As we wind into holiday season, we often press to squeeze the last fruits of the year by working long hours right before the break.  So it is again at Conclusive this year, as we are working at the last minute to finalize a White Paper on Trigger Marketing with the Aberdeen Group.

 

The Aberdeen research examines the components and performance of different types of event based marketing triggers, including life stage triggers, transaction and interaction behavioral triggers, as well as different stage of deployment, from event identification to response execution.  Preliminary results indicate that Best-in-Class organization benefit greatly from their investment in trigger marketing; with over 80% of the firms enjoying increased customer profitability, over 85% greater cross-sell and upsell, and approximately 95% with greater performance in precision marketing. 

 

In past research, Gartner has predicted a future of mass automated interactions – the Aberdeen Group confirms that it is well on its way.  Conclusive is convinced that the coming age of trigger marketing interactions are inevitable as well, and has been bonding the elements of such a solution for several years. 

 

The company’s foundation is in fact, based on automated marketing technology – Conclusive’s own listcleanup.com was delivering NCOA, list rentals and enhancements over the web while the concepts of marketing automation were still a twinkle in most of our eyes.  

In recent years, after the acquisition of Synapse Technology and Conclusive Strategies in 2006, and progressing with the adoption of the MicroStrategy business intelligence platform in 2007, we’ve accelerated our automated triggered marketing platform to emerge as a Best-in-Class solution.  We accept input from many different data providers, ranging from top tier consumer list and marketing data providers such as Acxiom and Experian, along with as well as other commercial off-the-shelf and/or proprietary sources, align rules for interpreting appropriate marketing communications for each data event, and invoke Conclusive’s long-established data delivery platform for delivery via direct mail, email, text messaging, or routing priority customer/prospect records to call centers.  Particularly our event driven marketing solutions in banking and with agency partner GSMarketing for Toyota have received acclaim as leading edge, forward-thinking trigger-based  solutions.
 

The core benefits of this integrated marketing platform are pinpoint timing and brutally efficient marketing.  The tentative title of Aberdeen’s report, in fact, states a major feature simply and to the point: “Timing is Everything”.  
 

Now as we finally hit the brakes and skid into the holidays, that same adage seems to also apply to our personal lives.  Thanksgiving is special every year, but this year, amid the hectic pace that surrounded our presidential election, amid the rock and roll of the stock market and amid the tension of global economic uncertainty, well, Thanksgiving just seems a little more so special and a little more “just in time” to save us from burnout. 

 

The Thanksgiving break seems to offer the perfect anecdote for the chaotic year – a solution, per se, that gives us a time out, a chance to enjoy a full bodied meal and reflect on the very many blessings that we enjoy as citizens of these great States, even despite the setbacks and challenges we might encounter along the way.  Our family will set aside a few hours this afternoon serving meals at an Austin homeless shelter, and then cook up that perfect Thanksgiving meal with friends tomorrow night. Looking ahead, I can sense that it will be the perfect solution, at just the right time. 

Here’s hoping that you enjoy the perfect Just in Time Thanksgiving as well.

In direct Mail marketing, that old adage, "the more things change the more they stay the same", does not always apply. As most of you know, starting November 23 the new move update regulations go into effect. Same old headache for the USPS, stacks and stacks of UAA(Undeliverable As Addressed) mail, but now they are counting on some sweeping changes to reduce that migraine to a mild aggravation.

Okay, here's the technical lowdown, after Nov 23 rd, all First-Class Mailings at automated and presort rates, and now all Standard Mailings will require some form of move update qualification within 95 days of the day of mailing. There are a number of approved methods but the NCOA^Link™, (National Change of Address) provides the most comprehensive solution. Your mailing list will run first through the CASS™/DPV™ with LACS^Link™ process to standardize the addresses, provide the bar code information and assign each address with a deliverability grade. The second step provides a change of address for any individual, family or business that has moved and filed a COA form with the USPS over the last 48 months http://www.listcleanup.com/content/NCOA_Link_move48.aspx . There’s also an 18 month option, that will also move update qualify the list.

