Customer Intelligence 7 Experts to Power Smarter Marketing

Customer Intelligence 7 Experts to power smarter marketing. > Experts

Henry Smith Tim Watson Neil Hamilton Product Marketing Director, Email Marketing Consultant CEO, PredictiveIntent, Emailvision & DMA Email Council member an Emailvision company

Nathalie Chaboche Marilou Barsam Chief Marketing Officer, Senior Vice President, Emailvision Client Consulting & Corporate Marketing, TechTarget

Marshall Sponder Tony Coretto CEO / Founder of Co-CEO, WebMetricsGuru Inc. PNT Marketing Services Analytics and Educational Services Instructor/course creator at Rutgers University & UC Irvine Extension. 2 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com > Henry Smith Product Marketing Director, Emailvision

The Big Challenge for today’s Online Marketer Leveraging Cross-Channel Data to Drive Relevant Communications

Consumer Demands and Marketing Challenges

It’s tough being a marketer. With the ever-evolving demands and needs of today’s brands, there has never been a more challenging, or more exciting, time to be in this role. The daily pressure to deliver more profitable, loyal, and engaged customers relentlessly continues.

No longer is it good enough for marketing to build brand awareness and pull prospective customers towards the sales engine. As marketing transitions its focus from the lead funnel to the lifecycle, marketers are expected to engage the consumer in a personalized multichannel dialog. To create that on-going relationship, target prospects need relevant communications based on their unique behaviors, experiences and interactions with the business. To do this successfully, permissions must be sought and earned; and data must be collected, accessed and utilized. To ensure campaign effectiveness, all communication strategies must be tested and the levels of response, engagement, advocacy, value and profitability measured in order to understand what’s working… and what isn’t. What a challenge! “ It’s tough being a marketer. With To add to the marketer’s challenge, all of this expectation is set in the context of a noisy market gripped by ‘The Great Recession’ with the ever evolving increasing numbers of competitors fighting for a share of diminished demands and needs consumer wallets. Today’s consumer can instantly access a host of different providers, competitors and purchase options through of today’s brands, websites, daily offers, instant advertising, apps, reviews, social there has never been commentary and other social content. If a quick and easy customer a more challenging, experience isn’t provided or an off er isn’t compelling enough, then within seconds consumers can simply shop with someone else. or more exciting, time It’s therefore even more important to build relevant dialog with the to be in this role.” consumer in order to encourage brand preference and loyalty.

To respond to consumer expectations, organizations need to shift

3 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com from a business-centric perspective to a customer-centric one. Inside the business, marketers should act as consumer advocates and have a deep understanding of their customers. They should be able to deliver actionable insights gained from the analysis of cross channel consumer behavior, customer campaigns and conversations inside the whole business. Armed with this knowledge, marketers will be pivotal in delivering and managing a customer-centric view of business performance. Marketing has always been appreciated in business, but with such close connections and understanding of customer data, the marketer’s role has never been so valuable.

Meeting Demands and Overcoming Challenges

The biggest transition for marketers typically starts by embracing the idea of working more closely with customer data, a new and complex world that was traditionally restricted to internal IT teams. However, with less reliance on IT, marketers have the ability to respond much faster to changing market conditions and new consumer demands.

Once business and marketing objectives have been established (e.g. improve retention, increase repeat purchases, etc.), the data journey begins by exploring questions like:

• How do I map my customers’ touch points and actions to my organization? • How is that journey aligned to the messages I want to present to them? • What data do I currently collect from these touch points? • What data do I need to collect? • How do I collect this data? • How can I be certain that my customer data is clean and consistent? • How do I ensure there is a view of customer behavior across these channels? • How do I access this data? • How do I use it to understand my customer profiles and segments for campaigns? • How do I make those campaigns relevant and personalized? • How do I execute the message with the right content? • How do I benchmark my current performance and continuously test / measure the impact? • How can I automate these complex processes and make them easier?

4 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com These questions can be driven by marketers, but there is no doubt they will need to partner with departments internally and sometimes through external partners to find the best answers to the questions raised above. The modern marketer recognizes that if they want to appropriately target customers, they cannot rely on data from one channel only. For example, a customer may have shifted their shopping behavior from [browsing in-store followed by buying on the website] to [browsing online and buying in-store]. The marketer will need access to browsing data from the ecommerce store as well as purchase data from both store and online to recognize and infer this change.

Bridging the Gap

Technology can be a strong bridge between IT, who are the traditional custodians of customer data, and Marketing, who want to access to customer data for insight. Technology is helping marketers to be more self-sufficient and lifting some of the pressure from IT for routine data requests. However, the technology must deliver data to the marketer in a quick, easy and understandable way. As Seth Godin said, “Data is not useful until it becomes information, and that’s because data is “ When marketers hard for human beings to digest”.(1) establish a strong Data needs to be rationalized and presented to marketers in a useful understanding of the format. Marketers work best in interactive visual environments; with brand and the market charts, maps and Venn diagrams, rather than code and scripts. In order for marketers to understand the available information, their positioning, and data tools need to support data visualization. This will ensure that couple this with the marketers can digest the data and turn this into meaningful insights. ability to visualize and In addition to access, it’s equally important that marketers can rapidly analyze customer query very large volumes of data. Speed is essential because when information across a marketer gets their hands on customer data and starts to ask questions, each question will typically generate another 10. These any dimension, they types of questions are what I like to call ‘train of thought analysis’ find themselves in which is the discovery process that a marketer goes through with a uniquely powerful their customer data. For example, when a retail marketer discovers that certain brands are selling better in certain stores, they will want position.” to know:

• The profile of the customers in each case • What they purchased • How much they spent • How frequently they purchase

5 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com • Whether they may have done some research online before coming into the store • Which customers, of those who made a purchase, are stronger social advocates • Etc....

For this discovery exercise to be successful, technology must be able to respond to the queries. If the answers to questions do not appear rapidly, marketers get pulled into other activities that provide faster returns.

When marketers establish a strong understanding of the brand and the market positioning, and couple this with the ability to visualize and analyze customer information across any dimension, they find themselves in a uniquely powerful position. They have the ability to combine internal and external factors to build dynamic and personalized campaigns with unrivalled draw and significant competitive advantage.

