Data Marketing Archives - YouCom

CRM Too Personal?

Philip Wimbledon — Sun, 20 May 2018 18:44:42 +0000

When are brands saying too much? Customer relationship management (CRM) is about retention and lifecycle value. Brands want to keep their customers and help them spend more.

Retention marketing is a skill using different marketing messages. It is something brands do in-house with or without the help of an advertising agency. The key to CRM is data.

Marketing professionals state that it is six times more profitable to sell to an existing customer than to a new customer. This is because existing customers recognise and (hopefully) attach value to your brand.

This means there is less marketing noise (communications from other brands vying for their money) between you and the buyer.

But when does good data on customers become too personal? Many global brands get it wrong. Barclays for example ask for your sort code, your account number and then two digits from your six-digit security code. This is enough to verify the caller’s identity.

However, Barclays go further asking for the caller’s name. The caller says “Mr Jones” and that should be enough. But Barclays instruct their call centre staff to continue probing for the first name “Mr Sam Jones”, whereupon they begin calling the caller by their first name. “So, Sam, how was your weekend?”.

The question therefore is, do we want our bank, our gas company, our water company to call us as if they were one of our friends in the hope to somehow accelerate that customer relationship and make us spend more..?

This approach mostly leads to customer churn.

American Express are another financial services brand who in the past have made similar mistakes. All banks have their databases link the caller’s incoming telephone number to a customer record. But American Express tried greeting customers with their name before the customer said who was calling (spooky).

Imagine calling British Gas and they say “Hello [Name], how are you?” before you speak a word.

Some brands use your data to personalise their adverts. Channel 4 delivered adverts for the Alien Covenant film which display online and display your first name before the word ‘RUN’. i.e. the aliens are coming for you, best get your fast trainers out of the cupboard…

Fosters are another brand which tried a similar online advert showing a short video followed by the words “This one’s for you [Name]” using the first name of the person logged on.

Personalisation in marketing is essential. But over-personalisation like these examples is often regarded as just too creepy and will lead to customer churn. What’s your view? Are brand becoming too personal? Tweet to us below.

Follow the YouCom Media news posts to see the next developments.

Required reference:

YouCom Media News, May 2018, London, ‘CRM Too Personal?.’

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Media ROI

Philip Wimbledon — Sat, 31 Mar 2018 23:04:47 +0000

When you put in the effort, you want to see that it’s rewarded. You want Return-on-Investment.

ROI is an analysis of what is invested, how it is invested and what you gain from that investment. Marketing managers and brands who run marketing plans without full ROI analysis risk diminished or negative ROI as a result of lack of change.

Many big-name brands are guilty of falling into complacency. Proctor & Gamble on the other hand challenges its marketing executives to ‘build on their learnings’. They are asked to show what they have learnt from the marketplace. They then build those learnings into the next marketing plan and ROI inevitably goes up.

ROI analyses the profit generated from an integrated marketing communications plan as a percentage of the budget taken to produce it.

That profit can be in the form of extra sales generated from the marketing activity or may be something less tangible (but still measurable) such as brand awareness.

If increasing awareness is the advertisers goal (brand marketing) then the agency will calculate the correlation between brand awareness and market share.

If market research shows the brand’s awareness has increased, market share can be said to follow.

Each of these marketing tools within the communication mix will have specific ROI analysis methods;

Advertising

Includes ATL channels such as Television; Radio; Print and BTL channels such as OOH advertising. This also includes online such as PPC marketing; display advertising, remarketing and retargeting.

Personal Selling

Sales force; Tele-marketing staff; affiliate marketing

Public relations

Editorials; Advertorials; Newsletters; Viral Marketing; Press Releases

Sponsorship

Advertising via celebrities; TV shows; products; services; events

Event Marketing

Exhibitions; virtual exhibitions; webinars; conferences; roadshows

Direct Mail

post DM; email DM; Circulars; Leaflets; Inserts

Directories

print directories; online directories; link-building; review marketing

Retail

In-Store POS; Website (SEO)

Promotions

Incentives; Rewards; Data-marketing loyalty cards; Content marketing

Merchandising

QR Codes; Augmented reality apps; Virtual Tours; Package advertising

Each communication channel has the ability to measure the ROI from the activity. Some channels such as business directories are now highly ROI focused and therefore becoming a performance marketing channel rather than a brand marketing one.

In 2013, YouCom Media created a specialist business directory advertising team to bring our Japanese ROI focus to the channel. This Direct Response team were the first business directory specialist agency staff in Europe to deliver pay-per-call advertising for Yell.com at a time when all advertisers had to pay for 12-month advance tenancy advertising.

ROI was measured by every call and click resulting from the advertising.

