Octofinder

Are you wasting time on quick, bad research?

March 18, 2010

Image by @superamit via Flickr

Can you stop the insanity?
This week, in a post in Ad Age online , called “Online Research: Don’t Confuse More with Better“, Constance O’Hare addressed the problem of companies fielding multiple, poorly designed market research studies or “web surveys” without spending the time to make sure the research (1) asks the [...]

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How can you market without understanding your customers?

March 10, 2010

Sitting here this evening waiting for my younger daughter to be judged in a History Day competition, I found myself thinking about the value of history.
Have we learned nothing?

In front of me are tables filled with historical vignettes, with students standing poised to answer questions from the judges. After the judging is completed, the [...]

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Will Sales reject your database marketing program?

March 8, 2010

“The sales team rejected the initiative entirely,” my client told me, “they said they had too much to do already and could not handle anything else.” “So what are we going to do with our new segmentation?”
I had this conversation recently with one client; actually I have had this conversation in one [...]

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Will your first results doom your data-driven marketing?

March 7, 2010

Will anyone listen to you if you can bring good results?
Over the past two weeks, our team has been working on a campaign analysis that was the first using the new customer segmentation for one of our clients.  It got me to thinking:  Why does customer-focused marketing fail in some companies, while in others it [...]

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Poor customer service: Do you know how much it is costing you?

March 4, 2010

What would you do different if you could quantify the lost value of poor customer service?

The research firm Greenfield Online and Datamonitor/Ovum released a study this week, “The Cost of Poor Customer Service,” that estimated the amount of money lost by U.S. firms due to poor customer service.  They estimated the cost to be $83 [...]

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Are you reaching your Best Customers through social media?

February 27, 2010

And can you get feedback that you can act on?
Fast Company, in their March edition, profiled the restaurant chain Houlihan’s, who took a unique data-driven approach to identifying and leveraging the input from Best Customers using social media, “Social Network Rockets Houlihan Restaurant’ Profits.” The results are clear: in the pilot markets, profits have [...]

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Are you losing Millennial customers?

February 23, 2010

Image by lyzadanger via Flickr

Are you ready for Gen Z customers?
Do you even know who they are?
This week, I read a post by Scott Zimmerman on Fast Company’s web site, talking about the differences between Gen Z customers and previous generations.  Understanding those differences can make that difference between companies that build relationships and [...]

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Are you hurting your bottom line by focusing on it?

February 18, 2010

Do your customers think you are only out for their money?
Last week, Forrester came out with its annual Customer Advocacy rankings, rating nearly 50 financial service institutions in the U.S.  The key statement they ask is, “My financial service provider does what’s best for me, not just for its own bottom line.”  The largest banks [...]

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Can you support your Social Media spending to the CFO?

February 14, 2010

Image by fredcavazza via Flickr

Are you ready to defend your social media spend?
More and more these days, I am seeing companies plunging into social media initiatives, without giving them the hard thinking that is required of the rest of the marketing plan.  While this approach may be admirable in the desire to “get into the [...]

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What if your Best Customers were leaving, but you didn’t know why?

February 8, 2010

Why do your Best Customers leave?  Maybe customer experience is the cause.

Mark Hurst, in his blog “Good Experience,” wrote a post called “A Bank Customer Experience,” which chronicles his experience with his (now former) bank.  Despite years with the bank, after receiving just one letter and making one call to the call center, his experience [...]

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