Archive for the ‘DataBase Marketing’ Category

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Webcast on Web Intelligence 11/19

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

Speaking of Web Intelligence, if you are interested in experiencing what the world of web analytics looks like when it meets Business Intelligence, the WAA and our Certificate partner for Web Intelligence, UC Irvine, are doing a Free webcast on this topic. 

Jim Humphrys has the research on salaries and demand in the sector, Shaina Boone of Critical Mass is the practitioner who has both taken the Certificate classes and is applying this knowledge in the real world, and Bernie Jeltema is a UCI Instructor for the Certificate classes.

Here’s the official description:

UCI Webinar: Certificate in Web Intelligence
Wednesday 19-Nov-08 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM EDT

Web Intelligence is a combination of web analytics and business intelligence. As companies expand their reach into the global marketplace, the need to analyze how customers use their web sites to learn about products and make buying decisions is becoming increasingly critical for survival and success.  Wondering how to position yourself for these career opportunities and how specific coursework can be valuable?  This planning session will provide pre-registration educational and career advancement advisement. Also learn more about the web intelligence certificate program, courses being offered in upcoming quarters, and career planning resources available through the UC Irvine Extension and the University of British Columbia, Continuing Studies

  • Jim Humphrys, WL Gore, co-chair, WAA Research Committee
  • Shaina Boone, Critical Mass
  • Bernie Jeltema, Instructor in Business Intelligence, consultant in field

    • To register visit: http://unex.uci.edu/certificates/it/web_intel/

    On this page, you can either sign up to “Stay Informed” about the program (green bar) or Register for the webcast in the box below this bar, which is called Web Intelligence Education Planning Session.

    Tags:
    Posted in Analytical Culture, Analytics Education, DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics | 1 Comment »

    Lab Store: Frequent Buyer Analysis

    Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

    Every year just before the holiday season we take a look at the customer database for the Lab Store - the online retail biz my wife runs – and see what’s up with 10x or more buyers.

    I often prefer to look at “worst case” data when doing customer analysis; this way you don’t over-estimate the Potential Value of the business going forward.  The beginning of the 4th Quarter is a good time to do this since “holiday” really hasn’t kicked in yet, so you don’t have those buying influences skewing the natural activity in the customer database.

    At the end of September, we took a look at all customers, no matter when they became customers,  who have purchased from us at least 10 times - a best customer analysis.  Considering a “year” to be 9/30 to 9/29,  we bucketed them by when their last purchase was - past year, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, 4 or more years ago (the business started 5 years ago).

    Here are the results:

    Last purchase date was in               Percentage of all 10x or more Buyers

    9/30/07 -  9/29/08                                 75%

    9/30/06 -  9/29/07                                 12%

    9/30/05 -  9/29/06                                   8%

    9/30/04 -  9/29/05                                   5%

    If this data is still confusing, the second line above would read, “Of all customers who have ever bought 10x or more, 12% last purchased in the period 9/30/06 -  9/29/07.

    (more…)

    Posted in DataBase Marketing, Lab Store | 5 Comments »

    Web Intelligence

    Friday, November 7th, 2008

    As I said in an earlier comment, I didn’t get to see many of the sessions at eMetrics DC due to a raft of WAA stuff and great interactions with the people at the show outside the sessions.  But I have seen a lot of commentary, notably from Gary, Judah, and Eric, and related, from Christopher, on the overall message.

    I have to say I agree (or is it have agreed?) – web analytics is headed for the BI shop.  In what form, we can only speculate.  But I have a few ideas, and a great resource that could be quite helpful depending on where you want to go with your analytical career.

    The Google Analytics API, for one thing, is going to be huge from a BI perspective.  Just exactly what you have access to and in what format will be an issue for some BI folks, who tend to want “all of it”.

    If BI really wants all the data, WebTrends was talking about cleaving the reporting from the processing – just like a traditional BI scenario, where the analytics app sits on top of any warehouse.  But I think in general most BI folks are over-thinking this issue and in time, they are going to be more satisfied with the “right” data, as opposed to “all”.

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    Posted in DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics | 7 Comments »

    New Online Marketing Model First?

    Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

    Well, the call for a new Online Marketing Requirements doc to correct the Wrong Model, Dumb Money problem did not get much traction so far.  So I’m thinking maybe you need a new Online Marketing Model first to hang the Requirements doc on.  Fair enough.

    Here’s the challenge: I don’t think there is a universal enough agreement on what online brings to the Marketing party.  Sure, it gets explained in tons of ways, but for the most part these explanations are all Tactical stuff – do this, get that.

    That’s not good enough, that’s too small, and it’s not unique to online.  CEO’s and CMO’s are looking for the Strategy edge, and they are looking for ways Online is a “logical fit” into the Marketing Mix.  What is online “for”, and perhaps more importantly, what can it do better than what we already have?

    This is important because if you can get to this place, then you have leverage, then you have the ability to draw more money into Online Marketing / Analysis - because it is different.

      (more…)

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    Posted in DataBase Marketing, Marketing / Tech Interface, Web Analytics | 6 Comments »

    No Requirements Doc for Online Marketing?

    Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

    Trying to figure out why Online Marketing and the Technology that supports it keeps Repeating Past mistakes, I arrived at the conclusion Technology and Marketing shared the blame by using the Wrong Model and spending Dumb Money, respectively. 

