Category Archives: Analytical Culture

Set Up Retention Program Measurement for Wireless

Jim answers questions from fellow Drillers

Topic Overview

Hi again folks, Jim Novo here.

So, how to you actually set up the measurment for a retention program? Since you will ultimately want to conclusively prove that what you are doing is working, the 1st thing you have to is measure what the current retention rate is, hopefully by segment so you have a basis for creating successful program features. But how do you do that? Read on, fellow Driller!


Q: I got the job of servicing the top users on our network.  I must confess I dazzled the interviewers with statistics from your Recency, Frequency, and Monetary model !!!

A:  Congratulations!  Well done.

Q:  I know I should be paying you for this but I would like to communicate with you once in a while to tell you what’s going on..?  If you are not happy with this I really understand.

A:  I’m fine with it, as long as it doesn’t become a full time job!

Q:  Here’s my plan:

1. I would like to start by segmenting high users by usage, (usage bands)

2. Next I would like to profile demographics for each usage band

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Branding vs. Direct Marketing Metrics

Jim answers questions from fellow Drillers

Topic Overview

Hi again folks, Jim Novo here.

Oh dear. A marketer caught between branding and direct. Each approach has it’s own data and metrics that either can be important or not to the folks working with the other approach. Can the measurment of success using these two approaches be reconcilled? It’s possible, but does that make sense if the “success outcomes” are radically different? Gonna be a deep Drillin’…


Q:  We constantly try to quantify the value of web sites as a branding vehicle.  The thing that keeps gnawing at me is we will often report the average time spent on site.  This seems like it should have a value we could wrap into our ROI, but as it is, it stands largely on its own.  

Are you aware of, or have any thoughts on, how we might put an actual value to this?  Is it enough to show lift without respect to time, and to talk about return visits in terms of frequency models, or is there some way to drill down to a fundamental value of what a person-second on your site could be worth (obviously the content of the site will impact how much of that value you actually got)? 

A:  I’ve done a bunch of work like this and personally, I think you measure branding with branding metrics and direct with direct metrics.  If the CPG people understand the value of advertising in terms of brand affinity, recall, intent to purchase, and so forth, then it seems to me that is what you measure.  They have already made the “final connection” between these metrics and ROI, so it’s not really up to the marketer to make those connections.  They believe increasing intent to purchase = advertising worked.  And I’m not sure you really can make a connection, because the “units” you are measuring are different and the math ultimately fails.

Here’s why.  Traditional advertising has never been judged by the “value of the customer,” it is judged by the “value of the media.”  The customer is “reach” and has no individual value; individual customers are totally exchangeable as long as the reach is the same.  Any single person is irrelevant; it does not matter what they do or don’t do.  If there is no “customer,” I’m not sure how you would ever get to ROI.  It is assumed from reach comes sales, and this is proven using branding metrics, not ROI.

Q:  I’ve gone back and forth on this and approached it from a few different angles For example, determine cost of 1 second of TV advertising per person.  You could use this information to calculate how much it would have cost to communicate the total person-seconds you had on your site in a particular month, but this is fraught with problems as you might guess, and am looking for another point of view.

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Customer Perks Marketing

Jim answers questions from fellow Drillers

Topic Overview

Hi again folks, Jim Novo here.

What’s the best way to handle customized marketing programs, particularly if you are using customer value as the key segmentation approach? Surprise and delight, perhaps slightly influenced by making more money. Sound good? Let’s Drill it … 


Q:  Jim, do you have an opinion on overt versus covert customer benefits?  What I meant by overt vs. covert… have you seen clients do programs where they TOLD their customers they are a valued (Gold, Platinum) customer and provided tangible benefits, vs. others who have just covertly treated these customers specially in some way (i.e. priority routing, better reps, thank you calls, etc.)

A:  Well, a program won’t be very effective if everything is completely covert.  I mean, it’s nice to get great service and that certainly contributes to customer retention, but recognition is much more powerful.  The customer needs to know they are being treated specially at some level to maximize program effectiveness. Why?

Something like call routing is a good example.  If a customer is getting priority call routing and they don’t know it, they may think the service is good.  If you tell them they are going to get it and then they get it, it’s an entitlement they earned.  More powerful, and more effective in keeping the customer.  Let’s say they are thinking of defecting.  If they don’t know they are getting priority routing, they could suspect the service might be as good at the competition.  If they know they are getting priority routing, the question becomes “Does the other guy do this to?  And if so, will he give it to me?”  See what I mean?  It’s much more powerful for the customer to know they are getting special treatment than not to know.

Continue reading Customer Perks Marketing