In this age of big data, big claims and big hopes about maximizing the value of data to create sales, marketing analytics plays a central role. Despite all the attention it receives, there are some enduring misconceptions about what marketing analytics can and cannot do. Here are four top “urban legends” about how marketing analytics… Read More
I was reading a news item recently about another startup in the marketing analytics space. This startup analyzes eye movements as customers browse in a store and, based on that, tries to determine the customer’s interest in certain items, which triggers email offers to their mobile phones in real time. Wow. I hope that company… Read More
It happens so often there’s even a catch phrase. “One and done” is what marketers call customers who make a single purchase and don’t return for more. If a substantial number of your customers are one-time buyers, you have a serious business problem. Very few companies make enough margin dollars from a first purchase to… Read More
Marketing used to be a creative process, dominated by creative geniuses like Marshall Field, John Wanamaker, and Stanley Marcus; men who built great fortunes with their intuitive sense of what their customers wanted. Marketing isn’t like that anymore. Analytics have replaced intuition – a less volatile, more dependable kind of creativity. Get the analytics right,… Read More
The mantra of one-to-one marketers is “right offer, right person, right time.” But a great many marketers who think they’re fielding one-to-one campaigns are deluding themselves. In reality they’re sending many customers the same communication under the mistaken assumption that those customers’ needs are identical to others getting that communication. Segmentation like that is a… Read More
“We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge.” John Naisbett, Megatrends, 1982 Things haven’t changed much since Mr. Naisbett wrote his run-away best- seller 33 years ago. In fact, they’ve gotten worse. Talking with Randy Giusto recently (V.P. & Practice Lead, Marketing & Media at Outsell) we asked about the big challenges he’s hearing… Read More