Category Archives: Marketing thru Operations

Good Time for Marketing (Re)Alignment

Customer Experience, DataBase Marketing, Marketing thru Operations

What’s Marketing Alignment?  Search Google for this phrase and you will find a lot of discussion on aligning Marketing with Sales, the old B2B chestnut.  I’m not going in that direction.

I’m talking about making sure all the Operational interfaces to the customer have Marketing input, that the messaging and interactions with customers reflect the Marketing Strategy.

Marketing Alignment is making sure Marketing as a discipline is always facilitating Demand Fulfillment across the entire enterprise.  If Management is looking for a “big idea” during these times of change, a new way to approach the business as opposed to simply cutting budgets, Marketing Alignment just might be the ticket.

This Marketing Alignment issue can be a particularly important for growth companies.  When you started out, it was all about the customer – when there was less than 10 of them.  Now that you have 1,000 or 100,000 customers, you have probably created processes, procedures, and goals that unintentionally create barriers to closing new customers and fostering repeat business.

Here’s the basic argument for the Marketing Alignment idea:

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Relationship Marketing Economics

Customer Experience, DataBase Marketing, Lab Store, Marketing thru Operations

Just opened up a carton from a manufacturer we use in the Lab Store.  Every unit inside looks like this:

Bad nozzle

Here’s your challenge:

Would anybody in your business recognize this as a problem?  Or would they just shrug and transfer the item to the picking racks?

In other words, finding this, would you or an employee:

1.  Ship to the customer as is, let the customer figure it out

2.  Cut the nozzle off so customer doesn’t have to even think about it, doesn’t have to send you e-mail or call asking about it

Your answer to this question depends on:

1.  How customer-centric you / your org really is

2.  How much you understand about the financials of your business

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Lab Store: Year End Analysis

DataBase Marketing, Lab Store, Marketing thru Operations, Web Analytics

Some stats from the Lab Store (Background) for the year:

Processed 10,172 orders, up 3% from last year, despite a logistical problem in the business model we did not have control over (breeding of animals).  Fixed that, so should not be an issue going forward.  Merchandise Return Rate of .3% on dollars, which is quite low.

Returns cost money to process, imply negative Social feedback, and increase customer defection by creating poor experience.  We do everything we can up front to keep returns and other negative experiences from happening in the first place by screening products and actually taking action on customer feedback and analysis.  Often, we modify packaging, create our own instructions, or assemble products we know people will have trouble with.  More on this idea here: Marketing through Operations and Panic Pack!.

We retained between 75% – 87% of our best buyers depending on what time frame you use, and further improvement in these stats is pending test results.  More on this idea here: Frequent Buyer Analysis.

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