As my followers can attest, my normal viewpoint in this blog is as a marketer focused on marketers. And I try to stay true to the tagline of this blog: Evolving relationships for business growth.I chose those words very carefully so that...Read More

Marketing has evolved - thankfully - from the days when everyone just thought of us as the brochures and tradeshows people. Nowadays, we're as likely to be focused on creating digital content that's worth sharing as we are ...Read More

It seems like every retailer nowadays has a loyalty program. From the local coffee house to “big box” national retailers to almost any online merchant, everyone has a loyalty program. But do people really want them? It turns out...Read More

Magic Johnson working the crowd.Earvin “Magic” Johnson  is very large in stature and even larger in personality. He is often remembered as a professional basketball star and is now making his mark in the business world in a...Read More

Customers on a Mobile JourneyMobile technology and the advent of tablets and smartphones have transformed whole industries and are changing customer behavior in ways that impact marketers around the globe.More than just another channel, mobile is...Read More

People are funny. They’re often fickle, choosy, demanding and impatient. At times, they’ll say one thing and then do another. So when they become customers, how can you possibly predict what they’ll do?Well it turns out...Read More

There is no shortage of technology buzzwords today - digitization, big data, the internet of things, mobile, social, cloud computing, and so on. For marketers, all these buzzwords can be at once astonishing, thrilling, exasperating, ...Read More

We live in the age of big data - just about everything is evolving and the pace of technological change is accelerating. More and more parts of our lives are being carried out online, and with the explosion of web-enabled devices, there...Read More

"Give the lady what she wants" and "The customer is always right" are quotes attributed to the venerable Chicago retailing pioneer Marshall Field. That customer-centered approach to doing business was leading-edge at the close of the 19th century...Read More

Knowing what your customers want and when they want it is valuable insight for any business. The key is to know how to find out.At Oberweis Dairy, one of their important product lines is ice cream - and for them, higher temperatures mean more ice...Read More

Tags on keychain = loyalty? Maybe not.How many loyalty tags do you have on your keychain?  Five? Six? Ten? Would you say those tags make you more loyal, or do you just have them for the discounts? And if it's just for the discounts, does...Read More

I started this blog over 4 years ago as a way to give our customers a dynamic source of useful information, and also to help connect the dots for them between the business problems they face and the value propositions of our Customer...Read More

At the online “flash sale” retailer Gilt, success comes from breaking through the clutter, and from ensuring that their offers matter in the grand scheme of their customers' lives. And with more than 8 million...Read More

As mentioned in a previous post about how we try not to annoy our customers, we really make sure we're not just going through the motions in complying with anti-SPAM laws. And it all has to do with how we regard customer...Read More

Me:          Hey! Orkut is going away. You:         Oh, bummer! I didn't realize you had one of your cousins from Hungary in town. Me:    ...Read More

One interesting outcome of regulatory reform in health care is seeing the use of the word "customer" filter into the dialogue in the industry.Someday letters from health plans and providers will look more like this.The context for that development...Read More

The health and life sciences industries affect all other industries on two levels – our employers and governments are heavily involved as influencers in payment systems, and as individuals we all engage directly with health care...Read More

We live in a world where chaos is increasingly the norm. And human nature when faced with chaos normally triggers a protective reaction - it could be a retreat, "circling the wagons," or other moves to preserve and protect. It's understandable...Read More

It’s hard to overstate the important of context. It provides clues when you are looking for answers, it provides texture and nuance to a story you might be telling, and it provides meaning to what might otherwise be random facts by revealing...Read More

There are many reasons for marketers to see opportunity in the Internet of Things, most especially because it entails the interconnection of objects and devices and the data that's generated from these devices. It's not so much that we...Read More

It’s never been more important for marketing to speak the language of technology (IT) and for IT to speak the language of marketing. Why? Because technology is radically changing the world and marketing and IT have the opportunity to...Read More

