So how are marketers doing?  I reviewed this morning a press release that caught my interest from Alterian Partners in London Customer Engagement Agencies shaking up the Marketing Industry and, from there, their research study 2008 Annual Industry Survey.  A few interesting key findings from their study:

• Marketers are using multiple applications to run a campaign from creation to execution.
  • 51% are using 3-6 applications
  • 25% are using 7+ applications
  • 13% are using 9 or more applications

• Less than half (47%) of respondents use analytics, and a quarter of those surveyed cite analyzing results as the hardest part of any campaign.

• The application most used when running a campaign was Campaign Management (32%) followed by Email Marketing (23%) and Web Content Management (10%).

Alterian’s solution to this problem, according to their materials, is “analytically-led software” to facilitate the entire online and offline customer engagement process:

“The Customer Engagement Cycle is driven by Customer Engagement Personas. These Personas are the captured data and intelligence of an individual customer which constitute the quantifiable, current and future value of that customer, increasing in accuracy and completeness over time through patterns of engagement, predicted future revenues and loyalty.

A typical engagement cycle would include the delivery of a message to a known or unknown recipient, the capture of the recipient’s reaction and analysis of the collected insights into the individual. Treatments and recommendations would then be applied to the next communication based on the learning that has taken place, and any content that is served up to the individual will be optimized and delivered based on metrics such as channel, frequency, probability or location. If the customer is returning to the website, for example, the website itself will be customized to the individual in terms of the messages delivered – based on their location, time of day and the engagement life cycle stage they are at.”

How their product translates into marketing ROI:

• Integration of the people, processes and applications of marketing.  Start with managing a single channel or use the entire suite of integrated applications.
• For a website, it will analyze number of visits to the site, keywords used to arrive at the site, navigation preferences, etc., look for site trends at an aggregate level and then tie aggregate web activity back to the individual for a custom website view.
• Greater management influence based on fuller customer insights, predictability of future campaigns success, and shared risk/reward models.
• CRM analytics that interact with customer-facing systems: call centers, campaign management systems, and sales force automation tools.
• Topical analysis automatically delivered to management.
• Easily handles ad-hoc analyst questions, reducing data preparation costs and need to increase headcount in order to increase client services.
• Intimate knowledge about the sequence of events to create marketing communication programs.

Although I have not demoed Alterian’s products, they seem worth looking into further as a way to strengthen a company’s relationship marketing program.

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Like a PB&J is not possible without peanut butter, behavioral marketing is not possible without an investment into understanding a company’s customers through segmentation.Segmentation is the foundation of behavioral marketing, but unless you are in the business of market research you may not understand how segments are derived and why the manner in which you derive them is important.

Of course, you can classify using a simple segmentation based on demographics (age, ethnicity, female/male) or by usage (heavy, light), but these rarely yield needed information.  In a true segmentation, people are typically grouped by how alike they are in terms of their behaviors and attitudes towards life or a particular topic.   This type of segmentation analysis is conducted by carefully constructing a questionnaire so that some questions are behavioral in nature and others attitudinal.

Results are then viewed by an experienced researcher, who identifies patterns in the data through the use of “cluster analysis.”  There are  multiple sub-types of cluster analysis (“algorithms”) that can be used to view the data from differing  vantage points, allowing the researcher to see the “stories” in the data.  From there, certain attitudinal questions are identified that yield the strongest differences, which are then used as the basis of behavioral analysis.

The resulting data cuts are then analyzed and clever segment names are created to represent different types of customers who share similar values or lifestyles.  For example, “Facebook Fanatics” or “iPhone Moms.”

Now the trick is…how to translate that customer knowledge into a marketing strategy that captures people’s attention at their interest points – their behaviors and attitudes.

A way that this data can be used is to evaluate which segments are worth pursuing through the creation of indices.  By looking at each group size, their spend levels, and how much the group likes the company/brand, it can be determined, for example, that segments 2, 3 and 5 are best to target.  They are the largest that spend the most and like the company/brand best.  Furthermore, we can look at their wants/needs and what they have in common with each other for marketing messaging.

As an aside, the company that I work with, C.A. Walker Research Solutions, regularly conducts segmentations for its clients, if you need assistance in this area.

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