Blog: multichannel marketing

Showing blogs: 1–6 of 6

Numbers That Make Marketers Tremble

Dec 2 2011

At recent events like AdTech and in conversations with clients, I've heard a staggering number of statistics that would make even the most sane marketer's head spin: 

  • There are 800 million people on Facebook.
  • Human beings generate 200 EXABYTES (read: 18 zeros!) of information each year.(1)
  • 42 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube...  Every minute.
  • 178.5 million people will browse online before they ever make a purchase.(2)

Are you scared yet?  I certainly am.  These numbers tell us a great deal about how consumers - people - get, consume, and utilize information.

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From B2B & B2C, to B2Me

Sep 29 2011

Marketing strategies to survive and thrive in today’s highly dynamic business environment.

By Jim Lewis

 

Part 1: Today’s Environment

In order to be successful selling to businesses, it is important to recognize the role of the individual. It is all too easy to lose sight of the fact that organizations – from small businesses to global corporations – are comprised of groups of people with not much more in common than the shared enterprise called “work” that brings them together 40 or so hours each week. Allowing for 8 hours of sleep each night, there remains 112 waking hours each week to devote to things other than work. How we fill our non-working waking hours provides important clues to what motivates, inspires, and defines us as people.

 

Whereas the workplace used to be the primary location that cutting edge technology was encountered, decades of increasing power and miniaturization and decreasing cost have driven highly sophisticated technologies into every facet of life – extending far beyond the workplace, to virtually every place an individual spends their time. Experiences online and increasingly offline include an information-driven component that is tailored to an individual’s preferences. As a result, we expect a level of customization commensurate with our history of visiting and interacting with people, places and things of interest. 

 

What are the implications of this pervasive, highly personalized world of information in the context of business-to-business marketing?

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Increasing Marketing Complexity Demands Smart Outsourcing

Mar 23 2011

In an article in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago, Gail McGovern and John Quelch argued that outsourcing marketing can lead to better quality and lower costs.   They were arguing this primarily in the context of analytics and direct marketing, since most companies did not have in-depth expertise within their organizations to scale and manage these functions effectively and efficiently.

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Playing the Customer Card

Jan 3 2011

OK, I admit it.  I played the Customer Card.  I’m not proud of it, but sometimes as a consumer there is really no other choice.  As someone in the business of helping companies create and maintain customer relationships, I sometimes feel guilty when I use the old, “Do you know who I am? I’m a customer!” routine.

But this time it worked.

I’m making some improvements to my house and as a result will be using more natural gas.  That means I need a larger gas meter.  My contractor told me to call the gas company and have them come out and put one in.  No problem, I thought.  I can handle this part of the project. I started by calling the customer service number on my bill.  I live in Massachusetts and since my gas company is part of a large utility company that provides service up and down the East Coast, I wasn’t surprised when the New Jersey-based rep gave me a name and number to call at a local office. 

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Offer Optimization Engine

Feb 4 2010

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,..)? 

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The Customer Ecosystem - a focus for CMOs

Dec 17 2009

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.

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