Quaero Blog

Let's Get Engaged!

niall_budds@csgsystems.com (Niall Budds) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST

Many of the senior marketers I talk with are worried because they feel like they are losing control over their customers. They are right to be worried; but let's be clear, the "control" they felt they possessed was largely an illusion. Consumers of the past essentially were sitting targets for a brand's outbound communications, but that situation has changed dramatically.

Technology, once again, has been the catalyst for this disruption of the traditional marketing model. Thanks to recent advances, there are now myriad ways for consumers to find information and connect with each other, either through online research or via social media. Those changes mean that consumers can be your brand evangelists (sending people streaming to your site/store to purchase) or frankly, your worst nightmare, when you have to respond to a reputation crisis. Witness what is going on with Toyota at the moment! Of most concern to the marketers is that these discussions can now happen without ever involving them. They, in effect, have become the sitting targets for what consumers now decide!

This is the new reality and marketers, to paraphase a well know business book from a couple of years ago, can either obsess about "who moved their cheese", or they can think of how to use technology and data in much more creative ways to engage consumers when and where it is meaningul to them.

But how do you define engagement and more importantly, how do you make it happen? I like to think about it in terms of some practical steps that marketers can take to respond to evolving consumer behavior and preferences:

From To

Outbound broadcast messaging Bi-directional communication

Selling Helping the consumer to buy

On your schedule When it's relevant to the consumer

One-touch Multi-touch

Isolated contacts Coordinated interaction

I will delve more deeply into each of these characteristics of 'engagement' areas in coming blogs and would love to hear your thoughts on any other aspects that you think are important.

Web Analytics is More Than Just a Reporting Tool

naras@csgsystems.com (Naras Eechambadi, PhD) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST

Recently I was on a keynote panel at the National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM). In response to a question from the audience, one of my co-panelists pooh-poohed the value of web analytics. He referred to it as just a fancy reporting mechanism for web activity with little relevance for marketing. I was a little surprised by the comment and was itching to make a rebuttal, but the moderator chose to take the conversation in a different direction. "Web analytics" is one of those terms that tends to be thrown around casually by folks seeking to impress others and can mean different things to different people (and mean nothing to most people).

The Web Analytics Association defines web analytics as "the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage." Within the confines of this strict definition, my co-panelist was probably accurate. However, the value of marketers of web analytics comes from what is done with the data after the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of the web activity. We have found that linking this activity to unique visitors, whether they be customers, identifiable prospects or even anonymous visitors can yield very rich, actionable insight. It is possible to perform sophisticated segmentation on visitors and use this segmentation to target communications such as advertising or cross sell or upsell messages. See one of our recent case studies that discusses this approach.

Once the web behavior of individual customers and prospects is being tracked it can be linked to their behavior in other channels, such as call centers, retail stores or branches as well as their responses to email or direct mail and as well as their activity on external sites, in some cases. Web analytics can, therefore, be not only relevant to marketing but actually very central to understanding customer behavior and value and lead to actionable segmentation.

It is more than just a reporting tool.

Building Your Own Online Community

josh_eastburn@csgsystems.com (Josh Eastburn) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST

We are all familiar with the typical social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but some companies are bringing social media in-house and reaping enormous dividends. While shopping for some outdoor gear, I came across Backcountry.com and discovered a whole community of customers who were actively participating in the e-commerce site. Almost every item I viewed on the site had a collection of reviews, comments, Q&A and customer-submitted photos. Before purchasing a shirt, I was debating which size to get and decided to post a question to the "Product Wall" about whether it runs large or small. Within an hour, I received an answer, not from a Backcountry.com employee, but from a fellow customer on the site who had purchased the shirt a week before. Add to cart, checkout.

This community of users goes beyond the typical model of static product ratings and reviews. These customers are actively participating in a brand they believe in.

What does a company gain from having its customers so actively engaged?

Allow your customers to become your extended sales force and support team
Get immediate feedback (good and bad) and a forum to address problems or concerns
Not only do you have a target audience, but you have an audience that is actively listening
Loyalty is contagious-let it spread to new customers

There are many sites using social media elements to grow their brands and different techniques have been used to feed the growth. Express.com holds monthly giveaways for active members. Others simply rely on the lure of elevated user status for each contribution to the site.

It takes time to grow a community of dedicated followers, but providing an environment for loyal customers to engage with others is worth the investment.

Time for Marketing to Learn from Software Development

ram_krishnamurthy@csgsystems.com (Ram Krishnamurthy) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST

The tough economic climate has significantly impaired marketing budgets. Although the economy and budgets may be bouncing back, Marketing professionals are still being asked to do much more with less and prove that marketing is working. In this tough environment, it would behoove marketers to think of agile marketing rather than the traditional approaches they have employed in the past.

Marketing has traditionally adopted a very intensive planning and execution process that is sequential in nature. They plan for months and months and debate the strategy and messaging. By the time the project execution is fully underway, the project team and stakeholders often come to the realization that what was originally planned only partially meets the business needs. By then it's too late and attempts to adjust execution even slightly is often met with a massive and inefficient change control process, which only delays execution further and makes things worse. The project suffers. Even if the team delivers exactly what was documented in the original requirements and time frames, what is delivered will rarely meet what the business truly needed. Marketing lacks a clear methodology, a standard best practice and an organizing principle and framework of execution. To solve this problem, marketing should look closely and take its cue from the software development industry.

Most development organizations were faced with the same challenges. In the past, they used the "waterfall" method of developing software which is very similar to the current planning method used in most Marketing groups. The waterfall approach employs a highly controlled progression between defined phases or steps.

There is a requirements gathering and planning phase with a clear sign off on the requirements as defined at the "point-in-time"
That is followed by a design phase in which the solution components are designed as per the requirements
Once the design is signed off, then the development starts and components and solution is developed and tested

This methodology has some serious drawbacks:

Hard to predict all requirements or needs upfront
Lack of flexibility to support future needs/unknowns
Lack of transparency throughout execution

To overcome these drawbacks, many software development organizations have transitioned to an agile methodology which is based on the principles of:

Embracing changing or evolving requirements
Continuous iterations with customer feedback or in-market testing loops
Commitment to continuous improvement

Marketing should follow the same paradigm in these challenging environments. Online environments make it feasible to do so. Some companies already use such an approach when it comes to specific areas such as paid search. The application can be extended more broadly. A successful marketing program uses extensive experimental design and testing. Using the agile methodology, marketers can constantly test, learn and improve. The cycle can be repeated over the duration of a campaign to drive better campaign and marketing performance.

Traditionally marketing has used the single stimulus - single response models which leads to lengthy timelines in terms of understanding the campaign performance. With agile methodology, marketing is transforming to a multiples stimuli model. Consider the example of building landing pages or microsites for marketing. In the old approach, all the components and versions of the landing pages or microsite would need to be developed before launching a campaign. Start with a few versions of landing pages and iterate over time to create and optimize the versions of the landing pages. This also provides a real time view in to the performance of your campaigns, incorporates customer feedback rapidly and also builds in continuous process improvements through an iterative approach.

In the next few blog posts, we will address how agile methodology can be incorporated to the marketing planning and execution process.

Shopping vs. Buying Complexity - Draw a Map and Destroy All Obstacles

dave_raffaele@csgsystems.com (Dave Raffaele) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

I recently started to look for a new set of golf clubs. As I traversed through all of the manufacturer websites, golf magazines, golf club reviews, golfing blogs, Twitter, and numerous Google searches, I realized that shopping for something has become more and more difficult. In fact, the complexity of making a purchase decision has by far surpassed the actual act of paying for and receiving the golf clubs.

Unlike in 1985, when shopping and buying where one in the same and most often happened in one store with one sales person, 2010 is much different. Shopping and Buying are 2 very distinct processes that a consumer goes through, both of which need to be supported and nurtured.

Here's how I define shopping vs. buying:

Shopping - The process by which a person comes to a comfortable buying decision by weighing alternatives and how those alternatives match to their personal success criteria.

