It doesn't matter how much work you might put into various parts of a project, by far the thing that generates the greatest interest is when a map is included.
Generating segments or profiling customer behaviour is all very well but the advantage of a map is that it is highly visual and also relates to tangible real-world locations rather than some abstract concept of customers with similar behaviour.
Maps can help show where you have high/low customer penetration, which areas have higher average order value, more delivery complaints etc., They can also be used to find areas that have the closest profile to your best customers to help aid acquisition.
At Analysis Marketing we use maps in a variety of scenarios and have put a brief guide together to the kind of things you can do using maps.
The guide is available on our website here. If your business could benefit from using maps then get in touch with us for a no obligation discussion on how we can help you to visualise your customers.
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Can I get you to read this?
Where in traditional Direct Mail the envelope design took on the role of trying to entice the recipient to be interested enough to open and spend proper time considering the contents, in the online world the email subject line has the same job put is hampered by being purely text.
Unless it’s from someone you know well or a business you have a regular relationship with, that particular email is fighting for attention with all the others that flood in along relating to work, social life and all the emails saying their various non-existent online bank accounts have been suspended (I hope it isn’t just me getting those).
A good example of an email subject that does its job is from Tier1 Online (a computer/electronics supplier) who I get an email from most workdays, an example of a recent subject line being ‘Netbook clearance Archos 10 Windows XP netbook only £169’, from this I don’t need to read the email, if I’m interested I’ll open, if not, I’ll leave it.
A not so good example are the emails I get from Staples, with examples such as ‘FREE Flying Lanterns – offer ends tomorrow!’ and ‘FREE Cocktail Set!’ which are just wrong on a number of levels:
1. What on earth do these products have to do with a stationery/office supplies company?
2. Everybody wishes they worked for a cool, fun brand but exclamation marks have their place and it isn’t here
3. In the body of the flying lanterns email (I only looked for research purposes) is a banner at the bottom saying ‘10% off Ink and Toner’ which actually is relevant to me (if not the most exciting thing in the world)
For me the main things to consider are:
1. Avoid generic terms such as ‘August Newsletter’ or ‘Great Gift Ideas’, these aren’t going to tip the balance and make me bother to open the email
2. A bit of personalisation might help as it’s a quick way of sorting the real from the spam (e.g., ebay emails contain my user ID so I know they are genuine)
3. Test, Test, Test: if ‘FREE Flying Lanterns’ really is the best way to get people to buy paper clips and post-it notes then go for it but if not try out different options to improve your open rates, click through rates and ultimately sales
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Unless it’s from someone you know well or a business you have a regular relationship with, that particular email is fighting for attention with all the others that flood in along relating to work, social life and all the emails saying their various non-existent online bank accounts have been suspended (I hope it isn’t just me getting those).
A good example of an email subject that does its job is from Tier1 Online (a computer/electronics supplier) who I get an email from most workdays, an example of a recent subject line being ‘Netbook clearance Archos 10 Windows XP netbook only £169’, from this I don’t need to read the email, if I’m interested I’ll open, if not, I’ll leave it.
A not so good example are the emails I get from Staples, with examples such as ‘FREE Flying Lanterns – offer ends tomorrow!’ and ‘FREE Cocktail Set!’ which are just wrong on a number of levels:
1. What on earth do these products have to do with a stationery/office supplies company?
2. Everybody wishes they worked for a cool, fun brand but exclamation marks have their place and it isn’t here
3. In the body of the flying lanterns email (I only looked for research purposes) is a banner at the bottom saying ‘10% off Ink and Toner’ which actually is relevant to me (if not the most exciting thing in the world)
For me the main things to consider are:
1. Avoid generic terms such as ‘August Newsletter’ or ‘Great Gift Ideas’, these aren’t going to tip the balance and make me bother to open the email
2. A bit of personalisation might help as it’s a quick way of sorting the real from the spam (e.g., ebay emails contain my user ID so I know they are genuine)
3. Test, Test, Test: if ‘FREE Flying Lanterns’ really is the best way to get people to buy paper clips and post-it notes then go for it but if not try out different options to improve your open rates, click through rates and ultimately sales
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Incremental vs. Absolute Sales - giffgaff mobile
In recent weeks I’ve noticed an increasing number of advertisements for a mobile operator called giffgaff.
