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Predictive Modeling Helps Focus Retention Marketing Resources

Is it possible to know one�s customers better than they themselves do? When it comes to next-purchase or defection behavior, marketers can use predictive modeling techniques to identify target populations most likely to respond positively to a variety of efforts. Consider the contrast of a campaign focused with great precision through predictive modeling with a randomly targeted mailing. Predictive modeling might determine that the top 10 percent of customers by revenue represent the top 30 percent of customers likely to leave for a competitor. This information yields a readymade list of targets for retention efforts. ...

Unified Databases, E-mail Hygiene Pay Out For Eldorado Resorts

At Eldorado Resorts, databases talk to each other before talking to guests. These conversations keep members of its loyalty program from being bombarded with too many solicitations�or, even worse, with inappropriate messages. This quantity control effort is relatively new. Up through the summer of 2010, Eldorado's various business departments, including its restaurants, casinos, showrooms, concert venues and hotels, maintained unlinked databases. Because of this, individual properties�like the Eldorado and Silver Legacy Casinos in Nevada, and an Eldorado in Shreveport�didn't have a complete view of the value of their customers. ...

Marketers Overlook "Buried Treasure" In Unredeemed Loyalty Points

Marketers issued $48 billion in loyalty currency, such as points and miles, during 2010. If patterns hold, customers will redeem only $32 billion of them. Don�t count that $16 billion in breakage�unredeemed currency�as a win for marketers, however. Laying right alongside it in the till are missed opportunities to strengthen relationships with customers, as well as generate additional sales from them, as loyalty currency is rarely redeemed without additional purchases. ...

Quick Response Codes Bring Diners Back To Fire + Ice

Some businesses can survive with a once-a-year customer visit pattern. Swimwear vendors and Christmas tree sellers come to mind. Restaurants have a harder go of it. �We were considered a destination restaurant,� says Rafael Barbosa, marketing manager for Fire + Ice, a small chain of grilled-at-your-table eateries. �Bachelorette parties, birthdays. We weren�t considered a restaurant you would go to every week, or twice a week.� As it happened, even as little as twice a month would have been an improvement. ...

Marketers Ponder The Future of Credit and Debit Card Rewards

Now that the economy is seeing the other side of the recent recession, financial institutions are starting to wonder about the future of credit and debit card reward programs. Several factors are converging to prompt this question. Customers remain stressed economically, while government regulations�including those on fees credit card companies charge retailers�are increasing. With the mortgage and foreclosure crisis still in full swing and consumers cutting up credit cards in favor of cash, banks are struggling to negotiate success as they rebuild their reputations and relationships with customers. Because banks are under pressure, cutting the costs of reward programs is top of mind. Some of them treat loyalty efforts as costly burdens simply required to play in the space. ...

Service Data Guides Sullivan Tire's Direct Mail Efforts

Marketers who don't get enough information from recency, frequency and monetary (RFM) analysis can consider adding a fourth metric to their calculations: Tire tread measurements. Granted, this metric will only yield useful data for a limited number of companies. But Sullivan Tire Co. Inc. is one such company, and when tires on a customer's car are worn down to depths 3/32nds of an inch or so, its individualized direct mail efforts hit the ground running. During 2011, Sullivan Tire will expand the mail program fueled by this and other service data, sending out 500,000 pieces, according to database manager Mike Panarelli. ...

Crabtree & Evelyn Revamps Loyalty Program, Boosts Direct Mail Use

Bath and body products retailer Crabtree & Evelyn is hoping an aggressive customer contact strategy and an updated loyalty program will result in the sweet smell of success. At the heart of its re-energized customer focus is "Platinum," a loyalty program the company launched just over a year ago to replace its "Preferred" scheme. For a five dollar entry fee, members received 20% discounts on merchandise during the first week of each month. ...

Analysis Of Unredeemed Loyalty Points Offers Customer, Marketing Insight

There is information in inaction, if marketers know how to analyze it: Segmenting and examining customers based on their activity and unused loyalty program currency can offer insight into communicating with them and building their value. It can also help stimulate redemption. This is a double bonus: Not only do customers interact with the marketer, building affinity, but it helps with the books: Loyalty program points are often kept on corporate accounting sheets as liabilities. What are the keys to looking at unused program currency? �The first question marketers should be asking is why their members are keeping the points,� says Jill Goldworn, president of The First Club, which offers low-point redemption alternatives for companies running loyalty schemes....

ASPCA Cuts Churn By Updating E-Mail Addresses

Never mind the dog: One animal-focused organization has generated a donation by cleaning up after its donors. �People can change email addresses as easily as they change their socks,� says Debbie Swider, emarketing director at ASPCA, adding that the organization�s procedure for updating contact information isn�t as efficient as it could be. As a result, the ASPCA saw an 18.5% churn rate within its email file, somewhat higher than the 17% standard for nonprofits, according to 2010 research from M+R Strategic Services and NTen. ...

Using Uplift Modeling to Slash Email Marketing�s Hidden Cost

In an effort to reach as many customers as possible at minimal financial cost, many marketers overlook the pricey consequences that can result from sending mass, untargeted emails to their entire audience....

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