Buying - The process by which a person pays money in exchange for certain goods or services after experiencing the shopping process.

By examining Shopping and Buying as two separate, yet connected, tactics, we will start to see that both entail their own level of complexity and require specific approaches to addressing those complexities. As I will explain next, the complexity trends for shopping & buying are actually going in the opposite directions both of which offer Marketers challenges that they have not had to address in the past.

The Trend

As depicted in the graphic above, buying something is getting easier every day, but as the consumer ecosystem continues to grow and evolve, shopping is becoming exponentially more complex for many consumers. There are reasons for this movement but more importantly there are specific things marketers can do to help and guide consumers through the process.

I will walk through some of the techniques Marketers can use to leverage this trend, but first lets discuss what is causing this great shift in the first place.

What's Driving This Shift?

Both the increase in shopping complexity and reduction in buying complexity over the past 10-15 years are related to two key drivers:

Information Overload = Higher Shopping Complexity

The incredible and continuous growth of information in the consumer ecosystem can intimidate most shoppers which can lead to a longer time to purchase or even churn out of the shopping process entirely. Depending on how savvy the shopper is, the complexity level of the shopping process can be discouraging for folks who don't have the tools to handle the mountain of information available.

Some examples of the information available during the shopping process include:

Inner circle of friends and trusted advocates
1000's of blogs and on-line articles with hundred of comments
Periodicals & Consumer Reports
Product and Service reviews (i.e. Yelp, Amazon, iTunes Store)
Search and alerts
Used goods (i.e. Craigslist) or Auction (i.e. eBay) Portals
Social spaces and discussions (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Forums)
Personalized on-line advertisements
Webinars, Tradeshows, Conferences, & Local Meetups
Price comparison websites & mobile applications
Email offers, newsletters, and television ads
Promotion/Offer Aggregators
Increase in lower cost competition and competing messaging

Innovation in Support of Buying = Lower Buying Complexity

Advances in "ease of purchase" capabilities have allowed consumers to purchase goods and services (i.e. engage in the buying process) quickly and efficiently through means that they prefer. The advances allow the consumer, who in some cases just went through a grueling shopping process, to execute on their purchase decision with little to no thought or distraction, both of which can derail a consumer's purchase.

Some examples of this innovation include:

Amazon.com's 1-Click
Digital Payments (i.e. PayPal, Bill Me Later, Google Checkout)
Swipe-able payments - Visa payWave
Purchase Online with In-store Pickup
Mobile Applications
Do it yourself grocery checkout

Harnessing the Trend

Support the Shopping Process

With the upward trend in shopping complexity, it is important for Marketers to develop and leverage techniques that help consumers navigate through the fog and find their way to their ultimate buying destination. The goal should not be to try and fight the upward movement, since much of it is out of the marketer's hands, but instead harness it to provide a set of fixed ropes that help steady consumers through their shopping process.

The following techniques can to be used by Marketers to harness the trend and develop the appropriate consumer shopping structure; a structure that over time can become a custom travel guide for consumers.

Sign Posts

When information is bountiful to the point of being overwhelming, Consumers look for ways to filter the onslaught in order to glean the best from the useless. Sign posts give consumers direction to the best information regarding your product or services. Marketers should spend time looking for great reviews, blog posts, and forum discussions that speak to their products and deliberately point consumers to them. The sign posts can be placed on the front page of a company's website, included in newsletters, or posted through social media channels. It's great to feed consumers product collateral, but it can be more powefulto use sign posts to guide consumers to other people who are truly engaged with your products and can support them in the shopping process.

Breadcrumbs

Conversations about your product or your competitor's product are happen every day. Good or bad, these conversations are shaping the buying decisions of the consumer ecosystem. It is becoming more and more important for Marketers to become engaged in these conversations and leverage this opportunity to drop what I like to call "bread crumbs". These strategically placed interjections will create multiple entry points to you and help to lead prospective customers to your brand. A bread crumb could be a tip on a community discussion forum, a comment on a blog post, interactions with fans on a Facebook fan page, or a reply/retweet on Twitter. Whatever the approach, dropping these bread crumbs shows that your company is engaged in supporting consumers in the shopping process by giving them another avenue to find and engage with your brand.

Here is a good post by Chris Brogan called "If you have an extra half hour", that gives some good examples of how to drop breadcrumbs.

Soapboxes

The sign post and bread crumb approaches focus on getting out of your company's box and venturing into the consumer ecosystem. Building soapboxes is an approach that draws the consumer ecosystem to you by giving consumers a place to vent about, cheer for, support, or recommended changes to your product. As I wrote about a while back, Quick and Dirty Customer Feedback Solutions are freely available. Don't dwell on the pros and cons of launching a soapbox. Instead, focus on the open and honest discussion you will be able to participate in with consumers which in turn will feed and support your ability to plant more sign posts and drop more bread crumbs.

Here is a great example of how Pepsi used a soapbox to let consumers help launch their new flavor of Mountain Dew.

Grease the Buying Process Skids

As I mentioned earlier, the complexity of actually paying for something continues to drop. Whether clicking one button to make a purchase or scanning and paying for the power drill at the Home Depot, consumers are finding it easier to quickly make purchases once the shopping process has come to a close.

The following represent ways Marketers can continue to reduce the complexity involved with the buying process by destroying all obstacles that could derail the final purchase at the 11th hour.

Look & Listen

The concept here is simple. Listen to your customers while also looking at what other companies are doing to make the buying process easier for consumers. Start with some of the "ease of purchase" innovations I listed above or leverage your newly launched soapbox to survey your top customers to get their opinion on what will make things easier. Based on the feedback, take the next step and implement something. Whether it is PayPal integration or in store pickup, listening to the ecosystem will guide you towards what barriers to address and what approach is best for your future consumers.

Be Lean

When someone decides to buy something from you, the last thing they want is a complicated process and include 100 steps. This is the best way to deter someone from making a purchase. Avoid this by implementing a lean checkout process. The key is to minimize the information you request, minimize the steps required, and minimize anything that could distract the consumer from making the purchase. Once someone has made the purchase and is officially your customer, you will have plenty of time to do your up selling and cross selling.

A real world example of a company whose buying process is far from lean is GoDaddy. If you have ever gone through buying a domain from them you will understand what I mean. The buying process is like going through a muddy, up-sell mine field. They force me to go through the extra step of checking my shopping cart to make sure it is not full of stuff I don't want. This an example of an buying process obstacle that can frustrate perspective buyers so much that they may not follow through with the actual purchase. The process should be simple. Find a domain. Set up an account. Buy the domain with 1 click of a button. Done. Very Lean.

Innovate

Though the first two concepts tie directly to innovation, I think it is important to put even more stress on it. As technology and the way consumers move through the ecosystem advances, it is essential that organizations continue to question their buying process and find new ways to make things more seamless. Though the integration of facial recognition software may not be at the top of the list, maybe allowing people to buy something without setting up an account or test driving your software for 60 days is. Continuously analyze your online and in store buying process, ask for feedback from your customers, understand where those barriers are, and knock them down one by one, over and over.

Oh yeah. Please add PayPal to your accepted payment methods so people like me don't have to run to find their wallet in the middle of the buying process. :)

My Journey Continues

Even though I no longer have to go a bank teller to get cash out or carry around my checkbook to make a purchase, I continue to wade slowly through the process of shopping for the best deal and for the set of golf clubs that are right for me. As I venture deeper into my shopping adventure, I am excited to find companies along the way who understand the complex world we shop & buy in and are doing their best to put up sign posts, leave me bread crumbs, provide a soapbox, and break down barriers that will get me to Shangri-La before the snow melts.

What does your shopping map look like and what buying obstacles have you blown up lately?

