Happy or Not Happy?

June 21, 2012 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

Last week I spoke on Marketing Measurement at an event called ‘Effective Marketing in a Digital World’. During the pre-event networking, I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen since he and his wife had their first child.

Naturally, our conversation revolved around his daughter and he showed me a photo of her that he keeps on his phone. As I remarked on her beautiful blue eyes (all credit goes to his wife) and how cute she is, he also pointed out what a good baby she is and how she doesn’t cry too much or too loudly.

Then, perhaps influenced by the topic on which I was about to speak, we started joking about how his daughter rates quite highly on two important metrics for measuring baby quality; cuteness and crying volume. We decided one could use these two metrics to categorize all babies into one of four quadrants of a matrix, as follows:

  • Quadrant #1 – Very Cute babies that cry quietly
  • Quadrant #2 – Very Cute babies that cry loudly
  • Quadrant #3 – Not Very Cute babies that cry quietly
  • Quadrant #4 – Not Very Cute babies that cry loudly

Of course, few parents would put their babies into the 3rd or 4th quadrants, but assuming some did, here’s how parents in each quadrant might feel:

#1 – Pleased to have a quiet and very cute baby
#2 – Hoping baby will grow out of this ‘Loud Crying’ phase, but thankful for the cuteness.
#3 – Hoping baby will grow out of this ‘Not Very Cute’ phase, but thankful for the quietness.
#4 – Hoping for improvement on both characteristics.

We laughed about the inappropriateness of categorizing babies this way, agreed to get together soon and continued networking with others.

The next day, as I reflected on the great people I met and the conversations we had, I recalled that silly matrix conversation. Then I remembered how I had once devised a similar matrix to categorize all marketers by their measurement efforts and whether they were happy with those efforts. In this case, the four quadrants were:

  • Quadrant #1 – Companies who measure marketing and are happy with their measurement
  • Quadrant #2 – Companies who don’t measure marketing and are happy they don’t
  • Quadrant #3 – Companies who measure marketing and are not happy with their measurement
  • Quadrant #4 – Companies who don’t measure marketing and are not happy they don’t

Unlike the baby matrix where most parents would say they are in the 1st or 2nd quadrants, I think a lot of companies would say they are in the 3rd or 4th quadrants. This is not surprising as marketing measurement cannot be done perfectly and so there is always a way to improve.

It can be helpful to decide in which quadrant your company sits, and why, as this can lead to improving your marketing measurement.  Let’s look a few key characteristics of companies in each quadrant:

Quadrant #1

  • Spending enough on marketing that they need to evaluate and manage that spending.
  • Learning what they need to know to improve marketing decisions and business results.
  • Spending appropriately on measurement relative to the size of their marketing budget.

Quadrant #2

  • Those with small marketing budgets have little or nothing to measure.
  • Those with larger marketing budgets who don’t measure are either making great instinctive marketing decisions based on limited information, or they may just be unaware of their ineffectiveness and any missed chances for improvement.

Quadrant #3

  • Measuring but not learning enough to improve marketing decisions.
  • Current measurement efforts may be inconsistent or sporadic.
  • May not have a standardized approach, making it difficult to compare individual program results to benchmarks and other programs.
  • Might be overspending on measurement, making it too big a percentage of their marketing budget.

Quadrant #4

  • May not be achieving their business objectives and are feeling pressure to better manage their marketing spending to that end.
  • May not measure due to a shortage of resources, such as time, money, people and expertise.
  • May lack clear, measurable marketing objectives that facilitate effective measurement.
  • Measurement may seem too daunting to undertake, given the increasing complexity of marketing and customer decision-making processes and, possibly, a resulting perception that the only suitable approach to measurement must also be complex and therefore too costly.

Where Are You Now and Where Do You Want To Be?

I know, that’s a little vague. I’m not looking for answers like “I’m at the office and I want to be at the cottage”, although that is a very good answer. I’m wondering which quadrant your company is in currently, and whether that’s good enough for you.

If you’re already happily in Quadrant #1, congratulations, you can leave now for the cottage! However, if you’re in one of the other quadrants and you’re spending a significant amount of money on marketing, you may still have some work to do before you pack your SUV, particularly if you’re not achieving your business objectives.