Okay, returning to the headache. The USPS has hopefully relieved some of their pain, but now many in the mailing business are starting to feel more than a little discomfort, trying to wrap their brains around the regulations, the costs, the PAF forms that are required, explaining these new requirements to their Standard mailers, managing the time required, and a host of issues.. Well at the risk of extending this whole headache analogy too far, Listcleanup.com can be your aspirin or Tylenol, depending on how much pain you may be in at the moment.

We been helping people migrate through NCOA^Link™, and move update qualifications since the whole thing started back in 1997. For more than a decade, over 2,500 companies have trusted us for timely, efficient and cost-effective solutions. Along the way, we've added other services, tailored to provide our direct marketing clients an edge over their competition. Yet through it all, there are a few core values that have never wavered; a focus on customer service, sales and IT support, a seamless online order process that insures reliable, timely delivery of your orders and flexible pricing .

As my colleague, Bill Brennan, mentioned in a recent post, should you take on an in-house solution given all variables that will come into play, before speaking with us first? We have the answers, we can make this whole move update “challenge” simple, easy, and even better, we can show you how to earn revenue providing this service to your client.

Why bother with the headache, when you can call us.

Today the focus was on the move update changes, just around the corner. Down the road we’ll look into the range of data management services we can provide, all pointed in the same direction, what can we do to improve your direct mail bottom line ?

http://www.listcleanup.com/content/Default.aspx

The Value of a Customer

 

There is an old saying – “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is”  this saying along with “You get what you pay for” are truths many of us have had to learn the hard way.   With the new USPS mandated Move Update deadline rapidly approaching, many companies are looking at their options for purchasing NCOALink^® and alternative Move Update services. 

Some NCOA vendors are offering (including Listcleanup.com) an all you can eat at one price option.   Now, shopping for the cheapest price seems like a logical solution, except when you consider the value of a customer.   Given the significant increases in NCOA volumes projected by the addition of Standard Mail in the new requirements, is it not logical that some vendors are going to have challenges in delivering on advertised turn times?    If the average mail house or lettershop’s monthly mail volume is traditionally 80% Standard Mail, then volumes for many of the NCOA providers could be quadrupling over the previous First Class volumes.  

So, when your customer calls and wants to know why their mailing went out later than promised, do you think they are going to be satisfied with the answer  - our company selected the lowest cost NCOA provider and they failed to return the file to us when promised?

It's a fact, smaller companies would be out of business if they utilized data quality management processes like their bigger brothers!  My mailbox is full of Fortune 500 companies' duplicate mailings of irrelevant offers.  Even basic work like Move Update (National Change of Address) do not seem to matter to companies like Allstate Insurance, Ford Motor Company and Countrywide Mortgage (no wonder a bailout was needed).  It is time for all of us to look at our marketing database, asses data quality from even the lowest common denominator; "does that person live at that address (NCOA)?" and "does that address even exist (CASS, DPV, etc)?"  Only after this basic assesment can marketers pretend to have a chance at driving a true marketing ROI. 

Despite the dark cloud over the financial markets, it's an exciting time to attend the November 18-20 Bank Administration Institute (BAI) conference in Orlando.  World markets have been in a tailspin, a wide assortment of industry acquisitions, bailouts and bankruptcies are in abundance, while the consumer lending crisis seems to be at the center of an economic firestorm. Attendees will be eager to hear Colin Powell's comments, as well as an impressive array of other speakers ranging from George Stephanopoulos to Arkadi Kuhlmann (President/CEO of ING Direct) to Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company.  

Conclusive Marketing will exhibiting at the show highlighting our data management, data intelligence and data delivery proficiencies, alongside MicroStrategy, our chosen vendor for business intelligence and data analysis solutions.  The timing seems ripe for the industry to respond to a very challenging marketing environment whereby there must be marketing integration to ensure that all facets of programs work together to achieve the highest possible return on investment.

Conclusive's Event Driven Marketing platform provides a compelling option for banks to identify and prioritize customers who are in the midst of anomalistic transaction behavior; while our data delivery services offers banks tightly integrated methods of ensuring that each customer meriting communication receives communication.  Our relationship with MicroStrategy adds an extra array of value added solutions for the banking industry, solutions that particularly ensure  management can attentively monitor key customer-facing metrics.

If you are out in Orlando for the show, drop by to booth 1251 and let's trade thoughts about the changes you are facing, and what the perspectives of our keynotes and colleague presenters imply for these dynamic times. 