Prestige for Sale

julie_baker@csgsystems.com (Julie Baker) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

Ty Amad-Talylor, founder and CEO of FanFeedr (a real-time personalized sports feed), made the rounds last week with an article he wrote about the rise of prestige as an online monetization model. Another damning article about the value of today's CPM, making the case to replace the ad model with alternate payment platforms based on some sense of social hierarchy. But in reality, new mechanisms such as this also create yet another way to place relative value on a user that will ultimately translate into back into ad $.

The basic idea is a platform for users to earn online recognition for their ability to achieve a certain level of online status for which they can be awarded virtual goods or currency, live in infamy on some leaderboard somewhere (Pac-Man, anyone?), or amass all kinds of neat "badges" to broadcast their achievement on Facebook, Twitter, Hi5. You might earn status or accumulate virtual goods on social gaming sites or by participating in sports, financial or political predictions. I don't really dig the idea of virtual currency, nor do I think it's particularly effective (some folks at SecondLife might disagree with me), but as a measure of user value and an open door to new revenue streams, prediction markets and leaderboards could provide a new platform for online content publishers to drive up engagement numbers, connect more organically with social, and drive additional ad revenue. That's right, drive additional ad revenue.

As I said about paid content, just because there is another form of currency exchanging hands, do not assume you will be immune from advertising... engaged users, those that participate in this level of exchange and value the associated prestige or access, are that much more valuable to advertisers. If you find value in it, they will too. Gone are the days where advertisers buy exclusively on demographics. Your HH income does not necessarily translate into value these days (tell us about it, right?). Your behavior, your engagement with a product, the level of value you place on their content or service, translates back into value to the advertiser.

So I say, great... open up as many online revenue streams as you can. But don't walk away from the ad model exclusively in search of a paid path. You need a balanced approach, using one to build on the other.

CPM 1

TAT 0

Customer Service and Marketing

naras@csgsystems.com (Naras Eechambadi, PhD) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

Recently, we had interesting conversation with the senior executive in charge of customer service at a major client of ours. This client uses our Precision email product to communicate with their customers on service issues, such as outages, delivery, scheduling of service calls, etc.

In this case, email is used as an operational tool. The marketing department of the same company was interested in using the same email tool for their marketing communications. They liked the tool and felt there would be advantages in using the same platform as customer service. Much to our surprise, the head of customer service flat out refused to let marketing share the platform. It was his feeling that marketing would over communicate to the customer base and as a result, the really important (in his view) operational messages would get lost. We tried to get him to understand that marketing was going to go get a vendor and do send emails out anyway and he would be better off sharing a platform and having some visibility into their communication volume than being uncoordinated and appearing dysfunctional to the customer. For example, marketing messages could be suppressed when a specific customer or a segment of customers was suffering an outage or other service related issue. The services manager would not be swayed. Marketing went their separate way.

Was this just an extreme case of this manager being extremely territorial and not seeing the big picture? Or was it a genuine concern based on a grounded fear that marketing tended to overuse outbound messaging and saturate customers? It is probably a combination of both. As I said in an earlier blog, marketers need to be much more careful and mindful about how they communicate with customers. Too often, quantity seems to trump relevance and the marketer's schedule and convenience seems to matter more than the customer's preference. Really paying heed to customer's preferences by setting up a preference center that truly offers the customer choices of what, when and where they hear from a company can make a difference in how customers experience and perceive a brand and company. It can improve response rates. Finally, it may help marketers gain a little more respect internally, from their colleagues in other functions, particularly those that touch customers, such as sales or customer service.

Fewer metrics, greater result

julie_baker@csgsystems.com (Julie Baker) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

Most marketers typically have mountains of data at their fingertips but often struggle to translate the stream of reports in their in-box to actionable outcomes for their business. These reports often reflect the competing interests of internal stakeholders. That's why when overhauling your measurement system we think it's critical to start by focusing the organization on one critical business metric.... one that marketing, sales, finance, and customer service can rally around. This might be a customer value or share of wallet metric, something each member of the organization feels it can move the needle on. Your entire framework should cascade from this clear corporate priority.

To ensure the metrics are actionable, first understand and agree on the most critical business questions you would like to collectively answer. Ideally this will give you the platform to accurately assess the effectiveness of your marketing program, identify and exploit upside potential. Questions you may want to broadly consider are:

What is the greatest return on each marginal marketing dollar?
What is the optimal mix and sequencing of marketing activities throughout the buy cycle?
Is an individual customer worth more to your business today than in the past?
What is the relative value of your top 5-6 critical customer segments?

You'll want to establish a champion of the measurement process to instill a corporate-wide culture of fact-based decision making driven by a shared set of performance information.... not competing reports that positively reflect on each group's objectives. Collective financial incentive will reinforce the importance of shared goals and align organizational focus.

Next, deliver a dashboard that facilitates ongoing learning for all decision makers. It should roll up to corporate objectives such as market share, revenue, and margin growth or even customer loyalty. It should drill down to strategic and operational campaign metrics.... from customer value to acquisition cost and retention to response rate, close rate and campaign profitability.

Finally, be sure to regularly revisit your metrics system and ensure its relevance to business goals and marketing performance. If a metric isn't actionable, get rid of it. Try to focus on only those critical to customer value and collective success. As basic as it sounds, measuring less might just result in more.

Google Buzz Case Study - Find Your Own Aha! Moment

dave_raffaele@csgsystems.com (Dave Raffaele) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

Buzz, Google's first true venture into the social media ecosystem has the feel of something familiar but also brings something very new that is loaded with potential. Though I am not going to walk through the in's and out's of what Buzz is (others have that covered), I will share something that happened to me while using it the other day that ultimately was my Google Buzz Aha! Moment. What happened was not planned. I didn't have to figure out how to do it. I just did it...without thinking....like a real, seamless, on-line conversation should be.

My Aha! Moment - Seamless On-line Conversation

The conversation started with a simple post about the public release of Tableau's desktop data visualization software:

Initially, a few of my friends commented with some interest but it started to get interesting when someone who had actual used Tableau offered some insight into some of the limitations she had encountered. Since I remember seeing on twitter that a former co-worker and co-founder of RedMonk, Steve O'Grady, had been using and writing about Tableau lately, I decided to pull him into the conversation to see if he could shed some light on these challenges. This is where the power of Buzz comes in. I simply added his name to my next comment and within a few minutes Steve hopped in to add his thoughts. It was as if I he was sitting in the cube next to me and I had popped over to ask him to join a conference call or something. It was fluid. It was natural. It was how conversations should work on-line. It was then that I realized the power behind the Buzz and the promise it brings to how we communicate and learn on the web. Buzz goes above and beyond allowing us to share information and converse about it by also giving us the power to share people we know and who know a lot more about things than we do. This ability to share people (or companies?) makes a profound impact on meet new people and harness the knowledge that is out there on the web. In fact, if anyone knows someone at Tableau please add them to the conversation. I would love to hear what they have to say to a few people who think their software is pretty slick.

So how can you harness the power of Buzz for your business? Engage and be human.

The table is set, the food has been delivered, and people are eating. Why not sit down at the table and join them for a bite or two. Pull people you know into conversations. Get pulled into conversations. Don't waste time comparing it to Twitter or Facebook and avoid the urge to listen to the naysayers and the pundits. This is an opportunity to get in front of the curve and to find your own Aha! moment by engaging with folks in a way you haven't been able to before. Try out this new frontier of seamless, natural on-line conversation with your customers, fans, or anyone looking for your help and support.

On a side note...I find it curious that this is the second social media case study that Steve O'Grady unknowingly helped me create. I need to hang out with Steve more often. Thanks Steve!

Am I off just caught up in Buzz (pun intended) or did you have an Aha! moment too? Let us know!

