The Right Time for Marketing Analytics

You know that we’re firm believers in using analytics for more effective direct marketing.  More folks are becoming believers along with us these days.  Why?  Because you’ve got to be able to measure the effectiveness of your direct marketing efforts.  Part of this is due to the increased scrutiny of marketing budgets but, I think, it’s more due to our evolution as marketers.  Let’s face it, if we can’t prove that what we’re doing works, sooner or later a change will come — and it may not be positive.

I’ve been reading a lot of articles on this topic, and today I found one that really resonated with me.  It’s by Neil Mason of ClickZ Network.  In his article, “Why the Planets are Aligned for Analytics,” Neil gives us his post-analysis of the recent eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in San Francisco:

The stage was set on the first day with a keynote presentation from author Tom Davenport on Competing with Analytics. “The planets are aligned for analytics,” he said, meaning that all the necessary components for organizations to adopt and deploy analytical capabilities are being put in place. Those components are: data, enterprise, leadership, targets, and analysts.

“Using analysis is good, competing on analysis is better,” summed up the need to be able to move from insight to action. There’s no point knowing stuff if you don’t do anything about it. He described the five stages of an organization’s analytics capability from being “analytical impaired” at the low end of the scale to being “analytical competitors” at the other end. Organizations, such as Harrah’s and Marriott in the U.S. and Tesco in the U.K., deploy analytics as a source of competitive advantage.

Every time we’ve worked with an organization who embraces our analytical approach, we’ve had astounding success.  On the other hand, when working with harried direct marketers who don’t take the time to close the loop with analytics, we’ve seen something very different occur . . . folks running around like chickens with their heads cut off being very reactive as opposed to proactive.

We preach the gospel according to analytics to each and every one of our valued clients.  And, we continue to be relentless on this topic because we have seen so much success from utilizing an analytical approach.  We’ll make them all converts yet!

Have a great week!