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Turning Customer Data into Profits

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Maximizing marketing ROI with customer behavior analysis

Database Marketing / Analytical CRM Roundtable

What can I expect from the Database Marketing / 
Analytical CRM Roundtable?

It might not be sexy, but it works.  Database Marketing techniques are the heart and soul of all customer value-based marketing efforts, including CRM and all the sub-disciplines.  But you don't need "CRM" to drive customer profitability using Database Marketing.  You may get some operational efficiencies out of CRM, but without the capability to profitably increase customer value, you will not achieve a positive ROI with CRM.  Database Marketing (or analytical CRM, if you prefer) turns data into actionable information and paves the way for High ROI Customer Marketing.

I find many people and companies have been suddenly "forced" into the database marketing and CRM areas by the opening up of the Web channel, frequently before they were really prepared.  They are well read on the basic drift of these approaches, but are struggling with how to actually get something profitable moving forward in their company.  Sometimes they are just standing outside the circle peering in, wondering if all this CRM noise means anything to their business

The purpose of the Roundtable is to move the data-driven customer marketing discussion forward based on a clear understanding of the concepts, tools, and potential results for your particular customers and business model.  We will develop a clear statement of expectations and "next steps" during the session.

If desired, we can also design a formal Customer Marketing / CRM ROI Test to determine if database marketing or analytical CRM are likely to generate increases in customer profitability for you - before you spend a ton of money on "solutions".

The content of the Roundtable itself is driven by the participants and matched to their level of understanding; we can address any of the topics listed below or others as you see fit, from both the strategic and tactical "how to" perspectives, depending on your needs.  I will work with each participant to develop relevant content specific to the company and generate a set of guideposts for the discussion.  Any customer reports, results of previous campaigns, and other internal materials would be very helpful, though not required, for the development of guideposts.

The Roundtable can be conducted on site or remotely with any of the various remote conferencing abilities available, including the good ol' fashioned conference call.  Your ROI on the  Roundtable could easily be 300% or more.

Potential Topics

Defining what direct / database marketing is and is not; the database marketing "cycle" approach of acquisition - activation - retention - defection and how each step is interrelated.  Debunking myths and grounding realities; how do database marketing / CRM analytics fit into the whole scope of the customer relationship?

Deciding which data is most important to the future profitability of your business - solving the "drowning in data" problem.

Addressing the LifeTime Value question - how to we figure out what the LifeTime Value of our customers is?  Do we really need to?  (No)  What are the other methods we can use to track customer value?  How do we report on and reconcile the LifeTime value of a customer concept with periodic financial reporting? 

Exploring acquisition techniques - how does the right acquisition program affect customer retention?  How do we select media, what are the parameters we need to know about?  What are the various strategies for positioning, offer creation, delivery, and how can we boost the 
profitability of campaigns?

Exploring activation techniques - how do I get my customers to spend more, and make more money doing it?  When is the best time to contact them, and how often?  How do we create communications or offers that will actually drive profitability, and how do we measure our success or failure?

Exploring retention techniques - how do you actually "do" a customer retention or loyalty program?  What are the elements, costs?  How do you prove out profits and ROI?

Implementing simple customer models - what are they and what do they do?  What are the data requirements, what can you do in house with simple tools, what other tools are available and what do they do?  What is the value of customer modeling and how do you extract the value in your situation?

Organizing a process for scoring and ranking your customers by their future value, so marketing folks can track the true profitability  contribution of ads, products, offers, etc.

Implementing "early warning system" flags to alert marketers to future customer value failure associated with ads or products.

Developing marketing-oriented reports used to predict and 
act on customer LifeCycles.

Creating high ROI marketing programs that make money now while consistently increasing the value of customers over time

Finding and fixing customer retention problems

Analyzing why current retention or customer value development
 efforts are unprofitable

Developing customer value maximization and  retention rules for rules-based CRM engines

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