They are being marketed as being a more ‘community’ based company with support coming in the shape of on-line member forums rather than call centres. In return they are offering quite competitive rates.
On further examination the company is owned (but independent from) O2 so is to some extent an aim by O2 to increase market share by appearing to be a new challenger to the existing brands rather than a brand extension.
In the saturated mobile phone market, a new customer for giffgaff will be coming from either O2 itself or one of their few other competitors. As giffgaff uses the O2 network the people most likely to switch over will be current O2 customers (of which I am one), not least because O2 customers will be able to use O2 locked handsets on giffgaff.
From an analytical perspective the key is the overall incremental profit made between O2 and giffgaff combined, the numbers below are purely speculative but give an indication of the kinds of things that need to be thought of when acquiring sales.
The incremental profit depends on the proportion of O2 customers being cannibalised and the profit giffgaff make from a customer compared to how much O2 were making from the same customer.
In the calculations below I’ve taken a very basic £5 a month lower profit as this is the drop in price for some of the equivalent tariffs. The figures are purely for illustration only showing a potential scenario:
Example Figures for use in calculating incremental impact:
Proportion of giffgaff customers that are from transferring from O2 – 30%
Average monthly profit from a giffgaff customer - £8.75
Average monthly profit from a customer on O2 prior to moving to giffgaff- £13.75
Average incremental monthly profit – £4.63 (70% of base providing £8.75 and 30% costing £5 a month)
In the example above the level of incremental profit is just over half of the figure when cannibalisation is not taken into account.
There are lots of other factors to throw into the mix such as Advertising and Operational costs and how giffgaff impacts on retention (better a move to giffgaff than T-Mobile), but the figures above show how if you concern yourself with absolute rather than incremental sales, you could end up spending a lot of money for little incremental gain.
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
They are being marketed as being a more ‘community’ based company with support coming in the shape of on-line member forums rather than call centres. In return they are offering quite competitive rates.
On further examination the company is owned (but independent from) O2 so is to some extent an aim by O2 to increase market share by appearing to be a new challenger to the existing brands rather than a brand extension.
In the saturated mobile phone market, a new customer for giffgaff will be coming from either O2 itself or one of their few other competitors. As giffgaff uses the O2 network the people most likely to switch over will be current O2 customers (of which I am one), not least because O2 customers will be able to use O2 locked handsets on giffgaff.
From an analytical perspective the key is the overall incremental profit made between O2 and giffgaff combined, the numbers below are purely speculative but give an indication of the kinds of things that need to be thought of when acquiring sales.
The incremental profit depends on the proportion of O2 customers being cannibalised and the profit giffgaff make from a customer compared to how much O2 were making from the same customer.
In the calculations below I’ve taken a very basic £5 a month lower profit as this is the drop in price for some of the equivalent tariffs. The figures are purely for illustration only showing a potential scenario:
Example Figures for use in calculating incremental impact:
Proportion of giffgaff customers that are from transferring from O2 – 30%
Average monthly profit from a giffgaff customer - £8.75
Average monthly profit from a customer on O2 prior to moving to giffgaff- £13.75
Average incremental monthly profit – £4.63 (70% of base providing £8.75 and 30% costing £5 a month)
In the example above the level of incremental profit is just over half of the figure when cannibalisation is not taken into account.
There are lots of other factors to throw into the mix such as Advertising and Operational costs and how giffgaff impacts on retention (better a move to giffgaff than T-Mobile), but the figures above show how if you concern yourself with absolute rather than incremental sales, you could end up spending a lot of money for little incremental gain.
