From the category archives:

Analytics

The New Revenue Engine and the role of Marketing Analytics

The old revenue engine is focused on the sales team. When companies want to double revenue, they double their sales force. In the past, this model worked. Information that prospects wanted was not readily available with just a few clicks, so prospects were willing to speak with a sales rep to get it. But things change. Recent years have highlighted the flaws of the old revenue machine. This post reviews those flaws.

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Predictive Analytics: Use Your Noodle

“Predictive analytics optimizes marketing campaigns and website behavior to increase customer responses, conversions and clicks, and to decrease churn. Each customer’s predictive score informs actions to be taken with that customer — business intelligence just doesn’t get more actionable than that.”

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What’s Up with Employee Satisfaction? 5 Themes from Motivation 2.0

Today I take a slight detour from my usual subjects of marketing analytics and multichannel marketing. Three converging events have me questioning employee satisfaction. While I was on vacation, I read Daniel Pink’s new book, Drive (http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594488843). Then, I stumbled across a blog from Harvard Business School, Why Are Fewer and Fewer U.S. Employees Satisfied with Their Jobs? (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6404.html. And, coincidentally, we did our biannual employee engagement and satisfaction survey at SIGMA Marketing Group. Only 45% of workers in the U.S. are satisfied with their jobs, according to the Conference Board, so what did I gain from this immersion in employee motivation that can help me as a manager improve employee engagement?

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Location-based strategies for digital marketing

Many businesses that market in a specific geographic area are perplexed when it comes to the new digital frontier. How can they tap the efficiencies of new interactive technologies like social media when they market to a small subset of customers? Add on to this the many new digital offerings that are confronting local businesses and you can see why it’s difficult to determine what’s the best mix of advertising dollars and which ones will deliver the highest return to their locally-based business.

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Forrester Survey Says Today’s Campaign Management Tools Will Soon Be Extinct

There are three types of companies that are converging to deliver integrated campaign management solutions. Some vendors are marketing specialists like Alterian, Aprimo, and Unica. A second group is data and analytics specialists such as SAS and Teradata. Enterprise application providers (Oracle, SAP) make up the final segment. Forrester’s report said that no single vendor, or segment of vendors, is delivering systems that are comprehensive enough for multichannel marketing and program management.

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Managing customer data privacy in a multichannel world

Admittedly, most companies are not out to cross the line on what information about a consumer could be shared in a way that violates hard-earned trust and destroys a relationship they work so hard to establish. However, as online and offline data capture and analysis boundaries are tested and expanded, there will be more and more attention given to this emerging area. Data-driven agencies and marketers must be vigilant about how they intend to use identifiable consumer data to ensure that their customers have a clear understanding about and confidence in how this information gets used.

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Database Marketing Assessment: Data Management

Data management is clearly not the sexiest part of our work, but nothing else can be accomplished without intelligent data management and data hygiene processes. I can even say now, after the passage of several years, that I am grateful that I was forced to attend a weeklong training program called “Data Hygiene Boot Camp” when SIGMA was part of The Acxiom Corporation (the mental scars have healed).

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Best In Class Marketing Analytics Start with Business Requirements

Hats off to the marketing departments for the Marketing Technology companies who do a fantastic job at selling the sizzle of their technology! Unfortunately for the many failed implementations, falling in love with a tool is just not the right way to bring marketing analytics and measurement into your organization. Forrester’s Liz Boehm* phrased this nicely “Don’t Put the Technology Cart in Front of the Business Case Horse”

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Marketing Analytics for the New Marketing Reality. Part 3 of 3

According to Brian Haven, senior analyst at Forrester Research, Engagement involves four components: involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence, each built from data collected online and offline. “Using engagement, you get a more holistic appreciation of your customers’ actions, recognizing that value comes not just from transactions but also from actions people take to influence others…”

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Marketing Analytics for the New Marketing Reality. Part 2 of 3

We are used to tracking web traffic, purchases via phone, web and retail locations. Add into that reviews in sites like Yelp, Facebook fan activity, LinkedIn updates, Tweets — good and bad, blog content, RSS content, mobile activity. Every day there are new apps like Foursquare (a location service-based social network/game. What it does is tell you where your friends are and adds a little fun to going out in the evening) and Chat roulette (exactly where is that going?).

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