One of the points I made in my presentation is that to be effective at marketing, you have to do four things well:

  1. Research: Insights about markets, competitors, customers, etc.
  2. Strategy: For the business, your brands and how you will go to market
  3. Execution: The marketing programs that help you find, develop and keep profitable customers
  4. Measurement: To know if your strategies and executions are delivering

One of the main benefits of measurement is the ability it gives you to make improvements to your strategies and executions. If you are not measuring, or if you are not happy with your current measurement efforts, there is a solution, and that is to build an effective measurement process. If you need my help, I’ll be at the cottage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Approach Tagged With: Effectiveness, marketing, Measure, measurement, Metrics, objectives

Do Daily Deal Coupons Work?

January 19, 2012 By Rick Shea Leave a Comment

Daily deal coupons are all the rage these days, led by Groupon and their numerous competitors. Since I have a pretty extensive background in consumer promotions, particularly couponing, I tend to get pulled into discussions on daily deal coupons and I often notice the frequent related media coverage. Setting aside all the buzz around them, they’re really just a new twist on an old marketing tactic, but do daily deal coupons work?

Traditional paper coupons and price discounts have worked quite nicely, since the late 1800s in the case of coupons, and I suppose for centuries or millennia in the case of price discounts. One of the main reasons to discount is to attract new customers to try your products or services, and then hopefully sell them more stuff and/or turn them into profitable repeat customers who will pay full price on future purchases. Daily deal coupons can certainly do this.

It is beyond the scope of this newsletter to address the dos and don’ts of daily deal coupons, but you’ll get some insights if you Google “Groupon horror stories” and “Groupon success stories”. I will say that you’ll want to have a way to limit response levels or to make sure you can live with whatever level of response you get.

To address whether daily deal coupons work from a measurement perspective, my answer leads to more questions, starting with “Well, it depends, what did you want them to do for your business?”

Drilling down a bit further, answers to the following four fundamental questions should inform the planning, objective setting and measuring of any marketing program. Clear answers should point the way to what and how to measure, and whether the program “worked” to meet its objectives.

Let’s look at each of these.

1. Who are you targeting? While many answers are possible, the best answer is often “new customers” to help grow your business.  Merchants benefit most when they structure their daily deal coupon offers to attract new customers, rather than subsidize existing customers who would have bought without a coupon.

2. What do you want them to do? You’ll want new customers to buy for the first time whereas you may want existing customers to buy something more or different than usual. In addition, you might try to prop up an under-performing aspect of your business, such as your slow month or time of day, or a product that isn’t selling well.

3. How much value will that create for your business? This one is especially important and a bit tricky. You’ll need to consider the short term (this transaction) and the long term (the customer’s lifetime). Ideally, you’d like this transaction to create enough value to at least cover your costs, but if it doesn’t you’ll need to make up the difference and ideally much more over the lifetime of those customers who buy your daily deal.

Short Term – This Transaction: Consider your variable cost of providing the products or services you will sell through this coupon and compare that to the revenue from your share of the coupon selling price, which you will split (often 50/50) with the daily deal provider. Also, consider whether you’ll receive your share of the revenue when the coupon is bought, or when (and if!) it is redeemed.

Long Term – The Customer’s Lifetime: How long is the lifetime of a typical customer? On average, how many times will each customer buy over that lifetime, and how much will they buy each time? If each new customer’s lifetime is just this one transaction, it may not be worth your while to offer this coupon. But, if you can convert enough of those new customers to loyal repeat customers for many years, then discounting to get them in the door should be worthwhile.

4. How many people do you need to do that for this expense to be worthwhile? Once you know what a customer is worth to you over whatever time frame you want to use, and you know your costs, then you can set an objective for how much value (metrics include new customers, number of transactions, transaction values, etc.) you want this marketing investment to generate. Then you can measure against those objectives.

Clear Objectives Make Measurement Easier

To measure whether or not a daily deal coupon or any marketing program worked for your business, you need clearly defined objectives. In other words, to measure whether you have succeeded, you must  first define success. Clear objectives will tell you what metrics to use and where to find the data.

It’s one thing to attract new customers with discounts, and quite another to keep them. Can you convert discount shoppers to loyal customers? Success will come down to your company’s ability to deliver a superior customer experience in the short term, and to build a positive relationship with each customer over the long term and maximize both the lifetime and the value of as many customers as possible. Of course, that’s something every business has to do well, however they find their customers.

Daily deal coupons may be a relatively new marketing tactic, but there’s nothing new about the fundamentals that determine whether you should use them, whether you’ll be successful and how to measure your success. Clear objectives will help you to decide whether to use daily deal coupons and to evaluate whether using them worked, however you define success. To compare the success of a daily deal coupon program to any other type of marketing program, well that’s a topic for another newsletter.

 

 

Filed Under: Approach Tagged With: Management, marketing, Measure, measurement, objectives, Planning
Newer Posts »