With perspective and knowledge, marketers can deliver relevant content to their audience that’s based on a range of insights and relates to customers in all stages of their lifecycle. Welcome emails with ‘hero’ products targeted based on preferences. Win back campaigns to former high-value lapsers with personalized discount offers. Referral program incentive campaigns targeted specifically to social advocates. However customers engage with the business, the marketer should be in control... capitalizing on technology, data, and insights to ensure that communications are relevant and valuable. Henry Smith (1) The power of visualization - Posted by Seth Godin on October 19, 2011 on www.businessgyan.com

6 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Biography

> Henry Smith Product Marketing Director, Emailvision

For over 15 years, Henry has been helping organizations improve their customer relationship marketing through better use of data and technology. As Product Marketing Director for Emailvision, Henry utilizes this expertise to champion data within the organization. Henry is a passionate and frequent speaker at conferences about enabling marketers to get closer to their data to uncover customer insights and drive relevance in their campaigns. Henry previously worked for smartFOCUS and SPSS.

www.emailvision.com

7 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com > Tim Watson Email Marketing Consultant & DMA Email Council member

Content is Interesting, but Data is King Integrating Great Data and Content into Email Marketing

In our rich multi-media world where content is abundant, the marketing industry so often says, content is king. After all, great content is needed to capture and engage audiences. Big bold creative concepts with integrated campaigns are exciting and sexy. The internet has made the circulation and delivery of content so cheap that everyone is now a publisher. The ability to find appropriate content through search engines, social networks and content curators gives consumers valuable information and entertainment. What’s more consumers expect content at a very low cost or even free. Given the abundance of content, the real demand is for high quality content.

“ If content is indeed If content is king then why not just focus on valuable email content; king then it is data the sort of engaging, valuable and entertaining stuff that means customers can’t wait to open up your email? Groupon attributes that builds kingdoms. part of their success to the interesting and quirky write-ups about Data is the most featured deals. They specifically employ copywriters who can create important asset in highly entertaining copy. But this isn’t the whole picture for the world of email marketing. Sure, when building brand awareness and first email and relationship capturing an audience, great content is key. Witness the YouTube marketing. ” viral hit of, “Will it blend.” Quite simply at the start of a relationship if you don’t have any anything else to work with, you have to capture someone’s attention with share-worthy content that will be passed socially.

However, as the relationship progresses, you continue to learn more about each other. The customer learns and experiences who you are as a brand and what you offer. They gain a sense of your culture and values, the quality of your products and the level of your customer service. Equally you learn about the customer and capture that relationship in the data you gather. For brands the relationship is the data.

The sports clothing group O’Neill used social data to target subscribers by interests, locations and age. In one campaign, subscribers that had a high social interest in yoga were sent emails

8 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com featuring O’Neill’s yoga clothing. Regardless of how good the content was in that campaign, even a video of dancing bears in Yoga outfits, if it goes to people who don’t do Yoga… it’s pointless. It’s the data that makes the difference. The rise of social media has created a chorus of people who say the relationship is everything and social networks are all about relationships. That one data point of a ‘like’ does not constitute a relationship. Much more is needed. If content is indeed king then it is data that builds kingdoms. Data is the most important asset in email and relationship marketing.

Think of it this way… when picking the perfect present for a close friend, it’s your knowledge about the person that’s the starting point in the search for the ideal gift. After you consider the person and their preferences, then your search for the right gift begins. It’s the reason why Google and Facebook are racing one another in an effort to gather, understand and leverage all of the data they collect about individuals (yes, you too). That data will be used to define who we are so Google and Facebook can monetize the information.

The amount of data collected and available is increasing rapidly. This is being driven by two factors that show no sign of slow down. First, the relentless march of technology… the processing power and storage capacity continues to increase while the cost points decrease. Second, the fusing of the online and offline worlds is causing a historical division to disappear. The idea of going online as a discreet activity is no longer true. The experience becomes pervasive and continuous through our smart phones, tablets, internet enabled TVs and computers as the world becomes enveloped by the cloud. These devices know who we are, what we like, who we like, where we go, when we go and more. The data collection points become ever richer, as we let our devices know more and more about us.

Data itself is of little value unless it is turned into information, this gives true customer insight. There is a real problem with an abundance of data, potentially not seeing the forest for the trees. Too often terabytes of data are giving kilobytes of information and the gold remains locked and hidden in the data. Taking detailed data and using it to provide simple segmentation misses the point and will look increasingly crude in the future. For a brand to earn continued acceptance of its emails in the consumer’s inbox requires those emails to be sufficiently relevant and valuable.

Traditionally one of the main tools to gain relevance has been to

9 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com empower the customer. Give them choice and let them choose what’s right by offering a preference center. This is a noble and well-intended thing, but far from ideal. It’s well understood that what people say they will do and what they actually do are not the same. Additionally, people change over time, their needs and interests change. We all suffer from a lack of time and we have little desire to keep updating preferences. When was the last time you updated your interest and preference information? How many brands even have your preference information? This relationship is only with the brands that you trust and truly value.

Understanding our customers through their behavior is considerably more powerful because this is both accurate and current information. As an example, the online travel group Orbitz tracks which device you’re using as one data point in determining your relevant offer. Here’s an interesting data point…. did you know that Mac users reserve a higher and more expensive class of hotel?

Since all businesses are looking to drive revenue and profit, the starting point for customer insight should be purchase behavior because it’s some of the most powerful data that’s readily available. “ Too often terabytes Enriching the transaction data with added customer data enables of data are giving marketers to work backwards to understand the types of transactions that are linked to specific customer behavior. Questions that need kilobytes of information customer insight provide answers such as: and the gold remains locked and hidden in • Who are the highest revenue customers? the data.” • Who provides the most profit? • What impacts customer lifetime value? • What defines a potential high value customer? • What are my best acquisition sources? • Which customers are value shoppers and who are look for premium and quality?

Answering these types of questions is the key to a well-defined and successful marketing strategy. The answers will allow marketers to turn new customers into regular customers, or cross sell and upsell to existing customers. Customer intelligence enables the marketer to discover the segments that occur in their customer base rather than defining and imposing their own view of the segments. Customer intelligence and insight is about discovery and drilling down. Initial questions are just a starting point. In some cases it’s not even clear what the right questions might be. It’s likely that every answer will

10 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com spawn more questions. A classic approach of asking ‘why’ five times to get to the real truth. Customer intelligence needs tools that allow such rapid thinking. If gaining the answer to every question requires a two day delay for the IT department, then the whole process becomes costly and slow.

With abundant choice, consumers are more demanding and they expect brands to talk to them correctly. If someone is not providing them with the right offers, value and relationship… they will quickly switch to another brand. The key to success for marketers is not in the content; it’s in the intelligence and actionable information that comes from customer data. Tim Watson

11 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Biography

> Tim Watson Email Marketing Consultant & DMA Email Council member

Tim is an independent email marketing consultant at Zettasphere. He has over 8 years of experience advising brands on email communication strategies to help increase the performance of the email marketing channel. Tim is an elected member of the UK DMA Email Council and he chairs their Legal & Best Practice hub. Tim is a frequent blogger on emerging trends in email marketing for the Smart Insights website.

www.zettasphere.com

12 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.comwhitepaper.customerintelligence.com > Neil Hamilton CEO, PredictiveIntent, an Emailvision company

Next Generation Retailers Pioneers in Customer Intelligence

Until recently, it felt like retailers were stuck in the dark ages, a Mad Men era of aggressive, one-way marketing. In many relationships, customers were just consumers – until they were put into rooms with one-sided mirrors for focus groups. Consumers, and their decisions, were affected by “marketing” ...a magical dark art that brainwashed them into buying certain products from specific places. Companies were focused entirely on how product features or specifications could be spun to the public to generate extra market share; like secret conglomerates hidden behind the happy, smiling faces of whichever mascot the focus group had found the most entertaining.