Pandora came as a package deal with my wife when we got married.People love to joke about "watching cat videos" as the epitome of wasting time. Or they don't joke, but express amazement at "how you seem to get sucked in so easily watching...Read More

Developments in advanced analytics, data visualization and processing power are opening new doors to solve big data marketing problems. Most notably, the time horizon on our perspective has broadened into the future by...Read More

 Happy Valentine's Day! Today is the international day for celebrating love, or at least the day for loveofferings. Naturally, I'm inspired to write about ways marketers can spark and nurture feelings oflovein their customers, and for...Read More

I have always loved watching the Olympic games for so many reasons. To begin with, the Opening Ceremonies with the pageantry of the parade of nations is unparalleled. For me, that means pride at cheering my parents’ Brazil and Hungary teams,...Read More

I have never liked referring to people as a “resource,” or as an “asset” in the impersonal sense. Even with people reporting in to me, doing that always seemed to trivialize the individuals being referred to and just never...Read More

Knowing if your campaign is successful and why is not as easy as it seems. Even in ideal conditions, there are plenty of factors beyond your control, such as competitive action, sales investments, product quality, and customer-specific issues...Read More

Fan loyalty is everything in the sports business. So when Major League Soccer (MLS), the top flight pro soccer league in the US and Canada, wanted to deepen customer engagement, it started by getting a better understanding of its...Read More

The amazing digital world we live in provides consumers with information whenever, wherever and however they want it. It can be both dazzling and dizzying at the same time, so more and more consumers gravitate toward brands they can...Read More

As 2013 comes to a close, it’s time to take stock of some of the topics that captured our attention this year in the context of five “hot topics” we focused on.Marketing AnalyticsMarketing Analytics is near and dear to our hearts...Read More

The following post originally appeared on the DMA Advance blog, republished here with permission and gratitude. It was written by Stephanie Miller, VP at DMA and Chair of the Program Committee for their conference,NCDM13: Where Marketing...Read More

The Castle may have the best views in Budapest, but how are the reviews?My colleague Kelly McGuire recently teamed with Associate Professor Breffni Noone at The Pennsylvania State University to study the role of reviews and ratings and price...Read More

It’s an interesting question, right? We all know our customers talk among themselves about our products and our brands. They do it in person, on the phone and on social media. Heck – even we marketers talk among ourselves and sometimes...Read More

Picture your "typical" sports fan - body paint, tailgating, banners on the car, and so on. You can easily imagine that person as a brand evangelist. Now think of someone you know who loves to read. Would you ever put the sports fan and the book...Read More

Sir Terry Leahy is former CEO of global retail giant Tesco.Sir Terry Leahy speaks with the clarity and purpose of someone used to speaking the language of data. When he was CEO of global retail giant Tesco, he presided over an organization that...Read More

As technology has changed the way people communicate, do business and generally lead their lives, CMOs have shifted their strategies to lead data-driven marketing in ways that maximize new opportunities and mitigate new risks. As the second in a...Read More

As technology has changed the way people communicate, do business and generally lead their lives, CMOs have shifted their strategies to lead data-driven marketing in ways that maximize new opportunities and mitigate new risks. As the second in a...Read More

Technology has dramatically changed the way people communicate, do business and generally lead their lives. It’s increasingly online, and it’s increasingly mobile. In turn, those technologies have created tons of data-driven marketing...Read More

I have a challenge for you - guess which of these three email offers below are what I consider "sloppy marketing." Base your decision on these demographics- the recipient is a 50-year old married male with two kids at home, has stable...Read More

The results of my test don't matter. Yes - those are actual recent searches of mine.Who doesn't love a side-by-side taste test?  You get to choose for yourself - awesome! For me, the ultimate taste test is the Pepsi Challenge...Read More

It’s very telling that every Walmart greeter has an inviting phrase emblazoned across the back:  “How may I help you?” That simple question and the presence of the greeters in the stores speaks eloquently to the customer...Read More