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Lovefilm - The Sequel
In a previous post, I mentioned how I’d had repeated offers from Lovefilm to come back as a customer but that I couldn’t take up their offers as they said I wasn’t eligible as I’d had an offer in the past.
Since then I’ve had another mailing and as the offer of 3 months for the price of 1 is too good to resist I thought I’d try something different.
The code they provide you can be used by yourself or given to a friend so I decided to give it to myself but just called myself Daniel instead of Dan and used a different email address and payment card.
This worked fine, so ultimately, I can’t come back as the same customer (where they would then have my information around previous history/preferences etc.,) but instead I’m tracked as a new customer albeit one with the same initial, surname and address.
This means that whoever is in charge of acquisition rather than reactivation will be happy (but not so happy when I cancel as soon as the three months are up and I show in their churn figures).
As before, the question is why send someone an offer that they are unable to take up. Following on from that, if you don’t want them taking the offer, have a few more checks in place to make sure they aren’t just using a different person (or even just different email address) to take the offer as it messes up your understanding of who your customers are.
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Since then I’ve had another mailing and as the offer of 3 months for the price of 1 is too good to resist I thought I’d try something different.
The code they provide you can be used by yourself or given to a friend so I decided to give it to myself but just called myself Daniel instead of Dan and used a different email address and payment card.
This worked fine, so ultimately, I can’t come back as the same customer (where they would then have my information around previous history/preferences etc.,) but instead I’m tracked as a new customer albeit one with the same initial, surname and address.
This means that whoever is in charge of acquisition rather than reactivation will be happy (but not so happy when I cancel as soon as the three months are up and I show in their churn figures).
As before, the question is why send someone an offer that they are unable to take up. Following on from that, if you don’t want them taking the offer, have a few more checks in place to make sure they aren’t just using a different person (or even just different email address) to take the offer as it messes up your understanding of who your customers are.
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
SAS Training - Blinkered Vision?
I recently received a mailing from SAS regarding their training courses. For some reason the promotion they are leading with offers ski goggles as an incentive to sign up:
This appears to be quite a convoluted way of shoe-horning the offer and the proposition 'See your course more clearly' together.
The assumption is either they came up with something along the lines of 'See more clearly' then racked their brains to try and find a prodcut to match or someone turned up at their HQ in Marlow with a lorry load of ski goggles going cheap.
Either way ski goggles have nothing to do with data analysis or statistics and it's odd to use an item which has niche appeal. Although companies using M&S vouchers or iTunes cards aren't exactly original, they know that they are almost as good as cash.
Also, offering the alternative of a £15 donation to the Prince's Trust means you are left with the perception that this is the value of the goggles when in fact they retail at £30 so they have undermined their proposition immediately.
For something like SAS training they would be better off either using something with broader appeal or pushing an 'early bird' discount for those booking within 2 weeks of receiving the brochure.
An inventive creative can work wonders but can also fall flat on its face so you always need to ask "Is this really adding anything?".
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
This appears to be quite a convoluted way of shoe-horning the offer and the proposition 'See your course more clearly' together.
The assumption is either they came up with something along the lines of 'See more clearly' then racked their brains to try and find a prodcut to match or someone turned up at their HQ in Marlow with a lorry load of ski goggles going cheap.
Either way ski goggles have nothing to do with data analysis or statistics and it's odd to use an item which has niche appeal. Although companies using M&S vouchers or iTunes cards aren't exactly original, they know that they are almost as good as cash.
Also, offering the alternative of a £15 donation to the Prince's Trust means you are left with the perception that this is the value of the goggles when in fact they retail at £30 so they have undermined their proposition immediately.
For something like SAS training they would be better off either using something with broader appeal or pushing an 'early bird' discount for those booking within 2 weeks of receiving the brochure.