The lifetime value of a customer acquisition can be difficult to calculate. But the short-term ROI isn’t. Event marketing for example divides the profit from sales orders by the total cost of the exhibition. Sometimes definitive sales orders aren’t known, or aren’t enough to produce positive ROI, but then it is possible to identify potential sales orders using a conversion rate for the sales enquires gained at the exhibition.

This is one way we produce pay-per-lead advertising campaigns at YouCom Media.

Some marketing managers (and some agencies) claim that certain channels cannot be measured for ROI. Social media is often seen as just such a channel.

But all channels can be measured if the marketing staff are inventive enough.

Social media has a wealth of data, follower numbers and frequency / recency studies can be made, propensity modelling applied, social sentiment correlated to sales etc.

Marketing managers must always remember that any activity made by a business has to show tangible added value to the bottom line.

Follow the YouCom Media news posts to see the next developments.

Glossary:

ATL- Above the line

BTL – Below the line

DM – Direct Mail

OOH – Out of home

POS – Point of Sale

PPC – Pay per click

ROI – Return on Investment

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

Required reference:

YouCom Media News, April 2018, London, ‘Media ROI.’

The post Media ROI appeared first on YouCom.

Data Marketing

Philip Wimbledon — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 19:36:39 +0000

At YouCom Media, we know that the secret to the highest ROI is data. A database is more than just a list of personal detail. A brand will gather quality informative data on each prospect/customer for tailored data-marketing communications.

The letter you receive in the post with your name on, the gardening catalogue where on page 27 a tea-towel has your name engraved on it, the vouchers for your name sent by Tesco for the type of toothpaste you like, these are all signs of good personalisation that drive ROI for a brand over their competitors.

There are two types of data stored on a database which a mailing list cannot provide.

Historical Data
Predictive Data

Historic data will include transactional data such as NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number), recency, Frequency, RR, open rate, average purchase value etc.

Predictive data examines historic data to identify behavioural trends such as which group of consumers are more likely to respond to an offer sent by direct mail rather than those sent an offer by email etc.

Propensity modelling, as conducted by our Direct Response department will then help the marketer to give scores based on consumer attributes which can be used to indicate future behaviour.

Data-marketing will enable marketers to develop a long-term relationship with the consumer. Customers can then be contacted with relevant offers and messaging at the right time in the buying cycle.

Why not have a mailing segment for customers who have purchased some of the products your brand offers and who are due this month to buy or renew another product similar to one your brand offers?

How about a mailing segment for customers at risk of attrition, to send them relevant tailored messaging to ensure they remain a customer?

The possibilities are endless and are the key to successful ROI.

Data analytics will enable more personalised marketing communications that will break through the ‘noise’ from competitors and PEST factors.

Books that analyse performance to identify suitable strategies are many and arguably the greatest of these is the Art of War written 2,500 years ago. The Art of War is a Chinese military document attributed to the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu and discusses how wars are won by data intelligence.

The better the analysis, the easier the marketing staff can make decisions. The book proposes the premise that we should know our client’s customers better than they know themselves and data marketing is the key to that.

Data Marketing will reduce costs, increase profits, reduce customer attrition and maximise ROI. It can offer a new distribution channel allowing for delivery direct to the customer from your supplier.

Those margins that previously went to your distributors or retailers can then go as cost savings to your customers (to further increase sales, reduce attrition or reward loyalty) and of course to increase your profits.

Follow the YouCom Media news posts to see the next developments.

Glossary:

NAP – Name, Address, Phone Number

Recency – How recent the customer made a purchase

Frequency – How often the customer made a purchase

RR – Response rate (how many customers respond to a data-mailing)

Open Rate – How many people open an email direct mail

PEST – Political, Economic, Social, Technological

DM – Direct Mail

Required reference:

YouCom Media News, Jan 2018, London, ‘Data Marketing.’

The post Data Marketing appeared first on YouCom.

Waze Data marketing

Philip Wimbledon — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 18:08:50 +0000

Waze is a geo-navigation app for smartphones and tablets. It provides real-time traffic updates generated by users. Crowdsourced data seems to be the modern trend and is a sure cheaper way of populating an app or website. Waze was created in Israel, funded by an American venture capital firm Bluerun Ventures, and as is the fate of most start-ups was eventually acquired by one of the big data marketing firms, in this case Google, toward the end of 2013. Google apparently paid $1.3 billion to buy Waze meaning each of the 100 employees received an average of about $1.2 million.

Waze won the Best Overall Mobile App award in 2013 beating such big names as Dropbox and others such as Flipboard. It supports Android, iPhone, Symbian, Blackberry 10, Windows Phone 8 and Windows Mobile from version 5.

Recently launched, Waze version 3.9.4 for Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod now tells you details about the route ahead. A new traffic bar is designed to track your progress as you slowly inch along the road. A visual guide to how long it will take you to escape from all that traffic.

Required Reference:

YouCom Media News, Jul 2015, London, ‘Data marketing by Waze.’

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