How do you feel when someone is talking at you? It's not quite the same as someone talking to you, is it?When someone talks to you, they might be using your language or even matching your rhythm. By...Read More

Have you ever tried to find something quickly in a book? Say it's a book you've never read before - how do you approach it? You look first for the table of contents, right? We've all done it hundreds of times - if...Read More

 The issue of data privacy has gotten a lot of attention lately, thanks in part to revelations by Edward Snowden and his kiss-and-tell with the press about several top-secret United States and British government mass...Read More

My wife often jokes about the early years of our marriage, when her perspective was "what's mine is mine and what's your's is mine."  And my retort is usually, "I learned early to understand exactly who's the boss...Read More

One of the most often repeated quotes in business is, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." It's attributed to the late management consultant Peter Drucker, and it's become so ingrained in business parlance that...Read More

So many companies today describe themselves as "leading edge," or they strive to achieve excellence or market leadership. And we all have our own ideas of companies that are leading edge, as well as the companies that may once have been market...Read More

Marketing success in today's digital world requires a mix of art and science that involves both data-driven decision making and intuitive creativity to show how to improve your marketing. While marketing analytics have enabled the ...Read More

With the rise of mobile devices, marketers have perhaps the most robust source of customer insight and consumer access that they’ve ever had. Handled properly, they will also have the ability provide the next generation of content, coupons...Read More

How are you factoring devices into your marketing plan and approaches? As I think about what I am trying to accomplish and how that might change in the coming year, I find myself increasingly asking that question. Like all marketers today, I do...Read More

  In my quest to address the opportunity of big data for marketers, I've had a chance to collaborate recently with Tamara Dull, a colleague who's an expert in this field and who is also super-creative. Perfect for marketing, right...Read More

Every once in a while I stop for a moment and consider just how radically different marketing is today compared with just 3 years ago. Looking no further than my desk, it's quite amazing how my job has changed in just that short period of time...Read More

We found Andre and Marcel chillin' in a grocery store in Switzerland. While traveling in Europe last month, I noticed that Coca-cola bottles were being sold with different peoples' names on them. I was intrigued  enough...Read More

Marketing optimization has never been more critical because it's never been more important for marketers to know the decisions we make are the best ones. The need is driven by globalization, the accelerating pace of technological change...Read More

There are big opportunities in store for business in Brian Solis’ vision of the future, just as there are equally big opportunities for customers. They emanate from the importance of shared experiences, taking place with connected...Read More

The future of business will require new success metrics. Since the future of business has been established by Brian Solis as being about shared experiences with connected customers enabled by great technologies, the next logical question might be...Read More

Brian Solis has a vision of the future that involves shared experiences - many, many shared experiences. And his message for marketers is pretty clear - focus on shared experiences because that's what really matters. That's a...Read More

Brian Solis of the Altimeter Group envisions a future brimming with potential, and a key part of his vision of the future are connected customers. These people are connected thanks to amazing technologies that enable the shared...Read More

Pharmaceutical companies (“Pharma”) operate in a very complex environment – to begin with, their customer is usually referred to as “the patient” and it gets more complicated from there. The relationship...Read More

Pharmaceutical companies (“Pharma”) operate in a very complex environment – to begin with, their customer is usually referred to as “the patient” and it gets more complicated from there. The relationship...Read More

Let me begin by saying that I am a huge fan of Linkedin. To folks who do not know LinkedIn, I always describe it as a "serious social network." When you are on LinkedIn, you post the equivalent of your résumé, add...Read More

Lauren and Lilly Balla, circa 1999.Today is the day we celebrate Mother’s Day in the United States. So, in honor of Mother’s Day, I decided to crowdsource as much motherly advice as possible to provide useful inspiration for marketers....Read More

Mobile customers have the potential to change our business in profound ways. Advanced mobile communications is coming of age at a time when other technologies and societal shifts are working in parallel to radically transform whole industries...Read More