Optimizing General Communication (Band 4)

DataBase Marketing, Measuring Engagement,

In the Band 3 Optimization, we’re concerned about the Interface, the moment of truth when people who have Awareness, Interest, and Desire generated in Bands 1 and 2 are ready to take Action.  If we are successful at Optimizing the Interface, people take Action and become Customers, entering Band 4 of the model.

At HSN, we looked at customer communication this way: as soon as a customer makes their first purchase, they begin the defection (dis-Engagement) process.  I’ve referred to this idea before as “customers naturally fall down through the bands“.  The approach assumes every customer interaction we have after the first purchase directly affects how long this new customer will remain a customer.

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Optimizing the Interface (Band 3)

DataBase Marketing, Marketing / Tech Interface, Web Analytics

After the lessons we learned in the Band 1 and 2 Optimizations (see Band diagram) for HSN, we were able to reallocate that budget to invest in Band 3 – Optimizing the Interface. We realized during the previous Optimizations we were already getting a tremendous amount of traffic through channel surfer / clickers, but this traffic was not “converting”. In other words, we really needed to Optimize the “Landing Page” for this existing audience – the TV show itself.

Don’t suppose the above scenario sounds at all familiar to the web analytics folks out there – you know, “more traffic, any traffic” is the answer? Oops, maybe not, what about higher conversion?

I won’t bother providing the Band 3 example for the web; you all know what Optimizing Landing pages / web sites is about, or can certainly find that info elsewhere. However, you might find the Optimization of a TV shopping channel interesting…

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Optimizing Marketing Bands 1 & 2

DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics

Now that we’ve had some discussion on the ideas behind these charts, let’s dig deeper into the Marketing Bands chart and review details at each level (click for a larger image in a new window):

HSN Marketing Funnel

What we have here is a chart of the optimized interactive Marketing Bands system we developed at HSN, with an overlay of comparable online Tactics in red (Band numbers in Blue).

After nearly a decade of testing, we arrived at the place where each dollar of marketing spend – at each level – yielded the highest profitability to the company.  Many of the examples here pertain directly to web marketing, and I promise I’ll be specific on that.

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