• Measurement must be relevant
• Measurement must be visible
• Measurement must drive improvement

By M. Isi Eromosele

Fragmented markets, diverse customer needs and eroding brand loyalty are forcing companies to change the way they identify, attract and retain customers.

Marketing, as we know it, is undergoing a dramatic change. One size-fits-all mass marketing is fast disappearing and in its place, organizations are implementing one-to-one Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions to personalize and strengthen the companies’ relationships with their customers.

To ensure CRM success, companies should replace product-centric marketing with Integrated Marketing, a customer-focused strategy for integrating multi-channel communications, sales force automation and customer service contacts.

Integrated marketing is an information-driven and technology-enabled approach that utilizes multiple direct communications channels including direct mail, e-mail, sales force and the Internet in combination with multiple indirect channels including media advertising, event-driven marketing and point-of-sales promotions to optimize customer interaction.

Integrated Marketing Implementation

Integrated marketing utilizes a well-coordinated combination of direct and indirect channels to communicate with current and prospective customers.

Indirect communications channels such as media advertising, retail promotions and trade shows are used to produce inquiries and generate sales leads, while direct communications channels such as the Internet, direct mail, e-mail and field sales contacts are used to develop sales and maintain customer dialogue.

The backbone of an effective integrated one-to-one strategy is a closed-loop marketing process which is engineered to ensure that the right message is presented to the right customer, delivered through the right channel and communicated at the right time.

Enabling this process is Enterprise Marketing Automation technology (EMA). Data mining technology is used to identify customers who represent cross sell and up sell opportunities and Campaign Management technology is used to plan, implement, manage and measure marketing campaigns that manage customer interaction through multiple points of contact.

The fuel that drives one-to-one marketing is business intelligence. Customer Analytics provide the insight and intelligence necessary to customize messages, product offers and services according to individual customer needs.

CRM Business Rules provide the business logic and guidelines to personalize the message. These rules define how communications, sales contacts and customer service will be differentiated based on customer needs, purchase behavior, usage practices and relationship life cycle stage.

The ultimate goal of Integrated Marketing is to optimize the performance of the company’s customer portfolio. This requires astute management of the customer interaction process in a manner that reinforces the customer’s relationship with the company.

Building an Integrated Infrastructure for CRM

An organization’s Customer Relationship Management strategy will only be as successful as the infrastructure that supports it. Unfortunately, this is an area where many companies fail to devote sufficient time and resources for needs assessment and strategic planning.

Building an integrated infrastructure to support CRM requires proper alignment of the CRM strategy with the Business Processes, Organizational Structure and Marketing Technology that enable its implementation and management.

Planning and building an integrated infrastructure for Customer Relationship Management strategy begins by understanding individual customer needs, and defining how, through an integrated marketing approach, the company can increase revenues, maximize profits and build lasting customer relationships.

Optimizing Customer Relationships with Integrated Marketing

The ground rules for marketing are no longer market share, or return on sales and assets. The goal now is not just selling the product or service, but owning the customer relationship.

Integrated marketing works because it ties together the entire lead generation, sales development and Customer Relationship Management process. It enables a company to establish and maintain a direct relationship with current and prospective customers by identifying their needs and using this information to deliver information and product offers that are customized and relevant.

By following this approach, companies can maximize revenue and increase profits by turning prospects into customers and turning customers into advocates.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

Copyright Control © 2011 Oseme Group

By M. Isi Eromosele

Every company needs a vision, this vision requires a strategy, the strategy demands a plan and the plan calls for action. This plan is very important for the growth of the company - a concise marketing plan..

Your marketing plan should give you self-assurance that your company will excel in your market of choice.

A marketing plan consists of six steps: situational analysis | objectives | strategy | tactics | budget | controls.

Situational Analysis

This step requires the examination of macro forces (economic | political-legal | social-cultural | technological) and the performers (the company | competitors | suppliers | distributors).

A TOWS (threats | opportunities | weaknesses | strengths) analysis is carried out, which allows for an equal analysis of both outside and inside factors.

A SWOT analysis tends to concentrate essentially on the inside. It places unwarranted stress on internal factors and limit the identification of threats and opportunities to only those that fit the company’s strengths.

Objectives

Based on the identification of best opportunities in the situational analysis, they are prioritized. Goals are set and a timetable drawn up for achieving them. The company also sets business objectives that consider stakeholders, company differentiation, underpinning technology as well as organizational design.

Strategy

The paramount goal of setting strategy is to decide on which is the most effective course of action to take toward achieving the set objectives.

Tactics

The details in the strategy spell out the specific actions that need to be taken within a specified time to reach the stated goals.

Budget

The costs of the planned actions and marketing activities that will enable the company to meet its goals are set in a budget.

Controls

Review periods are set up within the parameter of measurement algorithms. When measurements show that the company is lagging towards any of its stated goals, adjustments are made within the strategies, objectives and actions.

