Classic Customer Marketing Articles
This is an archive; for latest see the Marketing Productivity Blog
and Twitter: @jimnovo
These articles are keepers for customer retention
oriented, Data-Driven marketers; they are selected primarily because they
provide very short-in-supply case studies, metrics, or process models for
relationship marketing, customer retention, or customer loyalty marketing on the
Web.
Making an Offer They Can’t Refuse
February 12, 2004 DM News
There is absolutely a method to constructing profitable offers and this is a
good checklist to review. You can increase your profits a lot by making
the right offer to the right people at the right time - and it's really
quite simple.
The Migration Matrix
February 9, 2004 Catalog Success
A simplified version of my own Customer Scoring
Grids, a way to create visual maps of customer retention and defection you can use as the "master plan" for managing your entire
Customer Retention effort. If
you like The Migration Matrix, be sure to check
mine out.
Why Marketing Databases Often Fail
January 24, 2004 DM News
Arthur Hughes weighs in again with some rock solid, simple advice you need to
read if you are thinking about a High ROI Customer
Marketing program. For one thing, it is not nearly as expensive
as everybody tells you to create the database that drives the whole thing.
7 Mistakes to Avoid When
Building Customer Loyalty
January
23, 2004 DM News
Another straightforward, simple list of bullet points one has to consider when
designing a profitable Customer Loyalty
program. What do I mean by "profitable"? Check
this out.
May We Suggest
January 12, 2004 Internet Retailer
Finally! Web merchandising is getting some attention. Cross-selling
is merchandising, but usually implies some kind of "action" is taken
by the retailer, as in "want fries with that?." There is also
bundling, which usually works much better - because it is more similar to
offline retail. On the main item page, put a related item and say
"Get both for $xx.xx, Save $x.xx. We do this on the lab site, works
like a charm. Your average sale will soar.
Annual Survey- People Power
December 15, 2003 Direct Magazine
Did you know that companies spending over 50% of their marketing budget on relationship
marketing have higher margins? How often the average B2C and B2B
companies contact their customers? Facts like these are in this annual
survey of Direct subscribers.
Develop a Profitable Merchandise Mix
November
23, 2003 Catalog Success
Merchandising is the final frontier for web retailing; current practices simply
don't take advantage of everything
that has been learned over the past couple of decades by remote
retailers. This article is full of suggestions from the catalog world on
how to do it correctly.
View From the Top
November 2, 2003 Direct Magazine
The "big guys" get together and talk about the state of direct /
database marketing and the future. Looks pretty bright to me, as more and
more companies insist on targeting and accountability for their ad spending.
Basic
RFM Analysis Yields Binding Results
October 22, 2003 DM News
Some of the smartest web marketers out there are using offline postcards to
retain or reactivate customers. This article isn't specifically an online
/ offline story, but it does show you the power of
RFM - a 600% jump in response rate for a $3,500 product is not something you
can easily ignore.
The new realism of web site design
October 7, 2003 Internet Retailer
Conversion, conversion, conversion. It's now a religion, isn't it?
I'm not sure what all these people were thinking before
they got religion, but sure, optimizing for conversion makes a lot of
sense. Prediction: the next religion will be accurately
tracking search marketing.
CRM is a Four-Letter Word
October 1, 2003 Direct Magazine
Yes, here we are - again. The author does not reveal which word he was
thinking of, but hits on a problem we've
discussed before with the way many CRM systems are designed - they depend on
the customer to initiate contact. That's insane; the real ROI is in proactive
Customer Retention. But many of
these systems can't handle the batch operations so critical to High ROI
Retention Marketing. Oh...
The
3rd Deadly Sin of Customer Value Management: Single Factor Optimization
September 19, 2003 DM Review
People always try to bucket customer marketing into acquisition, retention,
loyalty, and so forth. But in the end, in the best customer value
management practices, all these pieces of the whole are approached in an
integrated fashion. Just as more traffic does not always mean more
sales,
your acquisition methods substantially affect your
retention.
The
2nd Deadly Sin of Customer Value Management - Ignoring Customer Life Cycle
September 12, 2003 DM Review
Wow, this is great stuff, I guess these guys compete directly with me,
though they are a publicly traded company. Hey, there's plenty of room in
this world for more people to talk about the Customer
LifeCycle and how critical it is to increasing the ROI
of CRM. You might want to check out the 1st Deadly Sin here.
Supersizing Search
September 8, 2003 Internet Retailer
Search engine marketing has come quite a long way since I provided a roadmap to
search success back in 2000. It's
the most logical path to profitability because it takes advantage of how people
actually use the web. The next frontier in search will be understanding
how to optimize PPC and organic search together to maximize ROI. And after
that, people should begin to pay attention to customer retention, because what
looks like a bad deal on the initial search conversion can be very profitable
indeed over the longer term. How to do this? You will need to look
at classic behavioral metrics like Recency and Latency
by search engine and search term. More info here.
Attitudinal
Imperatives
for Direct Marketing
August 12, 2003 Direct Magazine
Did you know the consumers using direct channels are smarter, happier, kinder,
more physically fit, and have happier marriages? This annual comparison of
consumers buying direct with those that don't is a must read; implications for
strategy and execution abound. Seven attitudinal imperatives and the
opportunities they create are identified. Also:
They're
Non-Responders, Not Non-Consumers
Which
customers Are Worth Keeping and Which Aren't? Managerial Uses of CLV
August 2, 2003 Knowledge@Wharton
This is a great academic article, and useful from a strategic position.
Show it to your boss or CEO. And then tell them business is
"messy," and rarely conforms to academic ideals, but you have a
solution. Tell them you can use some very
simple techniques to accomplish the same objectives, and you can start
right away if you can buy
one book.