Offer Optimization Framework

ram_krishnamurthy@csgsystems.com (Ram Krishnamurthy) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

In a recent blog, my colleague Roman Lenzen discussed concepts on how to optimize offers in both inbound and outbound channels. It was a great blog and I wanted to expand on the critical components that one should consider while building the offer optimization framework:

Learning period - This is one of the most critical steps in any offer optimization framework. During the learning period, all offers are in test or learning mode and you can see offer performance across all segments.
Control groups: Control groups will need to be created at multiple levels so that once the learning period is complete, the ability to consistently measure offer performance across specific segments is accomplished using a segment specific control group and there is a master control group as well.
Testing: Within each segment it is critical to constantly test multiple offers using champion challenger type techniques.
New Offers: Introducing new offers will require set up time before the offer can be rotated as part of the segment.

These steps are critical as you define your offer optimization framework and have tremendous implications to the technical design from capturing the response and contact history to measuring the offer performance across segments and how new offers can be introduced. One of the challenges in implementing this framework is that often offer performance is impacted by the channel and this often requires response modeling to be an integral part of the offer optimization framework. These critical steps along with the steps laid out by Roman will enable you to build an offer optimization engine that will scale as you want to expand the offer sets as well as the interactions across all the channels. This will also help drive automation capabilities for the offer optimization engine.

We've Changed!

mbb@csgsystems.com (Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

If you've been to the site before, you've probably noticed that we've made a few changes recently. Some are fairly obvious; others, which are far more subtle, are designed to improve your experience, making it easier to find what you're looking for. The new Quaero Web site now:

Highlights the Business Challenges We Solve. You'll note three new flash elements on the home page with navigation buttons that highlight important business issues we help our clients address. Each navigation button takes you straight to the most relevant content area within the site. To see all three flash elements, simply refresh your browser.
Addresses Navigation Issues. We received some great feedback asking us to make the blog easier to find. Before this update, it was "hidden" within a top-level navigation area called Insight. We have since removed Insight and broken it down into its piece parts - Blog and Resources. This should make it much easier to find the blog and resource material from the home page.
Enables Sharing. We have included a "share" widget on most pages that allows you to easily share content across many of the most popular social networks/platforms available.

One last update doesn't reflect a change to the site, but rather an exciting addition: Do you read CustomerThink? If not, you might want to start. First, CSG Quaero's own Naras Eechambadi has joined the editorial board again this year and will be writing exclusive pieces for CustomerThink. Second, we have syndicated our blog with them so you now have the opportunity to read our work here or there.

So what do you think? I'd love some feedback or suggestions for our next round of improvements. I can already tell you the running list includes more multimedia assets, such as an embedded presentation player and podcasts. But I'd like to hear from you. It's our goal to continually enhance the Quaero Web site to best meet your needs, so please feel free to email me directly or add a comment below.

How about this: the person who offers the best Web site improvement suggestion will receive a $25 Starbucks gift card. And really, who couldn't use more coffee?

Thanks for reading. Look forward to hearing from you.

Does Brand Marketing still matter?

naras@csgsystems.com (Naras Eechambadi, PhD) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

At a keynote panel at the National Center of Database Marketing (NCDM), I made a comment that customer marketing was eclipsing brand marketing as the core of marketing's mission in many companies. That sparked a lively discussion among the panelists. As is to be expected among panelists at a database marketing conference, there was general agreement that this was the case. But is it, really? Does brand marketing still matter? Of course, it does!

The point I was really trying to make is that customer marketing is becoming more central to brand building. The two streams, which have often been separate, and sometimes hostile to one another, within many marketing departments, are actually converging. The brand message is increasingly being shaped by customers and consumers, sometimes with the active encouragement of marketers and sometimes despite their best attempts to resist these trends. Take the now famous example of Apple - which controls its brand very zealously but is also masterful at leveraging the legions of brand evangelists that spread the Apple gospel among the faithful as well as the great unwashed, waiting to be converted. This has now gone beyond just opinions and recommendations. The iPhone app store, of course, has allowed innumerable companies to piggy back on Apple's brand name by providing Apple's customers with a cornucopia of choices and greatly expand their market and grow their revenues (after Apple extracts it's pound of dollars, of course). By helping Apple's customers, this choice as well as the quality of apps helps the brand. What is less known is that Apple customers now get more services and help from the Apple user community (through a variety of online sources) than they do directly through Apple's own customer service and support. This phenomenon reduces Apple's service costs, actually increases customer satisfaction and builds a community of Apple loyalists. The fact that the users feel strongly enough to support the product in this way, sharing their valuable time and expertise, certainly reinforces the brand. Apple is a well known example, but there are multitudes of brands that are smartly leveraging social tools to embrace their customer and make them an integral part of their brand - from Coach handbags using crowd sourcing techniques to develop and promote new designs to hotels and resorts that have come to realize that Trip Advisor has become a more trusted source of information about their properties than their own advertising.

So brand marketing is not dead. Neither is customer marketing taking over, yet. However the two are coming together like they never have before. Organization structures lag behind. Silo fights rage on (more on this in a future blog). But this trend is your friend. Embrace it. Enjoy it.

Offer Optimization Engine

roman_lenzen@csgsystems.com (Roman Lenzen) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

You may already have robust analytics that predict value, churn, bad debt & future customer interests. You may also have a robust customer database that may be used to glean additional insights and make the analytics actionable. That's great, but how do you determine which offer a customer should receive in all inbound and outbound channels (CSR, Web, direct mail,..)?

Many companies are using analytics to possibly optimize one offer, but what about the full offer mix throughout all the channels? Through analytics it may be known that I may be interested in offer A, D & G but should I be presented all 3 offers? If I am presented all 3 offers will I be over contacted, potentially eroding offer performance?

As an analytic consultant, I find those questions tough, but fun. Several tools are available to partially answer those questions and fully answer the questions in some environments, but before evaluating tools evaluate your environment as it will determine the build versus buy dilemma.

If you do choose to build a custom or semi-custom offer optimization engine below are a few suggestions around an analytic data-driven offer optimization process:

Use analytics to create profiles of the customer base. For example, high profit / high churn or low tenure / high bad debt. Start small (10 to 15 profiles max) and prioritize the selection process such that each subscriber only fits into one profile.
One of the profiles needs to be a control group and in many environments that should be the priority1 group.
Determine an initial set of offers that you would prefer to optimize. Again, start small if you have many offers. Possibly start with an offer category such as retention offers.

Create a data driven process such that you may periodically calculate offer take rates within each profile and offer cell. An example shown below for one profile only (High Value / High Churn).
Using the offer priority determined above execute your business rules to determine the eligible offers then the highest priority offer remaining may be used.

We only scratched the surface above so key considerations when building an offer optimization engine should also include:

Once enough contact history and responses are received, start incorporating response models into the profile creation process.
Use previous contacts within the responses, as predictive variables (ie. time since last contact, number of contacts the past month,..), to help minimize contact fatigue.
Many environments need an override process as the best eligible offer statistically may not be best for business reasons.
Statistical methods should eventually be incorporated, such as design of experiments, to better understand the master control group size for each offer as well as to analyze the results when the number of profile by offer cells start to become large.
Many tools are available that could satisfy your requirements around offer interface needs and business rule maintenance.
Reporting needs should be incorporated into the evaluation.
Continue to evolve and add additional profiles once you are confident with your initial results.

Good Intentions, Bad Experience

jenny_belser@csgsystems.com (Jenny Belser) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST

Stayed at a hotel recently? Each time I have I’ve noticed that the staff seem to be extra attentive, and my assumption is that it’s related to today’s extremely competitive market. Unfortunately, the extra attention has not always had the desired result.

Case in point: as I returned to my hotel room a few weeks ago, I noticed the message light blinking. I hit the button labeled ‘messages’, which connected me directly to housekeeping! After hanging up, calling the front desk, finding out how to retrieve messages, I was able to finally dial in to get the message. And guess what? The message was a long-winded voice mail from the hotel manager, asking for feedback on what could be done to make my stay more enjoyable! My response was to hang up in disgust, feeling that I’d just wasted 5 minutes.