In an advanced case, a company may build a model to hypothetically estimate how it’s advertising budget, size of sales force and prices will accept sales and profits. Marketing strategy simulators may be used to guide the allocation of marketing resources to their most effective uses.

The benefits of market planning lie less in the plan but in the planning process. Additionally, marketing plans do not produce profits if they are not well implemented.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

Copyright Control © 2011 Oseme Group

By M. Isi Eromosele

It is imperative that companies move from a product-making focus to a customer-owning focus. Company employees need to constantly think customer.

Customer must be viewed by companies as financial assets that need to be effectively managed and maximized like any other asset. High value customers can be considered appreciating assets. They are the company’s most important assets, even though their real value is not reflected in the firm’s books.

Having appreciation for the value of this very important asset could lead companies to redesign their total marketing program toward capturing more customer share and customer lifetime value through their product or services, portfolio and branding strategies. The importance of customer thinking to the success of a firm must not be underestimated.

The purpose of a company is to create customers. As such, businesses have two essential functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Customers are the most important visitors to companies. They are not dependent on the companies. The companies are dependent on them.

A company’s challenge is to retain its customers longer than it retains its products. It must watch the market life-cycle and the customer life cycle more than the product life cycle.

If a company is not customer driven, its products or services would not be either. Incredibly, most companies spend most of their marketing effort trying to acquire new customers, rather than retaining and growing business from their present customers.

On average, companies spend 70 per cent of their marketing budgets trying to attract new customers, while 90 per cent of their revenues come from present customers. It is a fact that companies lose money on their new customers during the first few years.

By concentrating on the acquisition of new customers and neglecting present customers, many companies experience high customer attrition rates of between 10 and 30 per cent a year. Consequently, they waste even more money on a never-ending effort to attract new customers or win back former customers to replace lost ones.

It is no longer enough to simply satisfy your customers. Companies will always lose some satisfied customers. These customers switch to your competitors because they crave for even more satisfaction. It is imperative that your company deliver more satisfaction than your competitors.

Exceptional companies create delighted customers. They create fans who will stay with them for the long term. Companies that endeavor to make steady inroads in gaining mind share and heart share will inevitably make gains in market share and profitability.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

Copyright Control © 2011 Oseme Group

By M. Isi Eromosele

In addition to its fundamental task of acquiring new customers, marketing plays the lead role in the design of strategies and tactics that form growing ongoing, long-term relationships with customers.

In implementing high performance marketing strategies, a company must research and segment the market and develop targeting and positioning strategies for each segment. It would need to define and introduce new products that match customer requirements and create sustainable competitive advantage for the firm.

Finally, there is a need to develop pricing and distribution channels for these products as well as create communication strategies to build brand awareness, generate interest and motivate purchase. New standards of implementing marketing are emerging, driven both by the advent of enabling technologies and the imperatives of the one-of-one marketing concept.

In implementing a high performance program, a company needs to consider the following principles of marketing:

• The marketing process is cyclical, involving planning, program development, program execution and post execution analysis and reporting
• The marketing process is more iterative and interactive and less linear. As such, market planning involves ongoing interactive processes that cycle around objectives, strategies and tactics
• The marketing implementation process always involves a logical workflow and project management process that may or may not be precisely enabled by software

The development of a high performance marketing plan necessitates that all the components of a company’s marketing activities, communications and interactions with its customers work in synch to create a strong and consistent brand impression as well as high value long-term relationships with its customers. To develop a complete high performance strategy, a company needs to take the following actions:

• Ascertain the business and marketing objectives and determine the role marketing will play in achieving these objectives
• Perform a detailed market environmental analysis that would include examining the segmentation of the market, customer attitude, attributes and behavior and how each segments responds to marketing
• Establish budget levels and overall allocation plans
• Develop specific objectives, strategies and tactics for each communication medium

To implement the process in a precise manner, the company must acquire customer characteristic information from each market segment it is in or have targeted. The capability to perform advanced customer analysis and forecasting has greatly improved with the advent of sophisticated analytical software and tools, predictive modeling tools and marketing campaign management tools.

With these tools, a company is empowered to pursue a rapid-cycle, fact driven process for developing and optimizing their marketing campaign. An integrated communications program would be the backbone of implementing a high performance marketing campaign.

The integrated communication program would require taking the following actions:

• Analyze - Utilizing analytic tools, unearth how frequently various segments of the company’s market buy and use their products
• Predict - Estimate the sale potential of the marketing program designed to capture the targeted group of customers
• Plan - Develop promotional targeting tactic that is based on an assessment of past campaigns
• Optimize - Analyze responses from past marketing campaigns, run the results through predictive forecasting tools and use the detailed outcome information to propel the oncoming marketing strategy

The result of the above would be high performance campaign management solutions and complete customer information that is dynamically linked to all customer touch points.

Please Read Part II 

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

Copyright Control © 2011 Oseme Group

By M. Isi Eromosele

After developing an integrated, interactive, multi-channel communications plan that is optimized overall and within each marketing campaign component, the management platform may now be utilized to start the campaign.