October the 21st Conclusive Marketing (www.conclusivemarketing.com) and MicroStrategy (www.microstrategy.com) released a press release announcing how Conclusive is adopting MicroStrategy technology to put Business Intelligence ("BI") right in the middle of our services. 

To the casual onlooker that might look like a ho-hum technology announcement, but in the marketing services arena this is a meaningful signal how marketing paradigms are shifting from simply executing communications to continuously searching for improved ROI by analyzing programs.  Its not enough to outfit tomorrow's marketer to simply perform direct marketing, they need to be properly tooled to view the macro and micro condition of their programs.  We believe in a highly automated data-driven future and Conclusive is seriously investing to ensure that our clients can transition into this paradigm with us. 

Without recent tools like MicroStrategy, firms' analyzing marketing programs have all too often relied on one or two staff who know both how to think about marketing analysis and also how to engineer the data for analysis.   With MicroStrategy, however, the data engineering is out of the way and all the analysts can actually focus on, (catch this!) analysis.  The MicroStrategy report and charting options are attractive and easy to use by anyone in the marketing department.   And the impact can be dramatic. 



One client, an agency for a major automotive OEM, reports that it now takes them 10 minutes to examine data that used to take 8-10 hours to digest.  More of their team members can contribute to the analytic process, as the task of doing so is now focused on viewing, as opposed to managing the data.  And with the time savings, the resources now have the "luxury" of digging deeper into analysis.

So there is now definitely some BI in the middle of Conclusive Marketing.  MicroStrategy could be our middle name.
 

At the DMA Conference in Las Vegas this week, I heard a common question.  "Why set up a Marketing Database?  We have a CRM platform."  Then I begin to ask the questions.  How long does it take to get data from IT to complete the data processing for your marketing campaigns?  How difficult is it to utilize business intelligence to develop campaign triggers or report on marketing results? Where does the marketing information reside in your CRM platform?  I often hear "by the time our business intelligence group recieves data and completes data analysis the relevance of the marketing opportunity discovered by our market research has passed!"  The reason this is happening is simple;  you have data management occuring at the enterprise level in order to run the back-end of the business, not specifically marketing data that captures the essence of the customer interaction required for integrated marketing activities. We service several Fortune 500 clients, those with a true marketing database are able to successfully execute campaign management, triggered marketing and deliver great marketing ROI.  Those of our clients that rely on enterprise level information management are only able to manage campaigns as "one-offs,"  the results often a fraction of those with a true marketing database.  It is a simple question with a simpler answer, in order to optimize marketing ROI you must have a database built for that purpose.

What times we live in  ... the cover title of DIRECT magazine proclaims "Mad Money" in August 2008 and "What Downturn?" in September 2008 as Wall Street registers its first dip below 10,000 in years just a week before the October 2008 DMA Conference.

How is it that those headlines could co-mingle?  Were the circumstances related to the DIRECT articles simply darting in and out to be replaced by an economy that arrived as quick as the season's first turn in weather?  Was data on the Dow's decline misleading?  Or were there people at Wall Street or DIRECT that simply missed the story?

As practictioners of direct marketing, and particularly as experts with data analysis, we are much better positioned than our public to make sense of these paradoxical times.  We recognize that both our headlines are true -- the economic downturn is striking, but there is still room for success if we can cull through data and identify that event, that moment in time, that each consumer returns to purchase products.  

Of course our margin for error is getting smaller - a lot smaller. To be prepared for precision marketing, we need to sharpen our data management - search for new sources, perform thorough data processing to cleanse it more thoroughly, incorporate data analysis services to elevate our knowledge about consumers and generally do all we can to optimize our marketing information.

Recognizing the challenge suggested by today's headlines, the vital ingredient is to conduct integrated marketing, to link all that data management to the point in time that clean data is relevant -- the seemingly narrower and narrowing point in time that each consumers' purchasing window is actually open.  And that, dear reader, implies that marketing must evolve to event driven marketing solutions. 

Mad Money will be on display at the DMA next week when the convention center opens its Starbucks and $4 coffee stands right in front of marketers, marketers who are staring this economy straight in the face.  But the product will be right, the prospects will be thirsty and the timing will be right.  Marketers will smell the coffee and buy that event driven solution.  Now, we just need to fix that Dow ...