Slowly, the tables turned. Consumers started to become customers and these customers started to wear many different hats. Customers realized they could take their business elsewhere. Companies had to wake up and adapt to this new model of consumer independence. The internet became of age and changed the way we communicate shop and socialize forever. Easier access to retailers encourages customers to shop wherever they want and to buy whatever they want. Social media amplifies voices that had previously been ignored. Transparency, communication and relevance are now the new rules of the road.

“ Until recently, it felt Customer Intelligence is an overarching strategy that places like retailers were customer needs, preferences and lives at the center of a business. However, a customer is no longer just someone who buys a product stuck in the dark ages, from a business. They can also be loyal fans who engage with a Mad Men era of your product, content and company; interested stakeholders who become heavily involved with your brand; enthusiastic advocates aggressive, one-way who spread your gospel and encourage others to join. Early marketing.” Customer Intelligence efforts focused on mostly disconnected data from Customer Relationship Management systems, transactional data and web analytics. With evolving technology, often pioneered by multichannel retailers, businesses can now capture, analyze and act upon connected data from multiple sources to create a single view of the customer.

13 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Automated big data decisions

Every interaction a customer has with your business from a browse on your website, to the open and click on an email, to the tweet, or the in-store purchase can be captured to generate valuable data. Typically, this data exists in disassociated databases accessed only by analysts and developers, thus disconnecting marketers and other areas of the enterprise from the raw behavioral data that underpins their business. Today we’re seeing a new generation of software and services that’s dedicated to helping businesses understand this data. Why? Good data analysts are in high demand. McKinsey(1) estimates that the US will have a shortfall of 140,000 - 190,000 data analysts over the next six years and of equal importance, a shortage of 1.5 million people with the business skills needed to make decisions on the data. Simply analyzing this multifaceted and complicated data is not enough. It has to be actionable through the development of new businesses processes, rapid innovation and near real-time change.

Cross-Channel Personalization

One way to capitalize on your customer data is by using automated personalization systems, uniquely configured around your business. This technology looks at your customers as a group and as individuals for the purpose of presenting a consistent multichannel experience; through a combination of manual input decision journeys and various automated algorithms. Experiences can be adapted using the standard building blocks of content including product recommendations, images, text and layout information.

An example of such a system can be seen in advanced onsite personalized product recommendations. It’s important to look at how “personalization” technology is different from “recommendation” technology. Personalization technology enables the dynamic insertion, customization or suggestion of content in any format that’s relevant to the individual user, based on the user’s implicit behavior and preferences, and explicitly given details.

Not only does personalization technology look at the behavior of your visitors as a crowd, it also understands the individual visitor and their unique preferences. The technology automatically decides the most appropriate and relevant content to display. The results are compelling. By putting the right products in front of the right people at the right time, businesses can experience up to 60% increases

14 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com on conversion rates. More advanced systems can also hold external data about a visitor, like social data from Facebook as one example, which can then be used by a multichannel personalization system. Knowing a visitor has “Liked” a certain brand on Facebook creates an important affinity which can be stored and used to promote products from that brand in personalized product recommendations.

The same technology can also be used to adapt onsite content such as banner images and copy. This creates more relevant website “ Not only does experiences, encourages site visitors to engage and ultimately personalization persuades them to purchase. For example, an Empathica survey(2) found that men intensely review product pages and prefer more technology look at detailed information than women. With multichannel personalization the behavior of your systems, understanding that an online visitor is male from their in- store loyalty card data, presents a big opportunity to adapt and visitors as a crowd, improve their experience, whilst ensuring other visitors’ experiences it also understands aren’t impacted. the individual visitor Other digital touch points can generate useful data and benefit and their unique from becoming more relevant. As well as being the most effective preferences.” source of traffic, email marketing can be targeted to the individual recipient, maximizing response rates and ultimately increasing revenue. Marketers can begin using proactive and personalized trigger emails to drive sales and guide customers through their purchase decision. Mobile apps and sites can be personalized to the individual before they even start to browse. Social network data can be used to profile users in real time to create more relevant social and onsite experiences. They can even work together in concert. Imagine, for example, a fashion retailer using social data to make timely purchase recommendations. Perhaps suggesting formal wear in email marketing when a customer tweets about a business meeting or promoting evening wear on the homepage of a mobile app after accepting a Facebook event to a party.

Multichannel nirvana – the single view of the customer

As well as connecting onsite, email, mobile and social data, more advanced personalization systems can also become centralized behavior databases, linking together data from in-store systems including loyalty card, EPoS and digital displays. Bringing together customer interactions from all business touch points:

15 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com • In-Store Purchases • Online • Call Centers • Mobile Apps/Sites • Print • Social • Email

…and then automating decisions around this information is true Customer Intelligence. Most importantly, this data helps retailers reach that multichannel nirvana which is a single view of the customer. All business information about a customer or visitor is stored and available for analysis so why not use it? Multichannel data helps the business to make better decisions that improve all customer experiences, against every touch point and in any format. Increased relevance helps cut through the fragmented and noisy marketing landscape that consumers experience every day. With this interconnected single view, the opportunities are enormous and it’s not limited to just revenue maximization. Personalization technology enables all parts of the enterprise to benefit from high volumes of behavioral information that was previously unstructured and inaccessible.

