Do Business Well

2. Paper catalogs face an uncertain future.

Mailboxes across the county are stuffed with countless catalogs every day. According to one estimate, 17.6 billion catalogs were mailed in the U.S. last year. That’s sixty-four catalogs for every man, woman, and child.

That may change. Catalogs of all types will find themselves under severe electronic competition. There are a number of reasons why a Web catalog is superior to a paper one. Continue Reading »

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Purchase History

<FIRST PURCHASE DATE, LAST PURCHASE DATE, PURCHASE FREQUENCY, PURCHASE VALUE (ACTUAL PURCHASES OR AVERAGE PURCHASE), PRODUCTS PURCHASED, PURCHASE DRIVER (WEBSITE “WALK-ON,” EMAIL RESPONSE, BANNER CLICK-THROUGH … )>

Because past purchases are among the leading predictors of future interest, you should use the information contained in the customer’s purchase history to determine the timing, offer, targeting, and personalization of your promotional communication. If, for example, you bought book from BarnesandNoble, you’ve probably been identified as someone who’s interested in high-tech business books, which means there’s a good chance you’d be interested in Geoffrey Moore’s Inside the Tornado. Continue Reading »

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Yet today most companies organize their inbound and outbound functions separately. To avoid this, the engaged organization must organize all its marketing, customer service, and support functions into one department. This way, customers visiting the company’s website or receiving email see a single company and a single brand.

There are two primary reasons why it makes sense to combine customer service support and marketing into one department. First, organizing different functions under the same department lets you align their goals and measures of success. When the goal is to build and nurture lasting relationships by engaging customers in an ongoing dialogue, it makes intuitive sense that the inbound and outbound parts of that dialogue come from the same place. Continue Reading »

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Back to the car of the future—the one with the Internet connection and onboard GPS system. Car manufacturers will no longer be just in the business of making and selling cars. In fact, that could end up being the smallest part of their business. If it were up to GM, they’d establish a relationship with you to service all your car transportation needs. They would pick up your car once a week and have it cleaned. They would offer you a car if you needed to travel to a different city and, of course, they would have someone pick up and deliver your car curbside at the airport. They would finance your car and, naturally, service it. They would even offer you the seasonal car program providing a convertible during the summer and an allwheel-drive in winter. Continue Reading »

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