Crispy vs. grilled: a lesson in customer experience

Scott Batchelor
Scott Batchelor|April 17, 2013

I was driving back from Washington, DC this weekend after spending a couple of days admiring the cherry blossoms and taking my oldest son sightseeing. Wanting to grab something fast for lunch, we stopped at McDonald's a few miles outside the capital. I ordered Chicken McNuggets for my son and a couple of crispy chicken snack wraps for me (it seemed healthier than a Big Mac®). I waited to get back on the interstate before tearing into the bag. Big mistake.

The first bite confused my taste buds. I was expecting the crunchiness of lightly breaded chicken stuffed inside a delicious white flour tortilla. Instead, it was grilled chicken! Granted, it was even healthier than my order, but that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t what I was expecting.

As I dejectedly ate my lunch (after all, a grilled chicken wrap is better than no chicken wrap), I put my marketing hat on. It occurred to me that we sometimes pull this same chicken bait-and-switch on our customers. I’m not talking about offering a great deal on a product, only to have a handful in stock. I’m talking about customer experience. Read More »

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Nate Silver and the relativity of managing big data

John Balla
John Balla|April 15, 2013

Nate Silver was not telling a fish tale here.

I consider myself lucky to have confirmed first-hand that Nate Silver is a relatively smart guy.

He most recently published a book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – but Some Don’t, and he is particularly well known for accurately predicting the outcome of the 2012 U.S. Presidential election 51 times in parallel (all 50 states and the District of Columbia).

His work is not limited to politics, also having established views on sports and economics. And what I found remarkable is how he structures his views on big data, as well as the way he demonstrates the importance of relativity in the thoughtful analysis of data and applying its findings. Read More »

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Three ways big data aligns the CMO and CIO

Wilson Raj
Wilson Raj|April 12, 2013

New research by the CMO Council and SAS, entitled "Big Data's Biggest Role: Aligning the CMO & CIO," shows more overlaps than differences between marketing and IT. Big data is uniting the CMO and CIO in their common quest for a customer-centric organization.  61 percent of marketers and 60 percent of IT executives agree that Big Data brings both obstacles and opportunities to the table.

Obstacles for marketing include winnowing through big data to arrive at the "right data" and applying analytics for data-driven decision-making. Challenges for the IT department includes the big data realities of customer information, the acceleration of technology change and the explosion of options and platforms. In fact,  52 percent of marketers and 45 percent of IT executives believe functional silos prevent the enterprisewide aggregation of big data--thus hindering customer centricity.

Despite these perceived barriers to IT and marketing partnership, CIOs and CMOs have common goals and face many of the same challenges. Big data can expedite successful and viable partnerships when CIOs and CMOs gravitate around three shared goals: Read More »

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3 keys to unlock value in your online marketing data

John Balla
John Balla|April 5, 2013

Online marketers all want the same thing - for our customers to get what they want, when they want it, and with the fewest clicks possible. We already know that satisfied customers usually return, and now they share their experiences so the stakes have never been higher to get it right every time.

Getting to that point with online marketing may sound daunting, but the answers are all available in the customer data. Website tracking is a good first step, but the key to relevance is to take it real-time. To get there, you need to know what your customers are doing on your site, and you need to apply the analytics while there's still time to influence consumer behavior.

In addition, the value of data for customer insight isn’t just in viewing your customer or prospect through a digital lens. The value is realized when you can create the proverbial 360-degree view, and that requires stitching together that online data with your offline data stream. It’s easier said than done, of course, because data is seldom clean and ready to use, especially when so much of the best data is the unstructured kind that’s fueling “big data.”

How do we get there? It turns out there are 3 keys to unlock the value in your online marketing data: Read More »

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Consumer decision processes and online marketing

Dave Bilbrough
Dave Bilbrough|March 29, 2013

As a new contributor this blog, let me begin by introducing myself. My name is Dave Bilbrough, and I am a Solutions Architect on the SAS Customer Intelligence team, specializing in Digital Marketing. I am pleased to bring a digital perspective to the this blog seen through the prism of my background in web analytics, search marketing and online advertising. I hope you find my views helpful!  To start off, I'd like to explore the notion of "right time / right place" and what it means in marketing with this thought:

Ever wonder what is going through your customer’s minds
prior to their deciding to purchase your product?

If that is the case, well then you are in luck today! In this post, we will be examining consumer behavior leading up to and including the purchase decision, with an emphasis on how you can position your marketing to intersect with the consumer at just the right moment. Because hey, timing is everything, right?