Customer intelligence is strategic for the business

When a customer purchases from your business, they give you cash in exchange for a product or service. When a customer interacts with your business, they are giving you their data in exchange for a relevant experience with your brand. If a business doesn’t choose to make use of this data, they are missing out on important 1 Report by McKinsey Global Institute - Posted knowledge that could positively or negatively impact business for by James Manyika, Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs, years to come. This is why Customer Intelligence and its associated Charles Roxburgh, Angela Hung Byers in processes, tools and strategies are an essential part of any modern May 2011 http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/ mgi/research/technology_and_innovation/ business that wants to be a leader in their category. It’s imperative big_data_the_next_frontier_for_innovation that a customer never becomes ‘just a number’ even in a database of 2 Article from Practical eCommerce - Posted by Marcia Kaplan on December 9, 2011 http:// millions. Technology enables all businesses to treat their customers www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3222- Behavioral-Differences-Between-Men-and- to a personalized experience across multiple sales channels. This is Women-Influence-Shopping the promise of Customer Intelligence. Neil Hamilton

16 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Biography

> Neil Hamilton CEO, PredictiveIntent, an Emailvision company

After 20 years experience evangelizing new technologies for marketing, Neil co-founded PredictiveIntent, a pioneer in behavioral personalization software for digital businesses. PredictiveIntent was recognized in 2010 by The Guardian as a leading UK innovator. Their patent-pending SaaS technology enables customers to create personalized website experiences that increase customer loyalty, conversions and revenue.

www.predictiveintent.com

17 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.comwhitepaper.customerintelligence.com > Nathalie Chaboche Chief Marketing Officer, Emailvision

Big Data for Marketing Turning the Buzz into New Business

Big data challenges equal big data opportunities

The real challenge of big data is linked to the explosion of data volume. In an August 2010 interview with TechCrunch, Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, stated, “Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003. That’s something like five Exabyte’s of data.”(1) The last two years have only served to reinforce this exceptional phenomenon. In the study on big data published in May 2011, McKinsey Global Institute estimates that we will see more than 40% annual growth in the volume of data produced around the world from 2011 to 2020 (2) Next challenge, the data must be processed in real time “Big data serves (e.g. financial transactions, ecommerce, advertising, and more). The as an opportunity third challenge, the data is not coming from a structured information for innovative base. Increasingly this is heterogeneous and unstructured content such as videos, podcasts, images, posts on social networks, forum and personalized discussions, phone calls to customer service, text messages and relationship marketing more. Marketers are therefore faced with a real technological that drives higher breakthrough due to the explosion in volume of available and usable data. This serves as both a significant challenge and an equally revenues and brand significant opportunity. In all of that data, marketers have more loyalty...” information about their customers than ever before.

The digital revolution continues

The digital revolution has officially reversed the balance of power between the consumer and the business. Consumers have immediate access to numerous shopping opportunities, packaged offerings and private sales. Brands compete with more and more operators every day. It’s therefore vital for marketers to develop targeted communication strategies with their customers in order to encourage brand preference and loyalty. To bring value to their increasingly powerful customers, marketing teams should focus on the knowledge they have of their customers and markets. Marketers already have a wealth of information in their customer data. The

18 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com trick will be to aggregate it, make it accessible and take action on the data. They should invest in new technologies to increase their understanding of customer behavior. For the first time, and with thanks to SaaS technologies, marketing services can benefit from autonomous solutions to collect, discover and put into action the customer information that comes from marketing. The implementation of customer intelligence technology, as one example, will enable marketers to aggregate these different data sources. With relevant and reliable data, marketers can make better business decisions. It’s a tremendous opportunity to develop new business and to strengthen customer loyalty.

Putting the customer at the heart of the strategy

As sensitivity to marketing noise increases, a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing is less and less effective. It is increasingly important for marketers to recognize customers as individuals and build one-to-one relationships with them. The customer must feel that the marketer brings value when they engage with the brand. Analyze the points of contact between the brand and the customer, both offline and online. Each one of these interactions represents an opportunity to collect information. Marketers should aggregate subscriber preferences, geography, transactional data, behavioral data and social data. This will provide a single view of customers and prospects that evolves according to their purchases or their reactions to recent marketing campaigns. The objective is to convert prospects into customers, to turn temporary customers into loyal customers and to reward loyal customers by encouraging them to become the best brand ambassadors.

Detecting new business opportunities

New business opportunities are sitting in the subscriber and behavioral data which makes this an optimal place for marketers to start the data discovery process. Customer segmentation should no longer be used to push the same campaigns to everyone. It’s an opportunity to drive personalized and targeted acquisition or loyalty strategies. The right segmentation strategies will enable marketers to maintain their volume of communications, but significantly improve the value in each communication. Here are some examples of segmentation strategies that work:

Who needs a “Nudge?” The best use of marketing spend is to focus on the customers

19 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com with the highest potential value. It’s inefficient to send a segment of customers, who are consistent purchasers, a promotion with significant discount offers. However, there may be customers, who made a single individual purchase, and haven’t bought again within the expected time frame. Identify this group and give them a “nudge” with a special discount offer.

Who buys High and who buys Low? It’s rare that an economy car owner would suddenly run out and buy a top-of-the-line luxury sedan, and vice-versa. That general theme remains true throughout consumer behavior. Marketers should identify which of their customers make purchases at all points of the spectrum. To market a low-end product to a high-end buyer might actually encourage a lucrative customer to spend less. To market a high-end item to a lower-end buyer might be alienate them all together. Identify your low and high buyers and deliver them offers that are just right.

“As sensitivity to Who wants to read about bikinis when they’re shopping for down marketing noise parkas? 80% or more of all online marketing goes unopened. Why? Most increases, a one-size online marketers send the same offer to 100% of their customers. fits-all approach to Marketers should customize their offer based on the previous click, marketing is less and open and purchase behavior of each individual. Identify the offer that customers will likely respond to and deliver a message that less effective. It is statistically has a better chance of success. This kind of segmentation increasingly important will result in higher open, click-through and purchase rates. for marketers to Delivering really smart marketing recognize customers as individuals and build If the key to successful marketing is to target customers with relevant offers, then the smartest online marketing will go far beyond one-to-one relationships traditional segmentation. Behavioral targeting, as one example, with them.” enables marketers to transform websites into a personalized sales environment with unique content for every site visitor. Behavioral targeting technology utilizes algorithms to propose products that site visitors might like based on browsing or past purchases. Amazon offers a powerful success story with their product recommendations area. In Q2 2012, Amazon’s sales increased 29% from Q2 2011. CNN reports, “A lot of that growth arguably has to do with the way Amazon has integrated recommendations into nearly every part of the purchasing process from product discovery to checkout.”(3) Taking this one step further, with intelligence about product preferences and site visitors, marketers can automatically target site visitors

20 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com with highly personalized digital campaigns. There is tremendous business potential for marketers who integrate behavioral targeting and predictive analytics into their relationship marketing programs.