With marketing dollars declining, it is more important than ever to communicate to customers and prospects most likely to purchase.  Your customer base is your best resource for generating additional revenue and determining your best possible prospects.  In order to utilize this valuable resource, your must learn as much as possible about them.

 

Third party data providers can determine important facts about your customers by simply matching your database of names and addresses to theirs.  Types of information available are age, income, education, marital status, presence of children, credit score, and on and on.  Once these details are known, data analysis can be used to determine what a customer of your product “looks like”.  This data intelligence will enable you to create a customer profile for each product in your portfolio. 

 

Customer profiles create the ability of a company to increase sales in a couple of ways.  The first way is to cross-sell to current customers.  By using the profiles of customers currently purchasing certain combinations of products in your portfolio you can determine the next best product to sell to each customer.  Secondly, these profiles also give you guidelines for acquiring prospects.  Third party data providers can provide prospect lists based on detailed demographics that you determine through the customer profiling.  In essence you are determining the next product to sell your customers and the next prospect to sell your product.  Follow up with lead management processes such as direct mail marketing and both approaches translate into additional revenue.

Forecasting the need for standalone online NCOA services is a function of five intersecting variables: USPS regulations, ACS Options, Software Integration, Internalization, and competitive offerings. 

The largest impact on NCOA services in the last 10 years is the USPS’s change to the Move Update regulations.   Beginning in November of this year, the new regulations will add Standard Mail and double the frequency requirement to 95 days.

With this projected increase in demand comes more options and changing economics.    For some larger mailers, the regulation may make it cost effective to bring the processing in house.  These larger mailers are also more likely to have already purchased industry specific software that includes integrated flat rate NCOA services.   Finally, the changing options with ACS services may be optimal for some clients who don’t need to clean a list before it is mailed.

However, for the vast majority of smaller to medium size mailers, nothing is easier or less costly than using an on demand, online NCOA service.    No software to buy, no hardware to buy, no agreements to sign, and no payments in advance.    Combine these benefits with sub 10 minute turn times (coming in December) and the benefits of advanced bundled services, and nothing is simpler or less costly for the small to medium size mailer.    Make sure you ask for a competitive rate, and see why even some of the industry's largest mailers still prefer the benefits of working with an independent online list hygiene company.

I, for one, am thrilled with the USPS change in regulations on NCOA requirements for Standard Mail and the frequency of Move Update requirements for First Class mail.  In my world of database marketing, I rely on quality data management as the core to delivering marketing ROI to my clients.  Their message sometimes finds itself in the trash beside a piece of true "junk mail" due to other database marketers refusal to adhere to data quality management best practices.  Recently my mail box included mail addressed to a former Tennessee Titan player who built my house 11 years ago and then was traded and moved the next year!  The Doctor who bought the house from the Titan also has mail from his former life, he has been gone for 7 years!  Not only will these new regulations save the USPS untold millions of dollars in UAA mail, the by product should include better results for my client's direct mail marketing programs and less trash in our landfills.  As Sarah Palin would say, that is just a great win for all of us!

The Ethics of NCOA Move Update®

Scenario – I own a mailing service and in preparation for the new Move Update regulations coming in November of 2008, I have just signed up for an ‘all you can eat’ NCOALink® 18 month service (NCOA-18), or maybe I have even invested to get my own USPS® NCOALink® license.

Now, as a business owner, I realize the more clients I can run through NCOA-18, with its fixed costs, the more profit I can make.   On the other hand, many of my clients have historically been using the 48 month version of NCOALink (NCOA-48), because it catches more moves and cost only fractionally more than the NCOA-18 service.

As a business owner, do I arbitrarily decide to run all new orders through NCOA-18, justifying it by saying I am sure all the client wants is to secure the postal discount…they are not really that interested in catching the maximum number of moves?   Do I ask the client in such a way that steers them to the answer I want, i.e. “Your primary interest is in saving money and securing the postal discounts, correct?” Or, do I sit down with the client and go over the pros and cons of both NCOA-48 and NCOA-18 and help the client make an informed decision, thereby setting up client specific guidelines for when a file would be processed through NCOA-18 and when it would go to NCOA-48?

