BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - November 12, 2009) - For marketers, the slogan "right customer, right
offer, right channel, right time" has become a universal rallying call. Yet
few have been able to achieve the vision of Offer Optimization such that
the "best next action," whether it is a specific product or service,
marketing message or customer service treatment, is automatically presented
to customers on an individual basis.
Now, however, that vision is coming to fruition, according to a new
research report published by the
Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
(
NYSE:
HHS), titled
"
Offer
Optimization: Using Customer Data for Marketing Performance
Improvement." This report reveals that a growing number of companies
are harnessing the power of customer analytics to gain deep customer
intelligence. As a result, they are able to make smarter customer
relationship management decisions and obtain greater control over their
marketing outcomes.
In particular, companies can optimize the multidimensional tradeoffs
between their specific marketing goals and the constraints of their
marketing campaigns. Data modeling techniques can determine the relative
propensity of each customer to respond to specific promotions while
optimization algorithms can determine the best possible match between
customers, offers, and channels.
When it comes to harnessing the power of customer analytics, Aberdeen
research reveals a number of striking performance disparities between
Best-in-Class, Industry Average and Laggard companies. For example,
Best-in-Class companies outperform Industry Average and Laggard companies
in terms of customer acquisition rates by a factor of 2 and 43,
respectively, and by a factor of 1.8 and 10.5 when it comes to customer
retention. Best-in-Class companies also excel when it comes to customer
up-sell / cross-sell effectiveness as well as overall return on marketing
investment.
In addition to deploying the right set of enabling technologies, including
marketing automation software and predictive modeling applications, Offer
Optimization requires a combination of strategic actions and organizational
capabilities. While analytic skills provide the foundation for everything
from customer segmentation to marketing mix optimization, customer data
first needs to be optimized for analysis and made accessible in such a way
that it meets the needs of the team conducting the analysis. This requires
the expertise of an operations team skilled in customer data management,
including the ongoing process of data integration and cleansing.
The report includes a number of recommendations to help spur performance
improvements in data-driven marketing improvement with a line of sight to
achieving Offer Optimization. In addition to hiring the right
organizational resources, recommended actions include integrating customer
feedback management capabilities, leveraging the ubiquity of the mobile
channel and implementing a process referred to as "blueprinting the ideal
customer."
"Offer Optimization is a concept whose time has come," said Jeff Zabin,
Research Fellow at Aberdeen Group. "The convergence of customer analytics
and enabling technologies with core business processes is finally bringing
to fruition that much-ballyhooed promise of one day cracking the code on
the combinatorial complexities of presenting the right customer with the
right offer through the right channel at the right point in time. In many
ways, Offer Optimization sits at the very heart of marketing performance
improvement."
A complimentary copy of this report is made available due, in part, to the
following underwriters: FICO, Infor, Portrait Software and Neolane. To
access a copy, visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=6223
For additional access to complimentary
Customer
Management Research, please visit
http://research.aberdeen.com/index.php/-customer-management
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market
intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more
than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely
positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating
demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment
analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets,
corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in
context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of
Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement -
Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role
Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit
Aberdeen
http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more
about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to
http://www.harte-hanks.com.
© 2009 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
Contact Information: Media Contact:
Jeff Zabin
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(847) 328-4795
jeff.zabin@aberdeen.com