Knowledge is powerful

For IT departments, big data is synonymous with terabytes and servers. For marketing professionals, it’s a source of knowledge about their customers. Big data serves as an opportunity for innovative and personalized relationship marketing that drives higher revenues and brand loyalty. The promise in big data can sometimes match the technical complexity of the project. Marketers should not let this be their obstacle. Start today by implementing cost effective strategies and well defined projects that capitalize on this wealth of information. Look to technologies like Customer Intelligence to create that bridge between where the marketing program is today, and where it will be tomorrow. Nathalie Chaboche (1) Report from the Techonomy Conference - Posted by MG Siegler on August 10, 2010 http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/schmidt-data/ (2) Report by McKinsey Global Institute - Posted by James Manyika, Michael Chui, Brad Brown, Jacques Bughin, Richard Dobbs, Charles Roxburgh, Angela Hung Byers in May 2011 http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/mgi/research/technology_and_innovation/big_data_the_next_frontier_for_innovation (3) Article from CNN – Posted by JP Mangalindan on July 30, 2012 http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/30/amazon-5/

21 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Biography

> Nathalie Chaboche Chief Marketing Officer, Emailvision

Nathalie has been a marketing leader in technology companies for more than 25 years. She is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at Emailvision, a position she has held since 2004. Nathalie is responsible for Emailvision’s worldwide corporate marketing, relationship marketing and lead generation programs.

www.emailvision.com

22 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.comwhitepaper.customerintelligence.com > Marilou Barsam Senior Vice President, Client Consulting & Corporate Marketing, TechTarget

How customer intelligence and insights on their online activity impacts marketing and sales alignment

When it comes to what happens to the online leads that marketers spends weeks and months generating on behalf of sales, the infamous black hole may have been first dug years ago when online marketers were sending hot leads over the proverbial sales wall to no avail, but in reality it’s still there decades later.

“ Following-up Recent studies continue to cite appalling statistics on the lack of on leads from lead follow-through by sales organizations. In response, many of our technology vendor marketing clients are investing in elaborate the marketing customer relationship management (CRM) and lead management organization is no systems in an attempt to analyze these trends and improve the longer a waste of perceived value and adoption of leads by the sales department. However, the age-old issue of how to best align the sales and time, because the marketing organizations persists over how qualified a lead is or isn’t. sales person is better From my perspective what’s needed is a motivating impetus for equipped to create sales to want to pay close attention to the marketing leads they are more engaging sent in the first place. Previously, these leads have been looked at conversations with skeptically, with sales people categorically dismissing the leads because they are not qualified enough or not close enough to buying. prospects, to figure out exactly where the Well, I am here to propose that the marketer’s ability to send their prospect’s interests lie, sales teams real-time data on the lead’s actual activities and interests not only eradicates this problem once and for all, it also empowers and then to cultivate the marketer to actually help sales teams see and appreciate the them to eventually value of the leads they have worked so hard to generate. With the want to buy.” right customer intelligence, and ensuing insights the sales person receives, the more they are likely to perceive that the marketing leads are better qualified. Following-up on leads from the marketing organization is no longer a waste of time, because the sales person is better equipped to create more engaging conversations with prospects, to figure out exactly where the prospect’s interests lie, and then to cultivate them to eventually want to buy.

23 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com At TechTarget, customer intelligence like this is being compiled in real-time. We have developed a proprietary platform that records our users - (our clients’ prospect and customers) activity (based on their previous opt-in permission). We catalogue the technology topics they peruse on our more than 100 websites, the type of content they download, as well as the extent to which they peruse and download any given sponsors content (white papers, videos, etc.) versus content from the sponsor’s competitive set (which may also be visible while any given sponsor’s campaign is running on the site).

“ These accumulated Most noteworthy is that views from this same platform, referred to as views allow the Activity Intelligencetm, reveal to the client how other individuals from the lead’s same company (or account for the client), have interacted sponsor to gain a really with their content or a competitor’s content. These accumulated good understanding views allow the sponsor to gain a really good understanding of what of what topics and topics and content interests the potential prospect on a day to day basis, as well as be able to penetrate an account’s IT buying team content interests the more deeply as new prospects from the same company appear on potential prospect the scene.

on a day to day The conversation for an inside telesales representative potentially basis, as well as be moves from, “We noted four days ago you downloaded one of our able to penetrate an white papers” to “We noted that you and your team have interest in compliance solutions and may be comparing ours to company account’s IT buying XYZ. Let me tell you some benefits of our solution that should create team more deeply as better ROI for you.” The last comment is only possible because of new prospects from the added insights the telesales representative now has. the same company Additionally, if the sales representative has email triggers from our appear on the scene.” reporting system, they will know specifically if the prospect they are talking to is “ready or not ready” to engage. With additional intelligence, as provided by TechTarget’s brand of customer intelligence, the insight into the lead’s entire IT team provides them even greater options - they can call another team member who may be more “sales ready” or willing to talk.

One of the truisms of an IT buying team is that depending on their role, one member may be more sales ready than another - or at least more willing to listen and then champion a particular vendor and his solution. So, giving marketing and sale organizations multiple views to more than one IT prospect at any given time is invaluable in terms of ROI, because it expands their insights into the entire buying team. It also flags accounts that are more active than others at any given time. Additionally, it allows a marketer to make smarter decisions

24 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com about how to cultivate a prospect that has shown interest through his actions but may not be ready to make contact yet.

So why is all of this so newsworthy? Because the better informed any sales organization is in trying to follow up on prospects the marketers have brought to their attention, the quicker the prospect will be moved through their sales pipeline and hopefully closed. Interpreting this intelligent data effectively serves as a gigantic radar detection system for interpreting customer activity on websites. It also signals if they are qualified and ready to talk to a company. Thus, the customer intelligence data provides yet another aspect of accelerating lead and pipeline conversion.

However, the real payoff in having multiple views of a prospect’s activity in relationship to a vendor’s campaign is that those insights, if leveraged effectively by your sales counterparts, put marketers and sales on the same page in terms of what prospects are doing.

“When marketers Customer intelligence provides more context for whether leads are truly ready to buy, where they are in their buy cycle, and consequently and sales have similar the best method of follow-up that makes sense to their specific buy views or customer cycle and search online.

intelligence on their When marketers and sales have similar views or customer intelligence leads, they naturally on their leads, they naturally become better aligned to tackle the become better ongoing quest for turning the marketing qualified lead into a sales aligned to tackle the qualified lead. ongoing quest for At TechTarget, we have already heard from our customers that the turning the marketing customer intelligence we provide on their prospect and customer activity, both within their sponsored programs and outside of them, qualified lead into a is also creating better alignment with inside sales. This alignment sales qualified lead.” enables both teams to intelligently cultivate their prospects and eventually close them as sales.

About TechTarget

TechTarget (NASDAQ : TTGT) is the online intersection of serious technology buyers, targeted technical content and technology providers worldwide. Our extensive network of online and social media, powered by TechTarget’s Activity Intelligence™ platform, redefines how technology marketers view and engage technology buyers based on their active projects, specific technical priorities and business needs. With more than 100 technology-specific

25 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com websites and a wide selection of custom advertising, branding, and lead generation solutions, TechTarget delivers unparalleled reach and innovative opportunities to drive technology marketing success around the world.

TechTarget has offices in Atlanta, Beijing, Boston, Cincinnati, London, Mumbai, San Francisco, Singapore and Sydney.