There’s a simple lesson in this story. Clearly, the hotel manager had not tested the message and its impact, before launching calls to who knows how many guests. Testing would have quickly identified the problem with the programming of the phone and the message button. From my own perspective, I can also assume that testing would have shown that the message, while well-intended, was not a top priority for guests, and in fact, would have been much more effective, if it was short and to the point. Getting the basics right from the guest’s perspective needs to be top priority. Once that is in place, then look for additional efforts that can delight the guest. Oh, and don’t forget to test!

Real Time Search and Thoughts on the Marketing Impact

matt_austin@csgsystems.com (Matt Austin) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

Google recently announced the integration of real time data into their web search results page. Real time data includes Twitter feeds, news updates, blog posts, even craigslist ads displayed up to the minute with the traditional search results. Google has also reportedly partnered with Facebook and MySpace to incorporate other forms of real time data such as status updates into their search results. How these changes will impact the marketing landscape will be an interesting question in the near future.

The following three items immediately came to mind as important considerations in order to successfully adapt your brand (or message) to real time search.

Social media presence and optimization. Focusing at least some of the marketing efforts towards social media is more important than ever. The more active a brand is online through social media channels such as blogging, Twitter, YouTube, etc., the more social content will be available to bump your brand to the top of the real time search results. Utilizing social media with the intent of leveraging real time search results could also increase the performance of online web campaigns and drive additional traffic to your website.

Customer interaction and engagement. Marketers should encourage their customers to interact with the brand community online while paying careful attention to the conversations that are occurring. These conversations may end up at the top of the search result page, so it is more important than ever to promote positive customer interaction and customer engagement. A brand seen as providing good customer engagement (especially online) will generate positive social chatter which can help boost brand awareness and credibility. An overall positive customer experience goes a long way with attracting and retaining customers.

Search engine optimization. How real time search will ultimately impact search engine optimization (SEO) has yet to be determined. At the very least, producing frequent content will be an important consideration to incorporate within the overall SEO strategy. A key challenge will be attempting to measure or quantify the effects of competitive brand (or even Spam) content impacting your current SEO efforts. To combat this, additional emphasis may need to be placed on pay per click (PPC) since these advertisements typically show up higher in the search results page.

There are countless other ways in which real time search will impact the traditional online marketing scene. It will be exciting to see how marketers take advantage of the evolving real time web in the coming months. To impatient information maniacs like me, real time search is a very exciting web innovation. To marketers, the real time web can present a new challenge with positive upside.

How are you planning to adapt?

If the lunatics do run the asylum, how do we control the message?

naras@csgsystems.com (Naras Eechambadi, PhD) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

The great health care debate this past summer could be a preview of what the future of marketing looks like. How, you ask? For some years now, the "mainstream" journalists who have been trained to fact check and present both sides of a story have been losing their voice to an ever growing multitude of bloggers with extreme views , strong opinions and, in some cases, a disdain for facts and sober analysis. This blogosphere, magnified by the echo chamber of 24/7 cable news channels, hungry for controversy and content, set the tone and the agenda for the shouting match that stood in for reasoned debate on the topic of healthcare, a subject of great concern for most Americans. Professional journalists were caught by surprise and spent most of their time reacting to these controversies rather than reporting on the substance of health care reform. Marketers have similarly embraced social networks as a way to generate word of mouth advertising, cross over tipping points, build fan bases and encourage consumers to generate their own content.

Social media can offer a unique and powerful way to communicate with your customer base, particularly the minority of deep loyalists who are hungry for contact and involvement and can be terrific brand evangelists. There have been innumerable instances where companies have successfully leveraged social networks to get their message across effectively and in a coordinated fashion with other more traditional media (JetBlue's All You can Jet pass is a great example). Instances of consumers starting and sustaining campaigns against a brand remain few and far between, with the highly effective campaign by xxxx against Dell a few years ago remaining one of the few spectacularly successful campaigns - that ironically probably benefited Dell in the long run.

However, companies must be careful about how they leverage social media lest they not kill the golden goose. Already there are many instances of so called consumer "opinions" and ratings on advisory sites that are written by shills. While the more obvious ones pose little danger since they are so transparently false, the more sophisticated ones can be very dangerous and sour consumers on these channels. Large companies seem to have been careful to avoid the obvious pitfalls of hiring or paying shills but many smaller firms, particularly those that do not have professional marketers seem to have succumbed to the temptation. The line dividing honest consumer opinion and paid advocacy is increasingly blurred in the blogosphere. Bloggers and Tweeters need to make a living too and realize that their bread is buttered on two sides - their credibility with their readers as well as payments in cash or kind they may be receiving from companies. In the past summer of our discontent there were uproven allegations that corporations with a vested interest in the current system financed some of these "spontaneous" demonstrations and protests against reform. Could your competitors similarly poison consumers against your brand through guerilla tactics in the blogosphere? Unlikely, you say? As little as a few years ago, few experts would have predicted the tone of our current political debate.

So while you plunge ahead eagerly and fearlessly into the newly opened social frontiers, do think through the implications and repercussions. On the other hand, if you are not there your competitors could stake their claims and leave you out in the cold. So make sure that while you design your offensive game, you also give some thought to playing defense, if it becomes necessary.

Value of Prospect Segmentation Online

ram_krishnamurthy@csgsystems.com (Ram Krishnamurthy) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

As more and more organizations want to extend their reach using Digital marketing, the biggest challenge they face is "how to handle anonymous users". Most organizations rely on cookie mechanism for identifying visitors and as users are increasingly deleting their cookies, typically 75% of the visitor traffic is anonymous visitors or first time visitors. This implies that organizations must develop a data collection, segmentation and targeting strategy for anonymous online visitors.

A lot of anonymous data can be collected based on user's browser header and using the URL parameters. This data usually provides rich insight into the user behavior and affinity online. This data is also very valuable in understanding the performance of the different campaigns in place that are driving visitors to your site.

Anonymous data can then be supplemented with enhancement demographic data to provide a rich data set that will allow for prospect segmentation. This in conjunction with customer data can be used to drive a rich segmentation and targeting for prospects and will also allow for creating micro segments within the anonymous visitors. More and more organizations are also using "look-alike" modeling to create very sophisticated prospect micro segments.

From a business perspective, this is a tremendous opportunity for marketers to leverage targeted offers to prospects or anonymous visitors which could lead to incremental business benefits.

CRM Meets NPO, a love story

candice_narvaez@csgsystems.com (Candice Narvaez) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

What if not-for-profit organizations (NPO) thought more strategically and mirrored their marketing efforts to those of most for-profits in terms of customer relationship management?

Donors and volunteers are the lifeline of all nonprofit organizations. Yet few NPOs maintain a reliable database to extract such valuable information as age, gender, marital status, demographics, participation activity, etc. Information collected and stored by nonprofits most often pertains to fundraising events (eg. donations generated) and not the participants themselves. Any information relating back to volunteers and donors are often limited and cannot be analyzed over a historic period because most not-for-profits haven't properly 'married' such data with the proper CRM tools (See 'Selecting Your Marketing Automation'). Although it would make this a different kind of love story, the same is true for NGOs. But for the sake of all that is wholesome, we will not digress.

A fully functional database would give NPOs the ability to segment their population of donors and volunteers to appropriately target individuals based on marketing initiatives. For instance, based on research conducted by VolunteeringInAmerica.com Baby Boomers are the most active volunteers but are the least sought after demographic while college students, many of whom prefer temporary volunteer assignments, are often heavily targeted by NPOs because they are perceived to have fewer commitments outside of school. This is a classic case where an analytic tool could have invalidated this assumption and marketing dollars for recruitment initiatives could be better allocated.

Donors are also a fairly predictable population, provided the data collected is reliable, detailed, relevant, and accessible. During my stint as an intern for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO), I discovered donor hubs, i.e. affluent neighborhoods in the Atlanta area where a statistically significant number of ASO donors resided. Much could be inferred about these hubs' interest in charitable organizations as it relates to the fine arts. However, we could not do any more than label this area as a potential 'hot spot' because very little information existed at an individual level. In all fairness, many NPOs do a phenomenal job at maintaining relationships with major corporate donors and families. However, the bread and butter of every not-for-profit are the medium to small donations and savings accrued from volunteers, especially during an economic downturn when many corporations tighten their belts.

