Category — Customer Value

The combination of laryngitis and integrated marketing expertise led to an interesting doctor visit this week. I’d been battling a cold for a week when my voice disappeared overnight. The only thing I could do was whisper softly. Two days later, it wasn’t back so I had my sister call for a same day appointment. (How do people make doctor appointments when they don’t have a voice, online scheduling, or handy friend?)

It was my doctor’s first day back from vacation, so I was surprised he had time to see me. After an exam, instructions to rest my voice (as in NO talking), and a prescription for antibiotics, my doctor said that he needed to ask me something. I presumed that it was something to do with my health or one of my family members, so when he asked, “has capturing information replaced service?” I was surprised. [Read more →]

Email marketing appears to be the most effective tool in your workshop. It is so efficient and easy that many marketers put it on autopilot. They create a fill in the blank sale template. Then they complete it with slightly different discount information every send. They offer 15% off in one email; free shipping in the next.

Little do they know, behind the glitz of low cost revenue generation, it is insidiously eroding customer lifespan and lifetime value. There are warning signs, but they are buried in the data. Surface analytics like opens, clicks, response rates, and revenue won’t reveal underlying problems. You have to dig deeper.

The dirty little secret of aggressive email marketing is that it sacrifices [Read more →]

We have the technical ability to personalize every email and direct mail piece that we send. Using it to send targeted promotions is smart marketing, but it isn’t personal.

Sometimes I call the sending of email campaigns “blasts”. One such comment I made annoyed a fellow blogger. He said that email campaigns should be targeted and not “blasts”. I responded by chuckling. [Read more →]