Some providers suggest to a client that they run their list through NCOA-48 the first time and NCOA-18 after that.  On the surface, this sounds logical, but if you don’t ask the client what percent of their file is changing/updated every month and how old are the input sources being used to update the file, then this advice may be provided erroneously.

That fact is, a third more moves are caught by NCOA-48 than NCOA-18, and as we all know, the USPS created the Move Update regulations to reduce the amount of Undeliverable As Addressed mail.

On a recent Alaskan adventure with my family I discovered that there is complex data science involved in the Alaskan salmon fishery.  The Alaska Department of Fish and Game use technology, such as sonar monitoring systems and advanced statistical models, to monitor commercial and sport catch as they track salmon migration into the various river systems to complete their natural journey.  The most interesting part is how this statistical research is utilized to communicate fish location to the fishing public through multi-channel communication methods; email alerts, websites, printed materials, broadcasts on TV and radio, now even automated text messages on the streams!  I would consider this a great example of real-time event based marketing.  As with any ecosystem, opportunistic bears also go where the fish are, without the need for technology; they just wait patiently for the fishermen to show up. We have unintentionally created data-enabled bears!

Alaska is everything I expected and more.  The grandeur of the mountains, rivers and sea, the vastness of the wilderness and the opportunity to respectfully interact with wildlife in this unbelievable setting is only enhanced by the data based science that protects this priceless renewable resource. 

While it's now clear the earth is flat, data intelligence is key, and integrated marketing is all the rage, too often I find that Brand strategies are still linear and often media focused.  With the media landscape evolving incessantly these days, Brands and Brand strategy need to be agile and all-inclusive.

The concept of open source was initially a software development method that allowed for distributed peer review and transparency of process.  Opensource.org believes the promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility and lower cost and this has generally proven to be true.  But open source has evolved beyond software in my opinion.  Wikipedia explains the open source model as allowing for concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities and made available for public collaboration. Just like web 2.0.

Brands today need to adopt an open source strategy.  Along the marketing continuum, the media and touch point options will continue to segment and proliferate.  A strategic position reliant on only current options is doomed to long term failure in our new environment.  However, a strong strategy that allows for immediate execution in any media stream or any environment and that allows for ongoing customer interaction is one that will survive as well as thrive.

It’s amazing how much money is spent launching new products these days.  One auto manufacturer recently spent over $85 million on a new launch.  Even in a fully integrated marketing campaign, you know broadcast still got the bulk of that budget.  But it seems to me that they could have given away several cars a day for a year and really generated some viral buzz! Yet along the marketing continuum, hands on experience with brands is of increasing value these days – especially in large ticket categories.   

Imagine landing aboard an aircraft carrier at night with limited visibility and a pitching deck for the first time. Without the assistance of the Landing Signal Officer, onboard instrumentation, lots of practice on shore and an occasional peek outside the cockpit at the carrier, it would be challenging to find the carrier let alone land successfully aboard the ship.

Why wouldn't you use all the tools available to you to acquire, cross-sell and retain your most profitable customers? An integrated marketing solution from Conclusive Marketing represents a practical approach to upgrading your traditional marketing program by incorporating analytics, business rules and customer preferences. The Armed Forces provide the best aircraft, training systems and instructors to ensure that pilots learn from each flight and improve their mission readiness. Learning from each marketing event can also help you determine the best message and channel by which to reach your existing customers and prospective customers while improving your marketing ROI.

Are you are constantly challenged to build enduring relationships with your customers in a very competitive landscape? Organizations that continue to grow during these challenging times have built a core base of customers and differentiate themselves from their competitors by superior customer service and an effective integrated marketing solution. Increasing customer retention by 5% can improve your profitability by 30%!  Unfortunately, attrition can be even more damaging to profitability since it is significantly more costly to acquire a profitable new customer than it is to retain an existing customer. 

Don't fly solo as you evaluate the options to achieving your marketing objectives. As you evaluate technology and integrated marketing solutions, fly with a Top Gun. Consider an Integrated Marketing Solution from Conclusive Marketing as you look at your options for the rest of 2008 and start your planning for 2009.