Category Archives: Brand Management

Branding vs. Direct Marketing Metrics

Analytical Culture, Analytics Education, Brand Management, DataBase Marketing, Driller Q & A, Measuring Engagement

Jim answers questions from fellow Drillers
(More questions with answers here, Work Overview here, Index of concepts here)

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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Are Quitters of Club Likely Still Good Customers?

Analytics Education, Brand Management, Customer Experience, DataBase Marketing, Driller Q & A, Measuring Engagement

Jim answers questions from fellow Drillers
(More questions with answers here, Work Overview here, Index of concepts here)

Topic Overview

Hi again folks, Jim Novo here.

How do you handle the measurement of “likely to purchase” when there’s a built in cycle of purchase as a “member”, like in a book club or other auto-delivery scheme? And what if a member quits membership but keeps buying, what does that mean for predicting future buyer behavior? Oh, the complexity of it all! Let’s do the Drillin’ …

Q:  I just ordered the book too, so I am eager to learn more about SIMPLE ways to implement RFM-based strategies.

A:  Well, thank you for ordering!  I hope it fulfills your expectations.

Q:  In the continuity club (Jim’s Note: flower of the month, book of the month, beer of the month) club business though, a little of the RFM process looks tricky because everyone has a certain Frequency built-in, because of the “repeat” nature of clubs.  Also, we’re starting to see a  phenomenon where customers that drop out of our club continue to order from us.

A:  This is quite normal, depending on how the club is set up and whether or not you make it “easy” for people to continue.  In some clubs, you are either in or not (books, CD’s, credit cards).  Most catalog-type clubs (pay a fee in exchange for ongoing discounts / added services) see continuation beyond club membership.  It’s a volume-based thing and a “rational” decision by the consumer – if you need to buy a lot of stuff, joining the club makes sense, because the discount pays for the membership.  

In your case, it might be more attached to education, for example – you join the club to educate yourself about the products, then quit when you can “do it on your own.”  Or, you get lots of  product to experience the variety, and settle into a specific usage pattern.  This is the Customer LifeCycle at work.  If you can recognize these patterns, you can use them to predict what customers are likely to do next.  If you can predict behavior, you can create very high ROI customer marketing programs.

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The Cost of Queuing Customers

Analytical Culture, Brand Management, Customer Experience, DataBase Marketing, Driller Q & A, Measuring Engagement,

Jim answers questions from fellow Drillers
(More questions with answers here, Work Overview here, Index of concepts here)

Topic Overview

Hi again folks, Jim Novo here.

If customers have to “wait” for service, does the inconvenience / possible frustration impact their value? Great question; problem is, most businesses don’t know how to answer it in a way that will be meaningful to the value of the business. You know our Drillers though, they’ll get about it with actionable results in mind. On to the Drillin’!

Q:  Are you familiar with (or can you refer me to someone who is familiar with) customer satisfaction around queuing up for service?

A:  This is a Frequently Asked Question for sure, and not one there is a lot of statistically believable data on…at least that people are willing to release.  Kind of a sensitive subject, as you might think…

Q:  I work for a large bank.  We have perceived queuing problems in some of our branches – generally due to layout restrictions. I say perceived because although a queue is long, it moves fairly quickly with the actual wait time to see a teller often less than 5 minutes (considered at par with our competition). 

However, customers grumble when they walk into the branch and see the line and continue to grumble out loud until they reach the teller  and then continue to communicate their dissatisfaction to the teller.  Do you know if any work has been done in this area with other large companies that tend to have long queues (like airline ticket counters, large retailers)?

Thanking you in advance for your response.

A:  I think this issue can be an illusion; let me tell you what I mean. 

For e-commerce, somebody like Gartner does a survey that says people hate shipping charges, and every web site kicks in “free shipping.”  Guess what? People have always hated shipping charges since 1850 when the catalog business started.  And why not?  It looks like extra cost to the customer.  But if you run your business correctly, you price with shipping in mind and manage costs so that you still make a profit.

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