Category Archives: DataBase Marketing

The Other 3 P’s

Customer Experience, DataBase Marketing, Marketing thru Operations

It’s interesting most folks that consider themselves Marketers, especially of the online variety, seem to only discuss and have ideas about Advertising.  But of the 4 P’s that make up Marketing – Product (which includes People), Price, Place (channel), and Promotion – Promotion (Advertising) is the weakest element of the four.

I say weakest because Advertising cannot fix a poorly thought out Product, Pricing Strategy, or Distribution system.  It just can’t.  Yet huge amounts of money are wasted trying to do exactly that.

Perhaps this why someone feels they need to publish a book that tells people Product is important in Marketing.  To me, that’s the most circular or redundant idea for a Marketing book I’ve ever heard.

Marketing starts with Product, which should include all the audience or market segmentation studies (People) that drive the creation of the Product – defining the need.  If you do this first and develop a Product which truly fills the need, AND you get the Pricing and Distribution right, the Product will literally sell itself to the core audience.

If you can make it that far, THEN the Product can perhaps be sold to the next segment out from the core through Advertising.  All “Marketers” should know this.

Continue reading The Other 3 P’s →

Lead Scoring and Nurturing

DataBase Marketing, Driller Q & A, Measuring Engagement, Newsletters

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

Q: I received this article (Norms of Reciprocity, measuring value of Social Marketing) via a friend’s Twitter account. Very interesting.

A: Glad you enjoyed it!

Q: It has made open up my ACT! database, and my Outlook databases and add the metric of Growing / Strong / Weakening / Failed to my normal Sales and Business progress metrics. If I group those categories and correlate to traditional metrics, it’s impressive how they reflect each other.

A: Yes, most people are surprised. It’s a very, very simple idea that seems to work across just about any human activity including crime, attendance, and so forth.

The more Recently someone has done something, the more likely they are to do it again. Conversely, the longer since an activity last took place, the less likely the person will do it again. Often called Recency in Psychology and studied quite a bit.

Q: Now I have to think about how I really use and apply this. : )

A: Well, if I can guess you are in Sales from your title, typically one of the best applications is in what Strategic Marketing folks might call “allocation of resources”, which probably translates into “lead nurturing” for you.

Continue reading Lead Scoring and Nurturing →

Norms of Reciprocity

Analytical Culture, Customer Experience, DataBase Marketing, Measuring Engagement, Web Analytics,

Social Marketing Doesn’t Rely on Social Media

Do you believe human beings share certain fundamental traits that define “being human”?

If so, do you believe that human beings tend to behave in certain ways under certain circumstances?

If so, do you then believe since human behavior has these tendencies, it can often be predicted?

If so, then do you think perhaps the study of Psychology and Sociology might provide you some clues to creating successful businesses, campaigns, products, and services?  While your friends and competitors are all iterating their way into oblivion?

On the web, time and time again, we see the same themes repeating.  Yet with each introduction of a new technology, these themes tend to be treated like a new discovery, even though the theme has been well established in the past.

Norms of Reciprocity is a constant human theme.  You may know the expression of these norms as “Sharing”.  Web old timers will probably recognize this idea as “Give, then Take” from the I-Sales discussion list as early as 1995.  In various forms, this theme goes back to the beginning of human history, all the way back to the handshake and other greeting gestures.  This same theme is embedded in countless Religions all over the world: “Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you”.  At least a couple centuries old, this idea.

Norms of Reciprocity simply means this: When you do something nice for a human being, help them in some way, this human tends to feel Gratitude towards “the doer” and tends to do something nice back.  Gratitude drives the desire to Reciprocate, because it’s just what humans do, it’s normal, a “norm”.

Norms of Reciprocity.

Continue reading Norms of Reciprocity →