimed at each customer. Dynamic documents consist of HTML5 programming that allows us to develop more advanced and supported by our technological partner (Quadient) onboarding processes, dynamic statements or dynamic and digital Welcome Pack. The dynamic document allows the customization of any content or resource, such as text, video, or even including a signature process. Agency Services applies branding, extolling the value layer of Customer Experience and giving the communication that connection, dare I say emotional, between brand and customer.
At the business level, the dynamic document brings great benefits to companies because it can be treated as a tool for communicating and having permanent contact with the customer, offering cross selling, up selling, etc., and incorporating the concept of bidirectionality. These documents are having a very high demand in those brands that need to have a permanent contact with their customers, highlighting sectors such as finance or insurance, among others.
-What is the next challenge for Agency Services in the new context of Digital Transformation?
I think that technology, within the Digital Transformation process, is going to be something that is going to be taken for granted and that each company should incorporate naturally into their communications and their own organizations. To a greater or lesser extent, these are solutions that exist and are on the market, in a process of constant improvement from the point of view of innovation to provide new solutions. How this technology is displayed is where MailComms Group’s Agency Services (MailTecK & Customer Comms) contribute their great differential value in order to improve the integral service to the customer, improving their communications, by providing our expertise on the value layer of Customer Experience, UX and brand image. How that technology is “seen” and how it reaches or is perceived by the consumer or customer is essential to generate strong links between brands and their customers in all B2B, B2B2C, or even B2E environments. This is our positioning and our raison d’être, within a company of services and integral solutions of technology in the communication processes: priority of service and increase of the value of communications for our clients.