Shift to
customer retention from acquisition shrinks costs at Drugstore.com
July 23, 2003 Internet Retailer
The headline of this story trumpets old news for most people, but the real story
is buried in the test they outline. Although they don't use the phrase
"subsidy costs," which I talked about in
my very first newsletter, that's what they are talking about and the
implications for the bottom line are huge. Their simple test also proves
how increasing profitability can be so darn easy if
you know how to do it.
Do-it-yourself CRM
apps
once again en vogue
July 18, 2003 CRM Daily
My question is this: When were they not "en vogue"? Most every
high ROI CRM project I have worked on was a skunkworks deal, where we identified
the one or two things that would put the most money on the bottom line and just
made them happen. Now, if you don't have any customer data at all, perhaps
you need a big system to collect it. But if you do have the data, you can
take a low risk path and test the likely
ROI of the CRM approach.
Long
Time Gone
July 14, 2002 Direct Magazine
This is a really fascinating study on the use of LifeTime
Value metrics - apparently, those companies that use LTV are more bullish
on the future, report better financial results, and are more likely to increase
their marketing budgets in 2004. Geesh, not a bad crowd to be running
with...would you like to join them?
Kraft
Builds Database With Opt-in Program
July 14, 2002 Direct Magazine
People tend to think only businesses with "perfect" data on their
customers can reap the rewards of data-driven marketing. Not so. If
a packaged goods company can do it, you can to. Success is all about having
the right plan.
Practical
CRM
July 1, 2003 Target Marketing Magazine
It is absolutely essential for you to do two things before you address CRM -
determine how you will segment your customers and find out what the current and potential
value of each segment is. That's it; everything else flows from
there. Don't develop a plan, buy software, or do anything else until you
understand the building blocks of customer value. If you need help with
this area, my Simple CRM program is very Practical
too!
I Want My QVC
June 23, 2003 CIO Magazine
Man, is it ever refreshing to hear an opinion like this. CRM is all about
better execution, not cross-selling. You build loyalty by always being
better than the other guy, not with irrelevant product pushing. And part
of knowing what is relevant is understanding "who" and
"why." QVC only tries to upsell 15% of their customer base each
month. Why? You can bet it's because those are the right
people to upsell.
Who Knew?
June 16, 2003 Internet Retailer
I did. If you're a newsletter subscriber, you did too
- a couple of years ago. Web site
analytics are absolutely crucial to success, and this article is a list of the
kinds of things real people have uncovered that just drop your chin to the
desk. Like finding a $12,000 PPC campaign generated $100 in revenue.
Like reducing customer acquisition costs by 80%. That kind of stuff.
And a lot of it has to do with search marketing, which has now become the
"killer app." But since you are already a newsletter
subscriber, you knew that too, and
you knew how to measure your success. Oh,
you're not a newsletter subscriber?
Pay Attention to
12-Month-File, Forum Speakers Urge
June 2, 2003 DM News
Sure, that's the "blunt force" way to do it. People who have
purchased last 12 months are much more likely to purchase than those who have
not purchased last 12 months because they are more Recent.
But, people who purchased last 6 months are even more likely and past 3 months
even more likely than those people. So the "power" of past 12
months really comes from the past 3 months. How can you test and measure
this? Divide customers into <3 month, 3-6 month, and 6-12 month buckets
and promote to them; use the same approach as the 30-60-90
test.
Internet
Can Prove Costly For Catalogs
June 2, 2003 DM News
What we're really talking about here folks is the coming of true multi-channel
marketing; and it really only works if you track the customer
LifeCycle across all your channels. Is it difficult?
Absolutely. Is it impossible? No. Is it profitable?
Wildly so, if you understand the LifeCycle and follow the two fundamental rules of
High ROI Customer
Marketing and you have a system to
track the LifeCycle and act on it.
Modeling
- No Routine Matter
May 27, 2003 Direct Magazine
This is a great little collection of short stories on customer analysis gone bad
- and what to do to keep it from happening to you. Usually, it's because
the modeler doesn't know exactly what the data is or the marketer has not been
clear in specifying the desired outcome. Best story I've heard: Modeling
lead conversion to sale, the data-mining team comes back and says, "Best
leads have first name of John." Um, gang, that's the most popular
male first name in the U.S., isn't it?
The
Last Mile –
Clearing the Challenges of Implementation
May 23, 2003 DM Review
This is a very straightforward article with a valuable message - all the
analytics in the world won't help you if you can't execute. I find
cross-functional teams to be of enormous benefit in this area; including at a
minimum (and hopefully at the director or above level) field sales (if
applicable), customer service / call center, fulfillment, IT, and finance as
well as the various marketing folks. If this group isn't having a weekly
meeting anyway, project or no project, start one. The best programs evolve
from solving the day-to-day real world challenges this group faces. The
highest ROI, low-hanging fruit programs are developed from the bottom up, not
the top-down.
Fundraising Goes Beyond Donations
May 13, 2003 DM News
Besides some good advice on fundraising, this article has a "Top 10 Reasons
Why Donors Stop Contributing" list, a real eye-bugger when you see things
like "Charity Didn't Remind Donor" at 3.3%. Egad. Doesn't
mention RFM modeling to keep donors on track though; a 192%
increase in ROI is nothing to sneeze at.
May 6, 2003 CFO Magazine
Wow, customer segmentation works. You can
increase sales while reducing marketing costs. And, you can even do something called life-stage
segmentation that really accelerates profitability; both online and
offline. But, did you know you can
do it yourself?
See "Classics" Article List
(more articles on the web outside this site)
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