    But I was not satisfied with that conclusion either, still seemed not to be Root Cause – I still had to ask, why?

    Why, with all the smart people around the industry, all the brilliant technology innovation, do we have the Wrong Model / Dumb Money problem?  Why does Online continue to mimic an inferior Offline model, instead of creating a new one, unique to itself?

    Then it hits me.  No requirements doc.  So simple.

    (more…)

    Posted in DataBase Marketing | 2 Comments »

    Sherlock Holmes Problem

    Friday, September 12th, 2008

    I think this is probably the last Learning and Teaching issue in Online Marketing (series starts here) before attempting to evaluate and summarize the challenge.  I would like to receive comments from you on the Sherlock Holmes Problem.

    “There are two types of minds — the mathematical and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the dive.”

    – Blaise Pascal

    In his post How the Skills of a Night Auditor Translate into Web Analytics, Christopher Berry explores a notion we have wrestled with a lot while developing the WAA’s Certified Web Analyst Test – can you teach someone to be curious in a “business analytics” way?  Or are people just born with / socialized into this skill set?  How do you measure and test someone for “analytical curiosity”?

    We have referred to these issues internally on the Education Committee as the “Sherlock Holmes” problem.  The issue is not the ability to read and interpret reports, or write up findings, or anything like that.  It’s the ability to see coincidences or oddities in the data, to conceptualize linkage or relationships others don’t see, to follow the data trail (or blaze it) right down to Root Cause.

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    Posted in Analytical Culture, DataBase Marketing, Marketing / Tech Interface, Web Analytics | 3 Comments »

    Repeating the Past

    Monday, September 1st, 2008

    I’ve been trying to get a few things straight in my head about the way people Learn Online Marketing.

    Will you help me?

    Here’s a Premise:

    The Online Marketing world seems to repeat the same mistakes over and over; it’s almost like every new generation of technology is a clean slate and somehow people expect an approach that was flawed in a previous generation won’t be flawed this time.

    Sure, technology changes, but the fundamentals of human behavior are much more difficult to change.  So you would expect there to be some constants, right?

    For example, putting a high value on “quantity” of activity (remember Hits?) when every past generation has found that “quality” ends up as a more important metric.

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    Posted in Analytical Culture, DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics | 12 Comments »

    Consensus Learning Model

    Thursday, August 28th, 2008

    My question about whether you learned anything at SES or not didn’t get much reaction.  I suspect the answers were polarized, with half the people thinking “not really, I go there for other reasons” and the other half thinking “of course I did”.

    Answers to that question might have been helpful, but…

    What I’m really questioning is this: How do people in the web space learn what they learn?  Associated questions are:

    1.  Has quantity eclipsed quality as a yardstick for the success?

    2.  Implications for Teachers / Course Developers of the answer to #1

    There are also some serious implications for “Web Marketing” adoption (in all forms) by the broader Marketing community buried in the above.  To me, this is not unlike the “CRM Problem”, where for years (and still) people confused the Technology solution with the Marketing potential, which set CRM back a decade.

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    Posted in Analytical Culture, DataBase Marketing, Marketing / Tech Interface, Web Analytics | 6 Comments »

    Marketing Productivity Analysts

    Friday, August 22nd, 2008

    Businesses usually have some analysts around, even if the business is not particularly “data-driven”.

    The term Business Analyst has been around for a while, usually referring to a person who is a translator of sorts between Business Units and IT.  These people try to make sure “requirements” from the business side are implemented as desired on the IT side.

    Sometimes there are Operational Analysts, who are typically IT folks or Engineers, depending on the business.  This is the world of Six Sigma and process, where the business is trying to improve throughput or cut down on waste.  But we know that just because Operations is Operating Just Fine, we don’t always get the result we would like from a Marketing perspective.

    A similar Analyst might be present in Marketing Operations Management.  This is really about the process of Marketing execution though, not Acquisition / Retention / Customer Value.

    I don’t think I have ever seen a decent-sized business without Financial Analysts.  These folks look for variances or unusual activity in Financial Reporting and seek to explain why.  Sometimes they actually get involved with Marketing analysis, though usually not for something like “Campaigns”.  Instead, they look for structural problems that manifest as a “problem with Marketing” in the Financial systems.

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    Posted in Brand Management, DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics | No Comments »

    Operations is Operating Just Fine

    Sunday, August 17th, 2008

    99.99% Up time and No Broken Links – What Else Do You Want?

    Do you remember web sites when the web was ruled by engineers?  Before Marketing-oriented folks  forced issues like analytics, usability, and testing into the mix?

    Just because systems are Operating within Operational guidelines doesn’t mean they’re Optimized for Marketing / Experience.  Yet often these systems are responsible for customer touch point execution in one way or another, directly or indirectly, and have measurable effects on customer value.  Call center screens and scripts.  VRU’s.  Invoices and Packing Slips.  These are the obvious ones. 

    Here’s some others:  Contact Reason Codes.  Payment processing.  Inventory management.  Mail room and Address Correction.  Depending on your business model, there are probably dozens.

    (more…)

    Tags:
    Posted in DataBase Marketing, Marketing thru Operations, Web Analytics | No Comments »

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