To learn how you can engage with serious technology buyers worldwide, visit techtarget.com and follow us @TechTarget. Marilou Barsam (C) 2012 TechTarget, Inc. All rights reserved. TechTarget and the TechTarget logo are registered trademarks, and Activity Intelligence is a trademark of TechTarget. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

26 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Biography > Marilou Barsam Senior Vice President, Client Consulting & Corporate Marketing, TechTarget

Marilou Barsam, with more than 25 years’ experience in both traditional and online marketing, is responsible for building the company’s Client Consulting team to maximize our advertisers’ results with online programs and as a result pioneered the first integrated lead guarantee program in the media industry, TargetROI, the first program intended to prove return on investment to TechTarget’s client sponsors.

Based on her research on the technology buyer’s media consumption habits, she is frequently called upon to address how to achieve marketing ROI, online media performance, the technology purchase/media process, content marketing, and media integration.

Marilou has contributed to a series of books published by Aspatore Books on C-level business and marketing intelligence, has hosted numerous webcasts with online marketing luminaries such as Larry Weber, technology agency guru, Julie Schwartz, SVP of Research and Thought Leadership for the IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA); Isabelle Kane, Vice President of Client Services for DWA Media and served as on-going contributor to BtoB’s online magazine «Ask the Expert» column, as well as many other online publications and blogs.

Marilou is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and received her M.B.A. focused on Technology Marketing from Bentley College.

www.techtarget.com

Marilou have just published a book on Online Marketing “The Evolution of Online Marketing and the Marketer’s Quest for ROI” on Amazon.

www.linkedin.com/in/MarilouBarsam

27 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.comwhitepaper.customerintelligence.com > Marshall Sponder CEO / Founder of WebMetricsGuru Inc. Analytics and Educational Services Instructor/course creator at Rutgers University & UC Irvine Extension Social Media and/for the Arts and Social Media Measurement

When I’m asked to write about a subject, such as “Customer Intelligence” the very first thing I do is recall what I have already said on the subject, drawing on the 7+ years of writing at WebMetricsGuru.com as my first source of information ; and then, I build up upon that information, sharing with readers what I think it (CI) means to me, today. The reason why going about looking at past thoughts is important in understanding the present, and likely future, is that there is very little that is really “new”, including the idea of what “customer intelligence” really is.

“ Customer intelligence In one sense, customer intelligence is a big data problem, from the is a big data problem, social media perspective, of disambiguating online information in an attempt to find the identities and proclivities of the individuals who from the social media are expressing themselves. Certainly that’s the case with a company perspective, of whose advisory board I sit on, PeekYou.com. disambiguating online PeekYou aggregates online intelligence into customer data and recently came out with PeekAnalytics, an API and Platform that information in an attempt allows customer (usually agencies) to cut and dice online data to to find the identities drive more intelligent interactions.

and proclivities of the The November 6th Election in the United States of Barack Obama individuals who are was clear case for the triumph in the use of Big Data Analytics, as expressing themselves.” what could be more indicative of “customer intelligence” than the microtargeting of segments of the voting population (which was 100% correctly predicted by Nate Silver at the New York Times Fivethirtyeight blog throughout the last four months of the election cycle culminating on November 6th election.

I noticed a pronounced change in 2009 when companies began to look at the data they had, internally, in different silos and merging it. At the time, Web Analytics was beginning to be merged with overall company “data intelligence” or as better name, “customer intelligence”.

28 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com According to Eric Peterson (of Web Analytics Demystified) in late 2009 : “… If you pay close attention to the marketing you see from Omniture, WebTrends, Unica, Coremetrics, and the other “for fee” vendors you’ve surely noticed a dramatic change recently. Nobody is talking about web analytics anymore; the entire focus has become one of systems integration, multichannel data analysis, and cross-channel analytics. All of a the sudden web analytics is starting to sound like, gasp, business and customer intelligence.”

And now, at the close of 2012, all those channels are just facets of a bigger “Big Data” puzzle that we need to sort out and organize so we can best use the information within the data, the signal within the noise.

I think we’re now in an era where “Big Data” makes real time, true Customer Intelligence possible. Up till recently “customer intelligence” was thought to be the same as “business intelligence” and business enterprise reporting, typically using business “ At the close of 2012, objects software such as SAP. Beginning around 2010, people all those channels are began to mine the Social Web looking for business and customer intelligence. In many ways, the predictions I made in London three just facets of a bigger years ago have come to pass and one has but to look at slide 13 of “Big Data” puzzle “The Future of Social Media Monitoring” (on Slideshare) the era of that we need to sort “social colonization” began in 2009 and has fully cumulated this year while the era of “social commerce” is still maturing and will fully out and organize so mature next year. we can best use the information within the One aspect of social commerce maturity involves Building Online Opinion panels, and I wrote about it a few times this year at data, the signal within AllAnalytics.com in realtion to politics, but it could be for almost any the noise.” business.

Going after blogs and Twitter is one thing since most of the data is from those sources is easy to get at, but getting data out of Facebook profiles, has proven to be much more difficult - though Harris Interactive succeed, in a very limited way, in doing just that :

“…Harris Interactive FanConnect offers an alternative for Facebook online panel building. About 60,000 Facebook accounts have given Harris Interactive permission to Friend them and collect their «private» postings. From that, the company creates intelligence by attaching the information to about 100 data points it has built to understand online behavior and brand sentiment.”

29 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Often, for a business, it’s not so much a problem of processing big data, as collecting and operating on the right data (some of it, they may already have), but often, what information they have isn’t stored in a useful form for analysis and customer insights; I call such data, “ultraviolet” and have written a paper on it with Compete.com a few years ago.

“ Without a doubt, Recently others have recoined aspects of my “ultraviolet data” and customer intelligence called it “dark social” and “dark data”; I admit these sound like more compelling terms, perhaps backed by big brands with case studies has different meanings that illustrate both, and I think both fall in very nicely with my original depending on your designation of “ultraviolet data”, as information we could collect and business, who your use, but currently are unable or unwilling to do so. customers are, and Using that line of reasoning, the data exists that will make a company what your business much more profitable, but they may not understand how to get that data, and how to use it. I reasoned that Bees and Wasps can see goals are.” ultraviolet light, but humans cannot - but that doesn’t mean ultraviolet light isn’t present all around us. It is. Not only is the data ever present, but with the right devices, methodologies, frameworks and people, we can capture the UV data, and turn it useful insights that provide customer intelligence and drive a business forward, though the effort capturing UV data might turn out to be pretty expensive and labor intensive in some cases.

As a result, I wrote an eBook about 2 years ago that has been downloaded 17,000 times, as of this writing, on using Social Influence Monitoring on a Shoestring. Originally, the eBook was created for a conference I was speaking at in London, but the ideas in it began to form the genesis of what lead to my book on Social Media Analytics, published by McGraw-Hill last summer.

