Articles

A Three Dimensional Look at Loyalty

Being a chap who is rarely at a loss for the odd bon mot I don’t often look in the dictionary for definitions of words. As I sat down to pen this article, however, I thought it might be useful to look up the word ‘loyalty’. The Collins English Dictionary defines it as “the state or quality of being loyal”. That’s a great help. That’s what Excel calls a ‘circular reference’ which, loosely translated, means you are going nowhere.
...More>>
Analysis For Paralysis

Analysis is one of the fun parts of CVM and direct marketing. For those people who battle to make 2 plus 2 to equal 4 this may not be an easy concept to grasp. But trust me it can be real fun. It’s also one of the most rewarding. Judging by the number of clients who pay us to do this for them it’s also one of the areas where they are most unskilled or under resourced.
...More>>
Ask the right person... more than once

Many years ago I encountered a lady called Ophelia Jatta. She was a self styled guru from the States. We booked her to speak at a conference that we organised for one of our clients at the time. She had a highly charismatic style of presentation. She said something along the lines of “Honey, if somebody says no it don’t mean no. It just means you haven’t given them enough reasons to say yes.”
...More>>
Back To the future

There’s an old but true saying … no roots no fruits. Jesus told a parable about the house built on sand. Two of the little piggies learned to their cost that any kind of construction other than brick is a prime target for a wolf attack. Put another way there is no substitute for getting the basics right.
...More>>
Circumcising Mosquitoes or Shooting Caged Lions

Some-one once said “If you only have a hammer you tend to see everything as a nail.” Unfortunately many analysts fall prey to this i.e. they lose sight of the bigger picture. Hence the expression about ‘circumcising mosquitoes’. I have had the pleasure, and the misfortune, to work with some remarkably talented analysts … certainly far cleverer than I am … who have been happy to chain themselves to their computers for days and nights at a time, coming up only for air and the odd bite of pizza. (I jest not)
...More>>
Data morphing ... normally unexplored territory

Morphing is one of those wonderful words that doesn’t really exist. You can’t find it in the dictionary but we all know what it means. Any-one who disagrees with me should go take a look in the Oxford English Dictionary. I assure you it’s not there. But we all know it’s a word that describes the way in which something can change from one shape into another.
...More>>
Data

Love it or hate it, it’s the stuff that makes the business tick.
...More>>
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water

(It’s a Waste of Water & Bad for the Baby)

There is a tendency to think that all the new stuff is good and all the old stuff is bad. Neither of these positions is true. The new stuff offers fantastic opportunities. As a direct marketer of more than 25 years standing I can do things today that were undreamed of 10 or even 5 years ago. But that doesn’t mean we should forget all the old stuff. The old stuff still has an important role to play.
...More>>
If you can fake sincerity you've got it made

always loved Oscar Wild’s repost to Whistler. When Oscar said something particularly witty in Whistler’s company he remarked “I wish I’d said that Oscar”. Quick as a flash Oscar replied “Don’t worry Whistler you will”.
...More>>
Like hey ... like wow... like customers just aren't loyal any more

Customer loyalty is like teenagers and sex. They all want it but they are not sure how to get it.Teenagers of course have the benefit of knowing that sex exists. Lot’s of us in business today have managed to convince ourselves that loyalty doesn’t. It’s amazing how often I hear comments around that from seasoned, and obviously now disenchanted, marketers. So here’s an interesting dichotomy. More business books have been written about customer loyalty than any other topic. In 2003 business worldwide was projected to spend $6,2 billion on CRM. Maybe I should just say that again … SIX POINT TWO BILLION US DOLLARS. On something that a large percentage of the business community believes does not exist. Talk about the emperor’s clothes !
...More>>
Marketing must move to build loyalty

Retaining and getting more from existing customers is now the number one approach to drive growth in today’s times where markets are quite saturated, products are commoditised and consumers are more and more empowered.
...More>>
Successful CRM (Turning Customer Loyalty into Profitability)

By Bob Thompson
CEO, Customer Think Corporation, October 2004

Executive Summary

Customer relationship management (CRM) gained recognition in the mid-1990s, primarily driven by its perception as information technology (IT). However, not enough attention has been given to the fundamental drivers of CRM success: strategy, metrics and the organization.
...More>>
The Devil is in the detail

Without wishing to disparage my marketing cousins who earn their daily crust by creating above the line advertising I still believe that is a piece of cake compared with the grunt and grind that direct marketers go through.
...More>>
There's more to segmentation than slicing the cake

The English language, which is full of nuances, rather strangely has only one word for love. The ancient Greeks apparently had about ten. We unfortunately have only one word for segmentation.
...More>>
To brand or not to brand - that is the question

It’s not so long ago that companies were obsessed with corporate identity. CI manuals, which in some cases went so far as to specify the width of the margin on the right hand side of the page of an internal memo, were lovingly crafted and expensively billed for by their creators. Not for a single moment did these custodians of the corporate identity imagine a world in which 85% of business communication would be carried out using e mail with zero control over what is said and how it looks. The fact is that most business communication today looks like a dogs breakfast.
...More>>

Turning customer information & management into a profitable business tool

“Company differentiation merely by quality, price and technology is lost. Can customer-centricism bring back the competitive edge ?”

By Keith Wiser
...More>>

What Jerry Garcia knew about branding and a whole lot more

In a world where every-one has access to the same information, via the internet, new products will become a dime a dozen. Ten people may well invent the same product at half past nine on Thursday with the result that patents in the future will become a thing of the past.
...More>>
Would you do it like this if it was your money ?

I was presenting at a workshop a few months ago. The conversation centred around the need for testing in direct marketing. The major response, particularly from the larger organisations who by definition are probably spending the most money, was “You see Keith, you just don’t understand !”
...More>>