A High Performance Marketing Campaign implementation will empower a company to plan, perform and track responses from various applications of the campaign running concurrently across each marketing channel.

Thus, the company would be able to track customer responses to the multiple campaigns by channel. The setup will enable the company to evaluate the performance of each component of the campaign in real time.

A well executed implementation would enable the company to see the campaign results in HTML, graphical and tabular formats. There should be an option which would let the company post campaign results to the company Intranet where it can be seen by pertinent staff members.

Lastly, the High Performance Marketing Campaign should be able to save information about the workings of the campaign. Information that can be reused in future marketing campaigns.

Within the context of the multi-channel touch points, a customized High Performance Marketing Campaign would enable the company to segment current customers as well as target new ones in the millions. The company can then be able to plan and implement multiple marketing campaigns across several communication channels to different customer segments.

As the implementation progresses, the following are issues that need to be evaluated in terms of applications:

• Functionality - Applications utilized must be able to perform at the highest level. Capabilities should include support for operating in multi-channels, multi wave campaigns, longitudinal and trigger-based campaigns, evaluating customers prior to selection and other enabling facets of efficient High Performance Marketing Campaign management
• Flexible Integration - Applications utilized must be able to work with other applications and tools such as database systems and business intelligence and reporting tools. It is imperative that there be flexible metadata support. Additionally, these applications must offer support for integration with legacy back office systems as well as Customer Relationship tools.
• Segmentation Capabilities: Applications must be able to perform granular definition of market segments information that contain multiple tables from divergent data sets
• Graphical User Interface - Utilize an appropriate Graphical User Interface (GUI) that gives a clear graphical portrayal of the marketing campaign reason. It should offer support for viewing multiple campaigns simultaneously which would help the company assess the collective impact of the marketing plan.
• Reusability - Applications that offer support for reusing successful marketing campaigns, or pieces of it. Optionally, campaign templates may be built and stored to speed the design of future campaigns

A well implemented High Performance Marketing strategy should provide exact targeting of promotional offers, a key requirement on a high performance marketing execution.

Other features that need to be considered include integrated behavioral modeling, business rule driven offer selections, integrated offer ranking, enabling prioritization of competing offers by value and support for advanced e-mail personalization.

All of these capabilities will facilitate a company’s ability to implement influential one-on-one marketing campaigns that could result in increased market share and higher revenues.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

Copyright Control © 2011 Oseme Group

By M. Isi Eromosele

Marketing objectives, customer and competitive objectives and product/marketing momentum form the basis for strategic marketing. Consumers are extremely loyal to products that deliver on promises.

While brand loyalty makes it harder to lure customers away, it also makes them easier to keep and strategic marketing can be a key catalyst in this endeavor. A company can enlarge the market for its products by implementing savvy strategic marketing.

This strategy would need to be determined by two factors. The perceived maturity of the industry the company is in and its competitive position. Success is better assured when the industry is growing and the competitive position of the company is deemed strong.

The marketing strategy would need to be developed by having each of the company’s products reviewed using the portfolio technique. By positioning different products in a multi-factor portfolio matrix (high | medium | low business strength and high | medium | low industry attractiveness), strategy for each product/market is examined and approved from the viewpoint of meeting business objectives.

Following the portfolio analysis, the approved marketing strategy becomes a part of every business unit’s strategy plan.

Most companies’ marketing strategies are burdened with unnecessary complexity. They are encumbered in principles that produce similar responses to competition. As such, changes are needed to put speed and freshness back into their marketing strategy.

The following are common problems associated companies’ abilities with implementing strategic marketing:

• Too much emphasis on where to compete and not enough on how to compete. Companies devote much more attention to identifying markets in which to compete than to the means with which to compete in these markets. Information on where to compete is easy to obtain but seldom brings about competitive advantage
• Not enough focus on company uniqueness and adaptability in strategy. Most marketing strategies lack uniqueness. Today’s easy access to generic research information frequently leads companies to follow identical strategies to the detriment of all in the marketplace
• Insufficient emphasis on when to compete. Because of the heavy emphasis on where and how to compete, many marketing strategies give inadequate attention to when to compete.

In today’s highly competitive environment, companies need to focus on how to compete in entirely new ways. In implementing strategic marketing, creativity will play a crucial role. Improvements would have to be made to internal processes in tandem with the development of new marketing strategies, a "how" strategy that cannot be duplicated by competitors.

A company’s uniqueness should be a highlight of any strategic marketing program. Any move in the marketplace should be adequately timed. The optimum time is one that minimizes or eliminates competition and creates the desired impact on the market.

Additionally, companies would have to develop attainable goals and objectives, involve key operating personnel, avoid getting so engrossed in current problems that strategic marketing is ignored, do not keep marketing strategy separate from the management process, avoid formality in the marketing strategy formulation, which could restrain flexibility and creativity and avoid creating a climate that is resistant to strategic marketing.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

Copyright Control © 2011 Oseme Group