Without a doubt, customer intelligence has different meanings depending on your business, who your customers are, and what your business goals are. For me, I have tended to look at customer intelligence from the social perspective, mining data from social sources such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs and forums, to name a few, as the best means to get customer intelligence today. That being said, not everyone is on social media, and not everyone who has social media accounts, is actively using social media. It may be, then, the best customer data will be a blend of the new and old, of the information arising from the social stream, together with the data a company or individual already collects.

30 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com One can hope that in time we’ll find seamless ways to combine data to drive customer insights, particularly with Big Data and Big Analytics, which will likely be the subject of my next book. Define and Understand your Business Marketing Goals and the Key Performance Indicators that will be used to gauge progress.

This involves setting up processes and platforms based on their compatibility with your Business Goals, and if you need help with that hire the right consultant to come in and help you set define and setup your program properly. Often an outsider is a better choice for setting up goals and measurement strategies because they are more objective, focused and politically neutral. The only caveat is the consultant needs to understand the business and the customers well, first.

My Four Steps to Customer Intelligence “Think about all 1. Choose or create a Metrics Framework where you can assemble the “friends of your all your Customer Intelligence data into Executive Dashboard(s). customers” and their friends, who might 2. Chart out your business acquisition process in order to ensure that the right analytics tracking is being set up to capture every be interested in your important transaction, and how it maps to overall business goals via Business Services Key Performance Indicators.

or Products. In our 3. Allow sufficient budget, time and personnel to achieve your “connected world” Customer Intelligence goals (this probably involves a bit of the best customer research planning and task forecasting - be sure to account and plan for any dependencies and sub-dependencies that need to intelligence comes from be taken care of beforehand so progress is not stalled at critical “crowd-sourcing”. junctures.)

4. Seek opportunities and develop applications that overlay the “Social Graph” to your Customer Intelligence. Think about all the “friends of your customers” and their friends, who might be interested in your Business Services or Products. In our “connected world” the best customer intelligence comes from “crowd-sourcing”. The wisdom of the crowds can also become your customers (of the crowd).

31 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com If you want to know more about how create frameworks that actualize customer intelligence contact me @webmetricsguru. Also check out the Rutgers course I am teaching again this Winter/ Spring (which you can find out how to sign up for here if you are on Facebook) or here, if your not on Facebook.

And if you want to know more about my Social Media Measurement course at UC Irvine - here is how you can sign up. Students who take my course also get access to the Big Data Platform “Netbase Social Intelligence” free of charge for the duration of the course. Marshall Sponder

32 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Biography

> Marshall Sponder CEO / Founder of WebMetricsGuru Inc.

Marshall Sponder is the CEO/Founder of WebMetricsGuru, a social solutions design, social media analytics, web data analysis, and SEO/SEM practice that focuses on cutting edge market research and social media trend analysis.

Marshall also creates custom designed education modules around the best uses of social media intelligence for the Arts and various Industries.

He is the author of «Social Media Analytics : Effective Tools for Building, Interpreting, and Using Metrics», published by McGraw-Hill, 2012. Marshall also teaches Social Media Analytics and Art at Rutgers University and Social Media Measurement UCI Irvine Extension.

He is a frequent speaker at Analytics conferences internationally and in the United States and can be reached @webmetricsguru or by commenting on :

www.webmetricsguru.com

33 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.comwhitepaper.customerintelligence.com > Tony Coretto Co-CEO, PNT Marketing Services

Five Tips to Accelerate Marketing Results with Customer Intelligence Customer Intelligence : building deeper, more profitable relationships with your customers based on insights generated from everything you know about them.

Smart business leaders understand the fundamental value and transformative power of Customer Intelligence. As Larry Selden and Geoffrey Colvin demonstrate in Angel Customers and Demon Customers, knowing each customer’s financial contribution and understanding customers’ needs and behaviors in order to serve them most profitably make all the difference between business success and failure.

“ Knowing each Customers are our only source of revenue and profits. To survive and customer’s financial prosper, businesses must master the art of taking strategic action based on deep insights into their customers. contribution and understanding Organizing business around customers – as opposed to products, customers’ needs investments, or geography - accelerates business growth : and behaviors in • Detailed knowledge of the profitability of customer segments order to serve them maximizes marketing ROI. most profitably make • Deep understanding of customer behaviors and preferences all the difference allows engagement at the level customers expect (and demand), boosting acquisition and retention. between business • The right offering to the right customer in the right channel, based success and failure.” on specific knowledge of customer needs, accelerates marketing tempo and bottom line results.

Achieving this laudable goal requires actionable insights based on knowledge about customers - knowledge derived from the ability to organize and make sense of customer data.

The daunting reality is that business is in a state of data overload. According to a recent IBM study, 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data are created every day – and 90 percent of all the data ever created

34 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com is less than two years old. Everyone wants to get into the customer intelligence game to outpace the competition, but with the explosion of data and the proliferation of vendor partners to choose from, what’s the smartest next step to take ?

The quickest way to profitable, customer-centric marketing means transforming raw customer data into actionable insight. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Every business has unique objectives, opportunities and customer needs.

For over 20 years, PNT’s experts have helped clients systematically manage, transform, understand and take action on their customer data, quickly and efficiently – without taking their eyes off the day- to-day. Based on that experience, we offer here five tips to get you started.

1. Focus on your customers: after all, who else is going to make your business grow?

Organization : Organizing your business around customer segments seems complicated. Many businesses avoid it - despite evidence “ RBC Royal Bank that it can boost customer loyalty and profitability. Several years ago, re-organized from RBC Royal Bank re-organized from product-centric to customer- centric, realizing more than a billion dollars in additional profits. product-centric to Anything your organization does to align itself to engage customer customer-centric, segments puts you ahead of the competition and delivers bottom- realizing more than line results. a billion dollars in Technology : For many companies, technology obstructs a focus on additional profits.” customers; technology experts may be unresponsive to business needs because of overwhelming operational workloads, budgetary constraints or goals at cross-purposes. Worse, divisions within technology operations may separate data into different silos, making it difficult to create a complete view of the customer. When companies realign technology toward common business goals and refocus it with a more holistic, customer-centric model, then separate systems share (rather than hoard) data, creating true customer intelligence – and ultimately accelerating business growth.

Products/Services : The products and services you offer customers need to be informed by what you know about them: their purchasing patterns, demographics, attitudes and expressed needs and preferences. For example, Swiffer, a hugely popular Procter and Gamble cleaning product line in American households, exported its “Home Made Simple” mantra to Italy - and the easy-to-use

35 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com products gathered dust on the shelf. An analysis of other P&G products purchased by traditional Italian women (the vast majority of home cleaners in Italy are women) revealed that they preferred buying stronger-smelling products, like ammonia and bleach, which required real elbow grease to be effective. When Procter and Gamble refocused their offering with Customer Intelligence, reformulating the product with a stronger smell and more industrial-strength applicators, and touting cleaning power instead of light work, they “ You need to offer the earned customer loyalty - and profits - in Italy. right product to the Channels : As we’ve discussed, you need to offer the right product right customer at the to the right customer at the right time to maximize growth with your right time to maximize most profitable customers. But your fulfillment channels have to match, too. Apple’s retail model provides a dramatic example: its growth with your most bright cathedrals of high design and personal technology packed profitable customers.” with the faithful, eagerly lining up to touch, feel and learn about new products.