Ever open your mailbox and receive a direct mail piece from an NPO that includes complimentary return labels with your address information conveniently listed? I have consistently received this type of mailing from the same not-for-profit even though I have yet to donate to their cause. To the best of my knowledge I have never had an association with the organization or any of its partners, yet I am targeted at least twice a year. Is it a case of intentionally indiscriminate marketing or poor targeting? I choose to believe the latter.

Donor and volunteer data is an underutilized resource that could lead to the uncovering of trends and behavioral predictions that would help most non-profits survive during trying times and flourish during better days. Perhaps this is more a CRM solutions pitch for NPOs than it is a love story. Either way, I'll continue to hold out hope that the two will meet someday.

Retention Marketing is the CPR of Attrition.... Too Little Too Late?

patrick_dineen@csgsystems.com (Patrick Dineen) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

Imagine if the American Heart Association decided to put all their research dollars into CPR techniques instead of healthy diet, exercise, genetics, and heart disease treatments?

Recently I attended the Cable Television Marketing Association Summit in Denver. CSG has tremendous clientele in this industry and provides a suite of CSR technology, billing platforms, and other integrated customer interaction services to some of the biggest players in cable. My team here at Quaero provides Customer Intelligence applications to drive optimized analytics-driven marketing decisions for these companies.

In no less than six different discussions with cable operators at the event, and in many of the breakout sessions, the conversation focused on retention offer management in the call center to stem increasingly punishing impact of customer attrition. Offer management at the point of when the customer is telling you they are leaving certainly can have an impact (we help clients do it every day), but all the energy and resources spent on retention offer management seems a lot like the ridiculous American Heart Association analogy I lead off with.

When we step back and consider some of the typical anecdotal reasons why customers attrite, it is rarely just to see what offers will be made at that final moment of truth. The reasons are more typically...

They were wooed to you by a great low price offer initially... and were never really likely to be a long term customer of yours to begin with.
They have had a bad experience or two with you, and finally were fed up enough to find someone else.
The price vs. value equation did not make sense to them, and they finally drew the line (perhaps in reaction to a promotional price ending or price increase).
Their needs have changed... but never were able to see an option that suited them in your offerings.
Or maybe they never heard from you at all...

All of these are part of the complete customer experience... the summation of all the various touch points a customer has during their life cycle with you. Each of these "moments of truth" were opportunities for great offers to be made by you well in advance of that fateful cancellation call. Offer management left to the moment of cancellation is often too little too late... just like CPR is for the heart attack. So weave a healthy diet of great offer management into every moment of truth in your customer's time with you... and don't forget the benefits of exercising great customer engagement all through your customer's life cycle.

Is technology the gating factor for marketing?

naras@csgsystems.com (Naras Eechambadi, PhD) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

Last month, I was on a keynote panel at the National Center for Database Marketing (NCDM). The topic of the panel was "Evolving from Database Marketing to Customer Intelligence" and the discussion largely centered around the evolution of marketing into a bi-directional communication mechanism with customers across multiple channels and the challenges that brings. An audience member asked the question, "Is technology the gating factor that prevents or slows marketers from embracing these changes?" The panel differed on their responses. Some felt, yes, technology was indeed an impediment to doing this well. I and at least one other panelist disagreed.

On the contrary, I think technology is actually the enabler of this sort of communication. Much of the explosion in channels and interactivity has been driven by technological advances. Yes, the technology may have empowered customers - in their ability to be more informed and to communicate with other customers therefore making marketers feel a little less powerful. Yes, the balance of power may have changed a bit. However, technology, when it is properly understood and deployed, can also be leveraged to make sense of this fast changing world. An example of this is text mining, which is enabling companies to sift through enormous quantities of unstructured data from call center transcripts and customer generated content in social media sites (which would historically have been wasted) and report these insights through conventional business intelligence tools and integrate it with more traditional forms of analysis. This sort of insight can be more accurate, relevant, timely and actionable than traditional market research through focus groups or surveys. While it may not replace these traditional approaches it certainly can augment them. Two companies that help with this sort of analysis are Autonomy (http://www.autonomy.com) and Clarabridge (http://www.clarabridge.com), although there are many other players in this space as well.

The gating factor in most companies is their inability to properly leverage the technology that is already available, not the lack of technology. This inability can stem from a number of factors - organizational skills, e.g. market researchers who are wedded to the old way of doing things or organizational alignment, e.g. the analytics folks may not work seamlessly with the web team or the market research team. It could also stem from outdated processes, e.g. there is simply no mechanism within marketing to listen and respond - the department is structured and built around outbound communication, so there is no agility in the organization. I talk to a number of marketers who are struggling with how best to incorporate these new channels without giving up their current processes or changing the organization. Too often, the answer is to bring "experts" who do not understand the business or the organizational issues and don't know how to get things done or move it along. This approach is not a particularly promising one. In most circumstances you are better off letting one of your up and coming stars take the lead in this regard, with outside help as appropriate. There is a much higher chance to building internal credibility and support and, therefore, ensuring success.

Honda Uses Facebook to Build an Online Community

matt_austin@csgsystems.com (Matt Austin) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

Honda recently caught my attention with their new social media marketing campaign - "Everybody Knows Somebody Who Loves a Honda". I found this particularly interesting because Honda is directing people to Facebook in order to participate in the experiment. I could not recall another company of Honda's stature using a foremost social media platform for an official marketing campaign and customer engagement platform. Interesting!

After visiting the page myself, I see that Honda has amassed an impressive network of 268,000 fans (as of Nov 2009). Counting all of the fan's friends, this network reaches over 3.3 million Facebook users.

How is this particular social media campaign important? Honda is increasing their customer engagement by providing a mainstream medium for individuals to exchange stories, pictures, memories, and connect with other users sharing a common interest. All of this social interaction works to naturally build a diverse and loyal community of customers and prospects who engage in two way conversations about the brand. This activity strengthens brand loyalty and advocacy, and increases brand awareness to a broader cross section of individuals (e.g. friends of users participating in the experiment). Leveraging social media also gives Honda a very cost effective means to engage a massive web of individuals while still keeping the brand in touch with some of its best customers at a micro level. In further reading and exploring, I learned this campaign may be a multi phase project with additional Facebook application features to enhance the overall customer experience.

I find Honda's experiment as an important step forward in the evolution of social media marketing and customer engagement methods. I am excited to see how this marketing initiative plays out and any new inroads it may pave. Stay tuned!

It's All in the Delivery

chris_corcoran@csgsystems.com (Christopher Corcoran) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

It's Friday night. If your household is like mine, this occurrence is synonymous with pizza and a movie, typically enjoyed in the comfort of our own home. Combining our infatuation with this magical combination of dough, tomato sauce, cheese and you-name-it in conjunction with the visual stimulation of a good flick somehow makes everything right.

Not too long ago, our pursuit of this objective involved a well-defined, perfectly timed-out process: order the pizza by phone, drive to the video rental store, select a movie, pickup the pizza, and return home with the spoils. But we live in a time of great change, when we constantly have to adapt, altering our routines to maintain, or even improve, the overall experience and perceived benefit.

Recently, Pizza Hut provided me with such an opportunity by sending me a direct mail piece offering a great deal if I would place my order through their website. I hesitated at first, not wanting to mess with my established routine. Wait a minute... Like so many Americans, we had already modified this sacred custom, replacing the weekly trip to Blockbuster with the online movie rental service provided by Netflix. We created our rental queue, and Netflix manages the list, making sure that our entertainment selection is in home each Friday evening for our viewing pleasure. Netflix eliminated those maddening circuits around the store - staring at walls of empty video containers trying to choose just the right one while constantly aware of the shrinking window of opportunity to pick up the pizza in time for maximum enjoyment. Maybe ordering pizza online would be just the right thing.

