Category Archives: DataBase Marketing

“X Month” Value

DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics

The basic concept of LifeTime Value (LTV) was ably outlined by Seth Godin in a great post here.  If you know the average net value of a customer is $2500 over their “Life”, why would you not spend  $50 (or $200, really) to acquire each one?  As long as you stuck to the model, your company would be insanely profitable over time.

Their are 2 primary challenges to implementing this idea.

1.  “Over time” is a concept many management folks have a hard time embracing; what matters are the profits this year, or this quarter, or this month.  Unless the whole company embraces an “over time” measurement approach it is difficult for Marketers and Analysts to drive towards programs and practices supporting the LTV outcome.

2.  The $2500 is an average figure.  Most customers are worth less; 10% or 20% are worth much more.

Most people I talk to embrace the general idea of LTV models intuitively.  It’s really a cash flow concept, isn’t it?

So Financial people get it right away, and if Marketers could align with it, there would be no conflicts and the Marketing budget becomes virtually unlimited.

In fact, many folks in the PPC world follow just this model – they have unlimited budget as long as each conversion costs no more than “X”.  Because the company knows if it spends no more than X on a conversion, it always makes money.   Marketers and Analysts involved with these “Cost < X” PPC programs love them, because Management loves them. 

And Management loves them, why?  Because the CFO loves these programs  Why?  Because they are based on Cash Flow analysis, which CFO’s understand very, very well.

So then, what will it take to get more acquisition budgets like these Cost < X  PPC programs?  We have to address the two challenges above:

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Member Retention in Professional Orgs

DataBase Marketing, Driller Q & A, Marketing thru Operations, Newsletters

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

Q: I have recently purchased your book Drilling Down and going through the many interesting concepts.

A: Thanks for that!

Q:  I work for a membership Organization and we would like to conduct some analysis into who we may lose and approach them even before their membership lapses.  But the only problem here is that we carry data only on the purchases made (though many of our members do not purchase our products and stay a member) and web site visits.

A:  Are you *sure* that’s all the data you collect?  I once worked with a professional membership org that thought they only had one data source, but turns out they had 8 – from 8 different areas of the org – that nobody really knew about.

Q:  How do I know if a particular member is going to resign and lapse soon with this limited amount of behavioral data?  Recently it’s been a concern that we are losing members who have been with us for more than 10 years and who are in their mid career profession (aged between 30 to 45) and indicated no specific reason for resignation. 

This has been going on for the last few months and now we would like to strategically target these customers and approach them even before they react negative.  What concepts could help me to do this? Your guidance would be much appreciated.

A:  OK, my answer will be in two sections: if you (hopefully) find you have more data than you think, and if you really don’t have any other data to fall back on.

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Relational vs. Transactional

Analytical Culture, Customer Experience, DataBase Marketing, Driller Q & A, Marketing thru Operations, Measuring Engagement, Newsletters

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

Q: I am hoping you can help answer a question for our team. By way of introduction, I am the CEO of XXXX. We are a specialty retailer / restaurant of gourmet pizza, salads and sandwiches. We would like to know restaurant industry averages (pizza industry if possible) for customer retention – What percentage of customers that have ordered once from a particular restaurant order from them a second time?  I am hoping with your years of expertise and harnessing data you may be able to assist us with this question. Look forward to hearing from you.

A:  Unfortunately, in those said years of experience, I have found little hard information on customer retention rates in QSR and restaurants in general (if anyone has data, please leave in Comments).  It’s just the nature of the business that little hard data, if collected, is stored in such a way that one can aggregate at the customer level. The high percentage of cash transactions doesn’t help matters much; there’s a lot of data missing.

Over the years, sometimes you see data leak out for tests of loyalty programs, and of course clients sometimes have anecdotal or survey data, but this isnot much help in getting to a “true” retention rate. More often than not you discover serious biases in the way the data was collected so at best, you have a biased view of a narrow segment. Often what you get is a notion of retention among best customers, or customers willing to sign up for a loyalty card, but not all customers. And the large “middle” group of customers is where all the Marketing leverage is.

What to do about this predicament?

There are really two issues in your question; the idea of using industry benchmarks when analyzing customer performance, and the measurement of retention in restaurants.

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