There are a lot of ways that different consumer segments approach purchase decisions in various industries, but there a few aspects that are common to many of them. Read More »

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Marketing analytics links customer experience with competitiveness

John Balla
John Balla|March 21, 2013

The digital world we live in gives marketers the opportunity to capture, record, measure, analyze and report just about anything nowadays - and we do it! Clicks, conversions, likes, attrition, business drivers, value destroyers - you name it and it's all fair game. Therein lies the rub - it's all fair game, and that's what's putting the "big" in big data every day. What to do - and how to stay competitive?

It’s not enough to just know where customers shop or what brand of jeans they purchase. The key to competitiveness is being able to understand why customers make the choices they do, how they feel about their choices, and what they experience at each step when they engage with your organization. When accurate, that understanding can give marketers the “holy grail” of being able to predict customer behaviors and positively manage customers’ experiences. It’s a goal that is within reach today.

So getting back to the conundrum of Big Data, success is a matter of keeping up or losing out - ignore it at your peril.  The issue is that hidden in the data tsunami is great potential value if you can recognize the patterns and make the connections with marketing analytics to inform your strategy and fuel your competitiveness. Knowing the right approach can make all the difference, so we gained some insights from noted thought leader and CRM expert Brian Vellmure and Wilson Raj, SAS Director of Customer Intelligence: Read More »

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Grow among peers at CI Customer Connection

John Balla
John Balla|March 15, 2013

Each fall, SAS Customer Intellience (CI) customers gather at SAS global headquarters for the SAS CI Customer Connection. It's a great opportunity you to interact with your peers in other companies and to gain firsthand knowledge on how to make the most of your CI investment in three important ways:

  1. Much of the event is planned to give you many opportunities to share knowledge, network among each other and to participate in hands-on learning modules.
  2. During the event, it is all about CI. Take time to meet directly with experts from CI product management and R&D while on campus. The schedule is laid out to allow you to explore the possibilities of your current deployment, or take in-depth looks at new features in the works.
  3. We include industry analysts and thought leaders who can engage you in exploring concepts and strategies that will broaden your horizons well into the future. Read More »
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What's in a name – Marketing Analytics.

Jonathan Moran
Jonathan Moran|March 7, 2013

In the first post in this series, we discussed how there are a number of terms that describe how organizations manage their customer engagements: customer intelligence, customer analytics, integrated marketing management and marketing analytics. My goal with this series of posts was to clarify the definitions among the terms, delineate what comprises each term and highligh which solution sets apply.

Today, let's focus on our fourth and final term: Marketing Analytics.

Marketing analytics comprises the processes and technologies that enable marketers to evaluate the success of their marketing initiatives by measuring their performance using important business metrics, such as ROI, marketing attribution and overall marketing effectiveness – not just marketing channel effectiveness. Read More »

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What's in a name – Integrated Marketing Management.

Jonathan Moran
Jonathan Moran|March 6, 2013

In two previous posts, we have investigated the terms customer intelligence and customer analytics in more detail. We continue on our journey today by defining our third of four terms – that of integrated marketing management (IMM). Each of these four terms are different and distinct, so let’s jump right into our third term: Integrated Marketing Management.

Integrated Marketing Management refers to the end-to-end marketing process, from marketing strategy to implementation and customer experience measurement. Once that customer experience is measured, results are returned to the marketing department – thus completing the “closed loop marketing process.” The IMM process is initiated and driven by the marketing department.

Integrated Marketing Management supports the closed loop marketing process by integrating operational, executional, and analytical marketing processes. That view of marketing aligns underlies the vision behind the SAS suite of marketing software solutions, which addresses the operational (SAS Marketing Operations Management), executional (SAS Marketing Automation among others), and analytical (SAS Social Media Analytics, adaptive customer experience, etc.) needs of the enterprise marketing function. Read More »

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What's in a name – Customer Analytics.

Jonathan Moran
Jonathan Moran|March 5, 2013

In the first post in this series, I introduced the collection of terms that describe how organizations manage their customer engagements: customer intelligence, customer analytics, integrated marketing management and marketing analytics. It's important to define them, as well as understand what comprises each term and which SAS solutions apply. It's also important to know the reasons that these terms (or processes) are different and distinct. We previously highlighted the term Customer Intelligence and detailed out its place in the market.

Today, let's focus on our second term: Customer Analytics.

The term Customer Analytics refers to the processes and technologies that give organizations the customer insight necessary to deliver offers that are anticipated, relevant and timely. It is the practice of analyzing customer data in order to find underlying patterns, behaviors, or insights. As the backbone for all organization-to-customer activities, customer analytics comprises techniques such as predictive modeling, data visualization, information management and segmentation.  They make up the building blocks to the comprehensive customer intelligence solutions, and in the house construct analogy of the previous post, customer analytics would be found in the foundation. Read More »

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