Tag Archives: business

May 21, 2014 · 10:09 am

Your Data Sucks

If you do any work in marketing or sales or just about anything these days you know that you get an overwhelming amount of data each day.  As it turns out, the real issue might not be the amount of the data but the quality of it.  The chart I’ve included today is from the Experian folks reminding us that “Garbage In, Garbage Out” is a truism we can’t avoid.  In fact, many of us are doing a really lousy job of doing so.


The state of data quality

I don’t think it’s a big surprise that the report states that only one third of companies manage their data quality strategy centrally, through a single director.  That, of course, means that:

66% of companies lack a coherent, centralized approach, says the report. Most have little centralization and manage data quality by individual department. For marketers to really take advantage of data insights, information needs to be accurate, consolidated and accessible in real time. A centralized organization-wide data management strategy is essential for marketing success.

I’ll give you an example.  Say you have great web analytics information and fantastic sales information from another data source.  If nobody took the time to figure out a “key”  – a field of data common to both databases – those two excellent, useful, actionable pieces of information can’t be synched up.  That’s why a coherent data schema is important and too many cooks, especailly unsupervised cooks, can really spoil this dish.

Even within a single data-gathering pool, poor planning can be a disaster.  Let’s say you are gathering address information.  If you don’t use a drop-down menu to populate the “state” field, you’re going to end up with typos, different abbreviations (AR, AK, ARK, AS could all be Arkansas) or someone using an abbreviation that your database thinks is another place entirely.  91% of companies suffer from common data errors, the main cause of which is human error. Experian again:

The high level of inaccurate information is brought about by a high level of human error. In many instances information entered across the organization is typed into a database at some point manually, by an employee or the customer directly. That exposes information to different levels of standardization, abbreviations and errors.

As with any part of your business, the quality of your actions is dependent on the quality of the information you have at  hand.  A little time spent on planning is worth a lot in improving that quality.  You agree?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, Helpful Hints, Reality checks

Tagged as , , , ,

May 15, 2014 · 9:20 am

Love The One You’re With

One of the ongoing discussions I have with clients is the need to balance acquiring new customers with servicing exiting ones.

First customers

(Photo credit: stavos)

Many of the businesses with which I’ve been fortunate to have worked over the last few years place a far greater emphasis on acquisition than they do on showing the love to those who are already in the fold.  One of my mantras has been that it’s almost always more cost-effective and profitable to retain a customer than to find a new one and I tend to work with my clients on finding good ways to service their existing bases while helping along new customer acquisition as a lesser emphasis.

That’s why I was happy to read a recent study of small business owners from the Manta folks.  In conjunction with BIA/Kelsey, they found..well, I’ll let them tell you:

In 2012, BIA/Kelsey reported that small business owners prioritized customer acquisition over customer retention at a 7-1 ratio.  Recently, a new trend is developing as 61 percent of small business owners surveyed report over half of their annual revenue comes from repeat customers rather than new customers and that a repeat customer spends 67 percent more than a new customer  (emphasis mine!). In line with this, small business owners are spending less time and money on customer acquisition; only 14 percent are spending the majority of their annual marketing budget to acquire new customers, and only 20 percent are investing most of their time and effort to acquire new customers.  This is a significant shift in behavior as small business owners have realized that existing customers play a more influential role in business success than new customers.

In other words, existing customers bring in more dough than new customers.  The question then becomes identifying and segmenting existing customers into group that you can address in a manner appropriate to their buying habits.  You need to be having different conversations with the person who hasn’t ordered in 3 months than the one who orders once every 10 days. Maybe you handle the top 10% of your customers differently or maybe you look at spending levels, purchase cycle, or even those folks with an affinity for a specific product you’re wanting to emphasize.

No matter whether it’s loyalty programs, special customer service agents or insider news and information, customer retention needs to be a focus of every business, something I think needs to be placed ahead of new customer acquisition.  You?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting

Tagged as , , , , , ,

May 13, 2014 · 8:42 am

The Letter

Today’s TunesDay post is about the lost art of letter writing. I’ll explain why in a second but the song that came to mind immediately is The Box Tops‘ song “The Letter.” Of course, I much prefer the version from the Mad Dogs And Englishmen tour performed by the inimitable (unless you’re John Belushi) Joe Cocker:

I’m a little unhappy with the video since it’s had a chunk of the song edited out but have you ever seen such joy among both audience and performers?  Anyway, back to the subject at hand – letters.  When was the last time you wrote one or received one?  For me the answer is yesterday.  After my post on the fantastic customer service experience I got from the Design A Shirt folks I received a handwritten note from someone there.  Apparently one of you passed the post on to them and she was just writing to express her appreciation.  There’s a great business – and personal point in that.

It wasn’t an email.  She had taken the time to write – by hand – a heartfelt note.  Short, to the point, and very meaningful. While I was trying to thank them in a very public way (and make a business point), she felt compelled to thank me for doing so.  That action – repaying someone’s gift or kindness with a personal expression of thanks – is something we’ve tried to teach our kids and I know from the notes I get from nieces and others that some other folks try to do the same.  Why don’t we do it more often in business?

Maybe we ought to recruit people with beautiful handwriting to act as a Chief Gratitude Officer, responsible for sending out expressions of thanks to customers.  Many businesses send emails but I can’t ever recall a personal, handwritten note.  It’s funny – many of my friends (and I) have mediocre handwriting even though we had to endure penmanship classes in school.   My handwriting is fine if I take my time but who does?  Who can?  My folks both have beautiful handwriting.  My kids’ generation – less so.  Yet another thing that technology is killing off?

We don’t say thank you often enough in business.  It’s an opportunity for us all.  Because it’s so rare, the effect of doing so is incredible.  How are you going to make that a regular part of your business life?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under Helpful Hints, Reality checks, Thinking Aloud

Tagged as , , , , , ,