It wasn’t always that way; in the late 1990s, the bulk of Apple’s sales were from big box computer and electronics retailers. Apple wasn’t differentiating Macs from Windows PCs. Lackluster sales reps were not creating customer loyalty. Realizing that Apple needed to control the customer experience and the customer relationship more closely, Steve Jobs brought Millard Drexler (CEO of Gap) onto the board to support his initiative to build Apple’s own retail stores. In May 2001, Apple opened their first retail store – an immediate success. Today, Apple has over 360 retail stores and is the global retail leader with over $4,000 in annual sales per square foot.

However, iPhones, iPads, and iMacs are also sold online, in other retail stores and via catalogue. Based on customer intelligence created by analyzing purchase history, demographics and other data, Apple wisely offers many different engagement and buying options, knowing that one size does not fit all and that different customers prefer interacting with and buying from Apple in different ways. Is it any wonder, with this intense focus on the customer, that Apple is the world’s most valuable enterprise?

2. Connect your silos: it’s not a customer’s job to unravel your company’s messy internal wiring. Customers don’t care how you organize your company to serve them - organization, technology, products, services, channels - these are your problems, not your customers’. Don’t let your organization structure, systems, data silos and processes stand in the way of

36 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com maintaining a holistic view of customer engagement. Overcome these internal obstacles so all of your customer interactions reflect your knowledge of their needs, wants and preferences.

Fortunately, the tools and the disciplined approach to help companies break through silo walls and connect on their customers’ behalf are available :

• Master Data Management (MDM) software helps companies bridge data silos. • Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software affords sales representatives a picture of their customers’ entire relationship • Sophisticated call center software helps customer service teams marry historical data on customer service calls with data on purchase history, turning inbound calls into cross-sell opportunities.

In short, finance, marketing, product development, implementation, customer service - every functional team within your organization - needs to share one view of the customer.

Think of the poor customer who wastes an hour on a service call that fails to resolve a problem - then receives a solicitation call to upgrade to a more expensive service agreement from marketing the same day. How likely is that sales professional to persuade his customer on that call? If the reps in the outbound call center had data on the customer’s service history, they could have called with an apology and a solution, deepening the customer relationship rather than angering the customer and weakening the bond. Study after study has shown that effectively solving a problem for a customer builds the strongest loyalty because it shows you listen and you care.

Once your organization identifies the need to focus on customers and connect silos, you need to do three more things :

3. Think small: small steps yield real results, quickly

You want to manage, transform, understand and take action on your customer data, quickly and efficiently. But here is a critical distinction - you want to do this with a minimum disruption to day- to-day business processes. Over two decades of collaborating with customers, we’ve seen firsthand that small, limited-scope projects with specific, measurable goals are more productive than sprawling, bureaucratic, enterprise-wide overhauls.

37 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com It’s called the art of getting things done. Think in terms of a project. Think independently, not bureaucratically. Then test, measure the results and let the improved efficiency and bottom line payoff energize the next project.

4. It’s also important to think big : imagine the big impact your actions will have, then follow through to achieve it.

Just because we’re vocal champions of the small, independent skunk works flying under the radar, that doesn’t mean we’re after small results. IBM, the mainframe giant, would never have developed and delivered the Personal Computer without this nimble, guerrilla approach. Senior management knew they could never create an entirely different computing platform within the confines of the bureaucratic behemoth that was IBM, so they set up a small, independent team in Boca Raton, far away from corporate HQ in Armonk. But they knew this small team could deliver outsized results - they thought big and delivered a revolutionary breakthrough, in record time.

Customer Intelligence will transform your customer relationships, and that will transform your business results. But the big impact will come from the cumulative effect of many, many small breakthroughs over time : think continuous improvement versus root and branch re-engineering.

5. Think fast : the time to get moving was yesterday.

Customer Intelligence can help your business increase marketing ROI, penetrate your target segments more successfully, improve retention and decrease attrition. But your customers are not waiting “ They’re out there on for your breakthrough. They’re out there on the web, on a mobile the web, on a mobile phone, in the retail environment, actively engaging with other brands phone, in the retail - and their loyalty will go to the first company that earns it. environment, actively So we urge our clients to get moving, starting yesterday. Think of engaging with other quick hits, small-scale projects and measurable results. And keep moving. Clients find that once they are in motion, their organization brands - and their retrains itself to be more nimble, achieving accelerated results as loyalty will go to the they test, revise, and then repeat. first company that earns it.”

38 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Ultimately, Customer Intelligence will help you focus on your customers, not your marketing operations, to increase marketing tempo and ROI and deftly engage your most profitable customers across multiple programs simultaneously, creating more value both for the enterprise and for the customer.

Peter Drucker famously said that business is really about only two things : marketing and innovation. And the essential ingredient for success in both of those areas is Customer Intelligence. Tony Coretto

39 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.com Biography > Tony Coretto Co-CEO, PNT Marketing Services

Tony Coretto is the co-founder and co-CEO of PNT Marketing Services, Inc., a database marketing consultancy. Founded in 1988, PNT has appeared for four consecutive years (2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010) on Inc. magazine’s Inc5000 list of the fastest-growing companies in America.

PNT helps clients optimize their marketing mix through the creation and strategic application of customer intelligence, and provides intelligent offer management to support customer acquisition, on boarding, cross-sell, and retention efforts, driving revenue growth through customer-focused, data-driven programs.

Tony has written articles for or appeared in the pages of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Inc. magazine, Banking New York, Maryland Banker, the New York Enterprise Report, and other industry publications.

He blogs for PNT and the New York Enterprise Report, and is currently at work on “The Little Book of Customer Intelligence.”

He is an alumni member of the Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO) and is a member of the Direct Marketing Association, the American Bankers’ Association, the Direct Marketing Club of NY, and sits on the boards of the Westchester Chorale and the Harvard Club of New York City Foundation. He is a cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College, was a University Fellow at Stanford, and is a graduate of the EO/MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program.

Tony is also an avid amateur pianist, skier, and bicyclist, and resides in Larchmont, New York with his wife and two teenage children.

www.pntmarketingservices.com

40 www.customer-intelligence-marketing.comwhitepaper.customerintelligence.com We appreciate your feedback… Please send us your feedback, comments and testimonials at : [email protected]