An inventive creative can work wonders but can also fall flat on its face so you always need to ask "Is this really adding anything?".
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
MPs Expenses - 1st Class Cost for 2nd Class Service?
An awful lot has been written concerning MPs expenses with the focus being mainly on claims for items that didn’t exist or for excessive claims such as the Duck House.
Now that the furore has to some extent settled down, we have the opportunity to look at less sensational examples where spending is merely higher than it arguably needs to be.
In any business, the way some people treat costs is different where it isn’t their money as opposed to if it came out of their own pocket. A good example of this is MPs postage costs for pre-paid envelopes.
It doesn’t have the whiff of scandal of other areas but the cost of MP postage for 07-08 (the most recent published data purely for postage) was £1.66m so small changes could deliver significant benefits.
Most analysis of MPs expenses has focused on overall spend, but the advantage of having detailed item expenditure as you have for postage is that you can get into the detail of how the total is created.
There are a number of price points at which the majority of postage is sent:
24p C5 Envelope 2nd Class
34p C5 Envelope 1st Class
60p C4 Envelope 2nd Class
70p C4 Envelope 1st Class
£1.84 Small plastic mailer
£5.75 Large plastic mailer
For reference, C4 is an envelope big enough to send A4 unfolded and C5 is big enough to send A4 items folded in half.
For C4/C5 postage there is a huge variation in the proportion sent 1st class by MP:
You can argue that constituents should receive prompt correspondence using 1st class post, but a sizeable proportion of MPs appear to balance their use of 1st and 2nd Class as appropriate.
As well as the issue above, over £187k was spent on large plastic mailers which are charged at £5.75 per item (I'm presuming they are guaranteed next day delivery items). The distribution of these is even more skewed with over 42% of MPs not using these at all but with one MP (Betty Williams) spending nearly £5k on these items.
It may be that Mrs Williams had a valid reason for using these envelopes but as she claimed for very little other postage (£1,100), it may be that her team were using these £5.75 envelopes as standard.
This difference in attitudes as to making every penny count versus a more ‘extravagant’ approach is also likely to be visible in other areas of expense claims such as making sure bills are paid by direct debit to ensure a discount.
They key point (as mentioned in previous blogs) is without the detailed data that creates the summary figures the real insights will be lost. Whether it’s expenses or campaign reporting, the real value is gained when digging into the detail.
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
http://www.analysismarketing.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Note: 07-08 Postage Figures from:
http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/stationery-and-postage/
Now that the furore has to some extent settled down, we have the opportunity to look at less sensational examples where spending is merely higher than it arguably needs to be.
In any business, the way some people treat costs is different where it isn’t their money as opposed to if it came out of their own pocket. A good example of this is MPs postage costs for pre-paid envelopes.
It doesn’t have the whiff of scandal of other areas but the cost of MP postage for 07-08 (the most recent published data purely for postage) was £1.66m so small changes could deliver significant benefits.
Most analysis of MPs expenses has focused on overall spend, but the advantage of having detailed item expenditure as you have for postage is that you can get into the detail of how the total is created.
There are a number of price points at which the majority of postage is sent:
24p C5 Envelope 2nd Class
34p C5 Envelope 1st Class
60p C4 Envelope 2nd Class
70p C4 Envelope 1st Class
£1.84 Small plastic mailer
£5.75 Large plastic mailer
For reference, C4 is an envelope big enough to send A4 unfolded and C5 is big enough to send A4 items folded in half.
For C4/C5 postage there is a huge variation in the proportion sent 1st class by MP:
Ignoring any issues about the huge variation of volume sent by MPs. Simply switching to 2nd class post could have a major impact on the postage budget:
You can argue that constituents should receive prompt correspondence using 1st class post, but a sizeable proportion of MPs appear to balance their use of 1st and 2nd Class as appropriate.
