Category Archives: DataBase Marketing

Relationship Marketing in Manufacturing

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: Do the principals in the Drilling Down book apply to manufacturing? I was first introduced to Relationship Marketing in an MBA course years ago. I have been looking for an opportunity to test these ideas and now find that chance in this job (I was and still am a foot soldier, but now have more responsibility in these areas).

Manufacturers typically look at the highest revenue-producing customer, then pull out the manufacturing directory and start calling every company in the same business. Not really marketing. Can CRM be used to mine the data we need to be predictive and focused on the value of customers and retention?

A: Sure, same core issues and metrics apply:

1. Retention: Identify best customers, determine order cycles, set up a report that tells you who “should have” ordered but did not based past on past history, either market to them or send this info to sales, depending on the value of the customer.

2. Recapture / Defection: Identify best customers who have stopped purchasing and find out why, take action aligned with the value of the customer. You may not get these customers back, but you will learn critically valuable information that will help you retain customers in the future – is there reason in common why these customers left you? Was there a common Salesperson? A common Product line? A common type of Machine used? A common Material? Take these findings back into Operations and find out if the issue can be corrected.

Continue reading Relationship Marketing in Manufacturing →

Off the Marketing Richter Scale

Brand Management, Customer Experience, DataBase Marketing, Marketing thru Operations, Web Analytics

Man, what a month in Marketing land.

First, you have one of the largest Ad Agencies in the world admitting their business model is broken, because agencies are not in charge of the fundamentals of Branding – service, innovation, engagement, and execution.  I would add the same thing could often be said of the client side; MarCom people spend way too much time on “Com” and not enough on “Mar” – is it time for a realignment?

Then, in an even more spectacularly unexpected move, you have C-Level folks at 2 gargantuan Advertising Agencies (though both part of WPP) co-writing an article declaring that Brand and Response are the Same.  Here’s the opener: “the value that brands bring to a company’s total business value is exaggerated.”

Holy Branding Batman, that’s one heck of a thing to say for an Ad Agency, know what I mean?  But they are absolutely right, the nature of a Brand has changed, this ain’t the 1960’s.

This is how they get to “the singularity”:

“What was once sales is now enhancing the brand expe­rience, because through direct marketing technology and strategies, a brand can reinforce its ability to listen, customize and learn from the consumer. This is not just direct marketing, its direct engagement with every potential customer, sometimes at the moment they’re introduced to the brand.  In fact, in a world of compressed consumer decision-making, direct response is now a potent form of brand­ing.”

I love it when you talk that way.

Let’s be clear on this.

Continue reading Off the Marketing Richter Scale →

Best Seller Gone Bad

Customer Experience, DataBase Marketing, Marketing thru Operations

Electronic keyboards were expensive in the 80’s and early 90’s, especially good ones.  Then came Casio, and the whole business changed.  At HSN, we loved the electronic keyboard business.

The category was made for TV shopping – the demonstrations were killer, and with all the new-fangled automation on board, “anybody can play the keyboard”.  In HSN language, “keyboards screamed” and you always got a call center “whoosh” – the sound you hear when inbound calls ramp from 100 to 1000 in 30 seconds.

So I’m talking with the keys merchant, and he says they’re having a supply disruption, and there will be challenges keeping the keys in stock because they sell so well.  This is a problem for me, because I’m publishing the monthly customer (offline) magazine and we’ve got some layouts and articles on the product.

I ask for a simple merchandising run on the SKUs to get a feeling for product in pipeline, to see if maybe I have to kill the spread.  We’ve sold 45,000 of the little beggars, which is pretty good for (what was then) a $500+ item.  It averages about $1,000 a minute in Margin, which is great versus network overhead cost of $300 per minute.

Problem is, we’ve only ever purchased 17,000 of them.

Continue reading Best Seller Gone Bad →