Colonial First State (CFS) has cut the time required to deploy standard customer journeys from weeks to hours and doubled its campaign output as it shifts its marketing to always-on, event-driven engagement.
The superannuation and investments provider has been progressively rebuilding its marketing technology capabilities, using automation to reduce manual campaign work and respond faster to customer behaviours.
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Group executive for the Customer Office at Colonial First State, Richard Burns, described marketing automation as the engine of the company’s engagement strategy.
“Through automation, we’ve dramatically accelerated campaign delivery, reducing build times from weeks to hours,” Burns said.
“We can also respond to customer behaviours and life events in near real time, meaning we can be helpful to our customers in the moment they’re in, and in the moments that matter.”
Burns said CFS wanted to make superannuation a more visible part of customers’ financial lives, rather than something they engaged with only sporadically. Hence the transformation was intended to meet the challenge of getting customers to engage with their retirement savings well before retirement became an immediate concern.
“Two important principles underpin our martech strategy,” Burns said.
“The first is that we take our responsibility to our customers incredibly seriously. We never lose sight of the fact that we’re trusted to help Australians manage and grow their retirement savings, and that responsibility sits at the heart of everything we do.
“The second is that we don’t pursue technology for technology’s sake. Technology alone doesn’t create scale or better outcomes. We believe success comes from how technology is implemented and optimised, and how effectively our people and processes come together behind a shared objective.”
The martech architecture uses Adobe Experience Platform to bring customer data together, while Adobe Journey Optimizer is used to orchestrate communications across email, SMS, and push notifications, as well as personalised placements in CFS’ app and web channels.
This combination has changed the mechanics of campaign production. Burns said CFS now operated from a common engagement platform supported by automated data feeds and standardised journey patterns. This had reduced the number of manual processes involved in building and launching activity.
The result has been the launch of what Burns described as a substantial number of always-on journeys, creating continuous interactions with customers based on their circumstances and behaviour.
For example, members could now receive a push notification when a contribution reaches their superannuation account, in a similar way to how a banking customer might receive an alert when their salary is deposited.
“For us, real time means responding to customer behaviours close to a moment of action,” Burns said.
Personalisation was also being used to promote tools and services according to customer needs. These included retirement calculators, CFS’ Super Health Check tool, advice services for fund members, and estate planning services provided through its partnership with Safewill.
Burns said early results showed personalised activity was improving both engagement and customer action, including increased digital adoption generated through always-on push communications that brought members back into the app.
However, he said the organisation did not regard technology alone as the source of growth.
“Success depends on data quality, governance, clear ownership, operational discipline, and effective ways of working,” Burns said.
“That’s why a significant area of focus has been ensuring that people, process, and technology are aligned.”
That discipline was also shaping how CFS approached artificial intelligence. Burns said CFS was using AI to generate insights, reduce repetitive work, and support personalisation, but was maintaining a human-in-the-loop model in which important decisions remained with employees.
“It is used to augment our capabilities, and we maintain robust governance standards, alongside appropriate human oversight and decision-making throughout our processes,” Burns said.
The next phase of the marketing automation strategy will extend the model further, as CFS increases its use of event-driven journeys and personalisation while selectively introducing AI capabilities where they can demonstrate value within its governance framework.
“We want to keep finding better ways to engage and support our customers throughout their superannuation journey, while maintaining the strong governance and discipline that underpin trust,” Burns said.