As well as the issue above, over £187k was spent on large plastic mailers which are charged at £5.75 per item (I'm presuming they are guaranteed next day delivery items). The distribution of these is even more skewed with over 42% of MPs not using these at all but with one MP (Betty Williams) spending nearly £5k on these items.
It may be that Mrs Williams had a valid reason for using these envelopes but as she claimed for very little other postage (£1,100), it may be that her team were using these £5.75 envelopes as standard.
This difference in attitudes as to making every penny count versus a more ‘extravagant’ approach is also likely to be visible in other areas of expense claims such as making sure bills are paid by direct debit to ensure a discount.
They key point (as mentioned in previous blogs) is without the detailed data that creates the summary figures the real insights will be lost. Whether it’s expenses or campaign reporting, the real value is gained when digging into the detail.
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
http://www.analysismarketing.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Note: 07-08 Postage Figures from:
http://mpsallowances.parliament.uk/mpslordsandoffices/hocallowances/allowances-by-mp/stationery-and-postage/
Friday, 26 February 2010
David Lloyd - SMS Marketing
In a previous Blog I mentioned about the letter I'd received from David Lloyd trying to get me back as a member of one of their gyms.
Since that letter I've also had a number of text messages from them, my 'favourite' of which is reproduced below as sent by them, (I've commented out the phone number) :
TREAT YOURSELF THIS PAYDAY WITH A MEMBERSHIP AT DAVID LLOYD! 1ST 20 RECIEVE A SPORTS BAG AND NO JOINING FEE. CALL 01582XXXXX T&Cs Apply. /2 REMOVE RPLY STOP
There are a number of issues I have with the message:
Capital letters - It feels like someone's shouting at me and also means the message looks like Spam.
If I was the kind of person who lived from payday to payday I wouldn't be considering forking out £60-£70 a month on gym membership. I'd also consider it a pretty big financial commitment rather than a treat.
I stopped being a member over 3 years ago, it feels strange for them to start using SMS regularly out of the blue. (I also had one text from them last October which did manage to user both upper and lower case and had a better promotion).
In the last 3 weeks I've had 3 texts from them. I know I could reply to stop them but I quite enjoy being outraged at wasted marketing like this. Why don't they offer me a free day/week pass to see what I'm missing or offer me 3 months for the price of 2, anything must be more effective than a free sports bag.
Of course the main thing in any campaign is how effective it is, if David Lloyd have tried different message tone/content and a Cash4Gold style approach works best then fair play to them. I'd be amazed though that it's the best way to get people coming back.
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
Since that letter I've also had a number of text messages from them, my 'favourite' of which is reproduced below as sent by them, (I've commented out the phone number) :
TREAT YOURSELF THIS PAYDAY WITH A MEMBERSHIP AT DAVID LLOYD! 1ST 20 RECIEVE A SPORTS BAG AND NO JOINING FEE. CALL 01582XXXXX T&Cs Apply. /2 REMOVE RPLY STOP
There are a number of issues I have with the message:
Capital letters - It feels like someone's shouting at me and also means the message looks like Spam.
If I was the kind of person who lived from payday to payday I wouldn't be considering forking out £60-£70 a month on gym membership. I'd also consider it a pretty big financial commitment rather than a treat.
I stopped being a member over 3 years ago, it feels strange for them to start using SMS regularly out of the blue. (I also had one text from them last October which did manage to user both upper and lower case and had a better promotion).
In the last 3 weeks I've had 3 texts from them. I know I could reply to stop them but I quite enjoy being outraged at wasted marketing like this. Why don't they offer me a free day/week pass to see what I'm missing or offer me 3 months for the price of 2, anything must be more effective than a free sports bag.
Of course the main thing in any campaign is how effective it is, if David Lloyd have tried different message tone/content and a Cash4Gold style approach works best then fair play to them. I'd be amazed though that it's the best way to get people coming back.
Dan Barnett
Director of Analytics
blog@analysismarketing.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/danjbarnett
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