I opened the browser, searched for "pizza," and found the link to Pizza Hut (1^st in the list, no less). I clicked on the "Order Now" button, entered my address and zip, selected the nearest location, and made my selections. Up to this point, it was a pleasant experience, but things were about to change. As a first time user, I entered the requested information on the checkout screen, making sure to complete all of the required fields, and clicked "Continue." Something went awry. One of the required fields was incomplete. No problem; I fixed it and clicked "Continue" again only to achieve the same result. I tried again. Inexplicably, everything disappeared including the actual order. Resolute in wanting to get my pizza, I started over. The ensuing experience remained consistent, not desirable, but consistent. Frustrated and hungry, I resorted to the old tried-and-true method, calling the store. I explained my encounter and continued desire to place the order if they would honor the same price. Kudos to the employee for honoring the online only deal. In the end, the evening concluded with our appetite for pizza and film appeased.

Overall, the online delivery of the pizza was less than to be expected. Whatever a business is "delivering," customer interactions are all about managing expectations and everyone counts, especially the first. Companies like Netflix and Amazon have set the bar quite high. Like it or not, our personal experiences quickly shape our opinions and ultimately our buying decisions. I'm convinced our Friday evening ritual, along with other areas of life, can be enhanced. So, stay tuned; there are more experiences (pizza orders included) waiting to be told - all in the pursuit of finding the right delivery.

Asset Management: the rebranding of AOL & NBC

julie_baker@csgsystems.com (Julie Baker) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

AOL spins off from Time Warner while Comcast picks up NBC.... as they both look to re-brand and boost ad income.

Recently, the NYT reported that Comcast will buy NBC and turn over the Golf Channel and Versus to Dick Ebersol to repackage an NBC-branded sports network that can compete with ESPN. What the article doesn't point out is that a large part of ESPN's ability to dominate the category is their multi-channel pervasiveness, particularly with stellar mobile apps, 360, and a fan-focused philosophy based on delivering content without platform bias. Remember when NBC did not allow live viewing of Olympic game coverage online because they thought they would lose ad revenue? They wanted to force prime time viewing to boost numbers, track eyeballs, and sell a massive audience regardless of viewer experience. They will need a more thoughtful, audience focused distribution strategy than that to compete, in my opinion.

In managing their recently acquired assets, AOL has been promoting or re-branding existing properties in the aquired company's more popular name (AOL Sports is now Fanhouse and News is now Sphere, for example) while other properties with strong ad revenue, such as AOL Health, remain under the corporate umbrella. The article points out that AOL still has a higher number of UUs than Facebook or Amazon, with the potential for using this as leverage as they shift the balance of revenue from an access or subscription-based model to more of an ad model competing directly with Yahoo in terms of scale.

Both of these articles reinforce how the ongoing focus on quantity, not quality, of audience fuels media organizations, drives down CPMs, and displaces viewer consumption preference. I think ESPN's got it right. When you put the viewer's needs and preferences first, you will be in a much better position to attract mass audience, dial up engagement, and sell both quantity and quality of audience.

Testing, Testing, Testing

ram_krishnamurthy@csgsystems.com (Ram Krishnamurthy) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST

In this tough economic climate, all companies are trying to improve their overall bottom lines. How can online and digital marketing help with this? In a recent study from summer 2009, most companies stated that the No. 1 conversion relevant to them was sales, with sign-ups and registrations a close second. What are the key tactics to improve overall conversion on site?

Not surprisingly the most effective tactic seems to be testing whether it is A/B or Multi-variate testing followed closely by cart abandonment and triggered communication. Testing is a very critical component for improving conversion rates. As companies get more sophisticated with their segmentation and targeting strategies, they want to consistently test to further define their micro segments to make content more relevant online as well as via other digital channels. This ability to identify, define and target the micro segments is extremely critical and usually has a direct influence on the overall conversion rates.

The other most widely employed tactic is using triggered communication based on on site behavior analysis. An example would be to trigger an email offer based on cart abandonment analysis to drive conversion rates.

For each of these tactics, the key components are:

a. Data from web analytic tools to understand user demographics and behavior
b. Segmentation & Targeting capability
c. Testing strategy to be able to identify micro segments

Let customers control how/what/when when they hear from you

naras@csgsystems.com (Naras Eechambadi, PhD) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

One of the most annoying aspects of the customer experience does not have to do with the shopping experience but with the communication experience. A constant refrain we hear from customers across the board (whether in B2B or B2C situations) is that they get too many calls or emails but often do not hear when there is relevant news that they are truly interested in. On the other hand, a surprising (and dismaying) number of marketers still measure their productivity by the sheer volume of outbound communications (email, direct mail, calls, touches, etc.) rather than by the quality or even the relevance.

A recent Forrester study found that although 80% of marketers claimed that customer preference was a significant factor in their communications, only a third asked their customers for their preferred communication channels as well as content. A measly 12% asked their customers for their preferred frequency of email communications and only 8% asked for preferred frequency abut direct mail. To top that off, only half of the marketers even took those preferences into account when deciding how to communicate. No wonder prospects and even customers ignore marketing communications most of the time. A recent editorial in Chief Marketer was very eloquent on this topic and made a number of good point about how to (and how not to) build email lists.

Most marketers can and should do better than that. Sophisticated preference centers let customers modulate both the frequency and type of content they receive from different channels. In addition to setting up preference centers it is also critical to set up processes to ensure that those preferences are respected. internal processes to ensure that those preferences are being respected often face internal organizational barriers, e.g. the folks who send email may be different from the telemarketing or the direct mail folks. Often, different product groups within a company may have different schedules and processes for communicating, so it becomes difficult to adhere to a limit set by the customer.

Recently, over the holidays, as I was making decisions about year end giving, I tried to forestall the inevitable deluge of direct mail from charitable organizations that follows a donation (giving rarely goes unpunished by fund raising charities, thanks to antiquated RFM models). I did this by going to the charities' websites to see what options they offered for me to choose how I heard from them, what I heard about and how often. I prefer to hear from them just once- a end of the year reminder - through one channel - email- that makes it easy for me to give. Very few actually had that ability. The ones that did, that also happened to be doing good work pursuing worthwhile causes I believe in, got my money. So the solution to getting the attention of your prospects and customers is simple - make it easy for them to tell you . Once they have done so, listen. Your outbound volumes may go down, but your responses will probably be a lot higher. And isn't that what marketing is about?

The Customer Ecosystem - a focus for CMOs

mbb@csgsystems.com (Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

Naras and I are in the process of writing a book chapter for a project called Masters in Marketing. Focused on strategic brand management, the book largely provides guidance for marketers looking to understand how to strengthen their brand in an increasingly complex and interconnected world. We've been tasked with writing about the "focus of the CMO"...and as you'll come to see, we go slightly against the grain; while brand matters, the customer and his/her ecosystem matter more.

Below is the start of our work. I'll publish more pieces as it evolves, but I certainly welcome your input as we build out this chapter.

_________________

To think that a company has complete control over its brand message is naïve in this day and age. Why? Because marketers aren't the only ones communicating about their brands. There is an entire customer ecosystem that ultimately influences how a company's products are sold. Bloggers, as example - a relatively minor phenomenon even five years ago - now wield an incredible amount of influence, perhaps more so than traditional media.

The reality is that CMOs need to understand the full customer ecosystem - where and how a customer engages with a brand - across all touchpoints, media and channels - and identify those areas they can influence and manage. And they need to socialize customer information across their organizations to inform all parts of the business - sales, service, product development, etc. Why? Because they have the data.

It's true that a CMO might not have sole responsibility for the customer; but they do control the customer information repository (or customer interaction hub as we call it) and should - at the very least -be responsible for gleaning (and then sharing) customer insights; establishing the business rules and guidelines for all customer communications and sometimes, interactions - both inbound and outbound, across all channels; and partnering with other parts of the organization to strengthen customer bonds.

_________________

The chapter will go on to define the customer ecosystem in greater detail (with fun visuals, of course). It will also identify and discuss the primary drivers of customer-centricity, namely: changes in consumer behavior, availability of content, channel complexity, and, of course, the social media phenomenon.

Finally, we'll share the our approach to helping companies become more customer-centric...really thinking through the entire customer ecosystem...by employing a Six Dimensions approach to their marketing.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Requiem for the NCDM?

naras@csgsystems.com (Naras Eechambadi, PhD) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

I attended the recent NDCM (National Center for Database Marketing conference) in Las Vegas last week, after a gap of many years, the triggering event being the fact that I was on a keynote panel being moderated by David Frankland of Forrester Research. Attending the event after this multi-year hiatus and, particularly, on the tenth year anniversary of a keynote address I had given there after I had started Quaero in 1999, I was struck by the changes in the conference over the years. It is, to state the obvious for those who have been attending for many years, much smaller than it used to be. I would guess a fourth or even a fifth of the size that it was ten years ago. When you consider the fact that there used to be two NCDMs a year at that time versus just one this year, that is quite a precipitous fall. Given the revolutionary changes in marketing over the past ten years, one would have expected quite the opposite. The NCDM has always been focused on the technology aspects of direct marketing and technology has been the driver behind many of the changes in marketing in recent years.

The difference was not just quantitative. It also has to do with the mix of attendees. In our session (admittedly early on in the conference), there was a show of hands in the audience as to who was a client and who was a vendor. The overwhelming majority seemed to be vendors. Some of the exhibitors I spoke with acknowledged that the audience and traffic was mostly their competition. They seemed to be there more for defensive reasons, a brand maintenance exercise, rather than a lead generator and business driver.

Finally, I wonder about the demographic of the conference. I recall seeing many young faces and feeling a lot of excitement ten years ago. There was a tired look to the event, even though parts of the agenda were actually pretty attractive. I attended a workshop on social networking that was excellent (more on that in a future blog) and my colleagues attended a workshop on optimizing contact management conducted by Suresh Vittal, also of Forrester Research, which they said was excellent. On the other hand I attended a session on the conflict (?) between email and social networking that was mediocre, to be kind. The opening keynote was interesting but certainly nothing to write home about (so I will not be writing about it) or to get the crowd revved up. Attendees were asked for feedback using an online survey at the end of the day. I was impressed that the survey was optimized for my Blackberry, making it easy for me to respond on the go. However, it was disappointing that, after asking me which sessions I attended, it still quizzed me on sessions I said I did not attend. A simple logic flow would have avoided that mistake and made the survey easier and shorter. The NCDM organizers may also want to consider using Twitter more actively in the future to create buzz before and during the event.

I wonder if this event even makes any money for the DMA anymore and what purpose it really serves for the direct marketing and vendor community. I feel sorry for the organizers who I am sure, spend a great deal of time putting this event together. Time for a major rethink, perhaps? A new name, new format, radically revamped agenda or just shut it down and start anew? Or will it just limp along until it dies a natural death? Will the newly revamped DMA board take a look at this? One can only hope.

My New Year's Resolution - Improve Our Marketing Operations

mbb@csgsystems.com (Michelle Boockoff-Bajdek) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

Although 2009 is drawing to a close and most people are thinking about winding down for the holidays, I'm already well-ensconced in 2010 marketing plans, programs and campaign execution. During the past few weeks, I've spent a lot of time addressing the "marketing operations" side of the business; and while I've never considered myself an ops expert, my role has always included a significant amount of work in this area.

Interestingly, marketing operations is one of those amorphous areas, quite different in every organization. Here at CSG's Quaero, the goal of marketing operations is to improve the efficiency of the marketing function through people (resources), process and infrastructure/tools. Most recently we've:

Built a supporting marketing infrastructure using a marketing automation solution (Marketo, in our case) and other complementary applications (e.g., Leadlander, ZoomInfo.)
Addressed major data quality issues (large numbers of duplicates and inaccurate and missing data) with major improvements in all areas.
Rebuilt the Website to drive engagement and conversion and serve as the hub for all marketing activity.

But we're not done; there's always room for improvement. Our latest operations challenges stem from outdated processes; a growing, distributed marketing team; and multiple business units with limited access to the plans and programs of other parts of the organization. To solve for these challenges and prepare for a more effective 2010, we've purchased Unica's Marketing Operations On Demand solution (formerly Marketing Central).

MaRS, as we've dubbed it (for Marketing Activity Resource System), is already proving useful despite having just introduced it this month: we've already input all of our marketing plans, programs and campaigns; now we just build, manage and track marketing projects against those plans.

Feature-Rich

One of the advantages of MaRS is the ability to collaborate on Projects with team members across the country or around the globe. And through the use of permissions, we can share certain information with our agency partners, allowing them limited access to areas of the system.

The Events Calendar allows us to coordinate activities across the organization and Message Board functionality ensures we can communicate (and capture comments) without leaving the system.

The "wow" feature of the system, however, has to be the Mark-up Tool within the Project environment. It helps to manage the creative process - from development through final approval. You are probably familiar with our MarketIQ e-newsletter, but you definitely haven't seen it from this perspective:

The mark-up tool allows us to communicate changes and manage the review process without having to worry about version control; it's all handled within the system. Automated alerts notify all approvers and provide regular status updates.

MaRS will also help us to standardize schedules and budgets, eliminating the need for individual spreadsheets; and store all creative assets, reducing our dependence on email to send images and other material back and forth.

Having evaluated, purchased and even built a homegrown system to support Marketing Operations, I can tell you I think quite highly of these solutions and am thrilled to introduce this one here at CSG.

I'll keep you updated on our progress as we roll out MaRS to the rest of the organization. And if you have any questions or thoughts you'd like to share about Marketing Operations OnDemand, please include your thoughts in the comments below or email me directly.

paidContent.debate

julie_baker@csgsystems.com (Julie Baker) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

The debate continues. Or resurfaces, as the case may be. Now that ad revenue is tanking again, content publishers are revisiting their model. This pendulum has been swinging for almost a decade. The answer is not admonishing the ad model. And it certainly is not arbitrarily walling off content. Access to premium content...stuff you can't get anywhere else...should be paid. And paying for it doesn't necessarily mean your experience will be advertisement free. Engaged users who pay for content are that much more valuable to advertisers.

Publishers need to be smart about how and when content is introduced, associated price points and ease of access. They need to understand who their most valuable users are and how to migrate those that are of less value. Value should be defined by level of engagement, ads viewed, paid products, and unrealized potential. It's a balance. If publishers think about their ad and content models more holisticly, i.e., what tools do I have to increase overall user value and associated revenue, they could avoid this either/or debate in the future.

Web Analytics for Financial Services

ram_krishnamurthy@csgsystems.com (Ram Krishnamurthy) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

In a previous blog, I had discussed how financial services companies should use web analytics tools. In the past few weeks, I've had discussions with a couple of our financial services clients and found that while many are trying to use Web analytics to address business challenges, they are struggling with some challenging technical implementation issues. This blog will focus more on the technical side of web analytics implementation and offer up some key best practices.

To ease the burden of a Web analytics implementation, you need to:

Set up a unique page name definition for easy site pathing analysis
Finalize highest priority pages and categorize the pages to make it more manageable
Tag all the high priority pages first and focus initially on these pages for implementation
Capture source and page attributes using URLs and parameters
Use tracking codes where applicable for attribution
Use first party cookies as far as possible
Account for rich media applications with tagging
Validate data collection
Validate and audit tag set up periodically

Most financial services firms struggle with the volume of tagging required and the effort required to maintain the tags. Not all pages have to be tagged immediately. Instead, focus on the high priority pages and categorize the pages to get incremental business benefit. Another key aspect is to consistently audit the tag set up and data collection process to ensure data quality.

Have any questions? Contact me at ram_krishnamurthy@csgsystems.com.