Few advances in technology have impacted how we do business as broadly and profoundly as mobile. Mobile devices are changing how people behave and what they expect, and as a result it’s changing the way we need to engage with our customers...Read More

Healthy skepticism is a part of human nature - it's probably an involuntary defense mechanism that has been refined as we've evolved as social beings. And in today's world of scripted "reality" TV shows, internet hoaxes...Read More

Just this week, I had a whirlwind experience with three customer loyalty programs that left me scratching my head (and not necessarily feeling loyal):Loyalty Experience#1: No valueThe other day, I went out to dinner with a friend of mine. The...Read More

When you search “business planning resources US,” Google serves up pages and pages of results without a single bank website. When you search “business planning resources New Zealand,” ANZ BizHub is No. 3 on page 1. Page...Read More

Retailing is fascinating because it’s the very essence of a market – a place that begins and ends with the customer. And the cash register / online shopping cart is where the supply curve and the demand curve meet, generating an...Read More

Like many people, I had a bit of a break over the holiday, and like many people, I did a little early Spring-cleaning during my time off. But unfortunately, my house is still messy, because the cleaning I did was electronic: After recently merging...Read More

Daniel Franklin, Executive Editor of The EconomistKicking off the new year is a great time to assess what's worked and what hasn't, take inventory, check assumptions and do other things to prepare you for a fresh new year. It's also a...Read More

Companies like Travelocity, Uber and Yelp have forever changed the way consumers plan their travel and entertainment. Can you remember when you had to book your trips through a travel agency? These innovators have raised the bar for other...Read More

If you like hunting, fishing, hiking or camping, chances are you not only know Cabela's but you're also a customer. Cabela's is one of the most well-known outdoor recreation brands in the world and was founded as a direct retailer...Read More

Just imagine the data streaming from each connected car.Decades of Westernized television and cinema have featured fantastic imagined car technologies, including many that now actually exist. Think of the autonomous car from Knight Rider and today...Read More

When we talk about digital customer services, it’s all about creating online self-service capabilities for our customers. This is great for everyone! We’ve made it easy for the customer to get what they need; it’s cheaper and...Read More

You’re a retailer, it’s the holidays, data is flooding in from all points (if you’re lucky), and the last thing you want to hear from the higher-ups is that you need to “modernize.” And what do they actually mean...Read More

There has been a lot of attention given in this blog and elsewhere to this idea of marketing becoming more "scientific." And for good reason - because it's actually happening. It's all about big data, digitization, the importance of search...Read More

Few of us can have missed the scenes of frantic shoppers searching for that ultimate bargain on Black Friday. This is something fairly new in the UK, having originated in the United States to refer to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day...Read More

In my last post, Where Do You Draw the Line Between Relevancy and Privacy, I talked about some of the plusses and minuses of behavioral online advertising as it pertains to personal (big data) privacy. Finding the balance between honoring people...Read More

I recently worked with a company (we’ll call them ABC, Inc.) on a customer segmentation strategy. This particular organization has a predefined set of marketing campaigns that they would send to all of their customers. There was no...Read More

Eighty-four per cent of marketers now regard the rise of the digital native as overwhelmingly the most important (or a very important) factor affecting marketing plans. So while we welcome the digital generation we must also re-tool our mind and...Read More

Admit it: If you’re like many marketers, when you read or hear about “big data privacy,” you’re ready to move onto the next topic or swipe to the next screen. Even though you know the discussion is important, you know it...Read More

We have a love/hate relationship with ads. Whether they’re on television, in our favorite publications, or online, we love them if they’re relevant and interesting, or get annoyed when they get in the way of [insert whatever we&rsquo...Read More

Try as we might, we aren’t ubiquitous creatures. When you can’t be everywhere at once, there is usually data somewhere to fall back on. So you review that data, gain insights. If you’re smart, you take notice those insights...Read More

Sometimes a life lesson smacks you right upside the head—and if you’re anything like me, it may take a day, a month, or even a year or ten before you “get it.” Fortunately, this particular life lesson hit home quickly, and...Read More

Back in 2007, the NY Times published an article about “The Google Way.” The premise behind the Google Way is to give engineers 20% of their time to spend on new company related ideas and projects that interest them. For a while this...Read More

Marketing attribution has been a hot topic for marketers as long as we’ve had marketing. Everybody talks about it, few really know how to do it, and everyone thinks everyone else is doing it - so everyone claims they...Read More

The big data privacy discussion is subtle, complex and complicated – and we each have a role to play. What’s yours going to be?It was 9:53 AM. Sarah was racing against the clock: she wanted to finish a long overdue email to a Canadian...Read More

A Twitter what? Chat? With @SASAnalytics and @IndustryWeek? About World Quality Day? How do I get in on this? #whatsatwitterchat #whydothisSee how I did that? In 139 characters too. Yep, I thought that would catch your eye. Now that I have your...Read More

Who would you give your personal information to: your state’s new toll road system, an amusement park, neither, or both?At a Forrester event earlier this year, Melissa Parrish, a Forrester VP and research director, told the story about...Read More

Today, we live in an always-on digital world. We work online. We socialize online. We shop online. We bank online. We support causes online. Not to mention, we drive on toll roads with our EZPasses, go to Disney World with our MagicBands, and...Read More

You can always tell when a person is enjoying himself – the bright eyes, the smiling face and the hand gestures are unmistakable. Jim Foreman from Staples is an executive that clearly enjoys talking about both marketing and analytics, which...Read More

What do the following companies have in common: Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Orbitz, Airbnb, Angie’s List, Match.com, OpenTable, and Uber?Here’s what I came up with:Presence. They’re all online; they have no brick-&...Read More

Theoretically, loyalty programs are supposed to motivate customers to be loyal. But does it always turn out that way? Evidence is mounting that points to the fact that loyalty programs condition customers to expect discounts, and they don’t...Read More

Dear Facebook,Last week, we reached our 7-year anniversary mark. Have we really been together that long?! Because, honestly, it feels like forever. I’m sorry we didn’t celebrate, but I really didn’t feel like it. Ever since you...Read More

“Big Brother?! Ha! I’m not afraid of what the government knows about me. I’m more afraid of the internet and what it will expose about me. Heck, I’m even more afraid of people on the street with their smartphones who can...Read More

I don’t know if Edward Snowden – the NSA contractor turned whistleblower currently living in exile - is a hero, traitor or a schmuck. What I do know is that he has brought the data issue much closer to home for me as a consumer and a U...Read More

In my role as a customer intelligence advisor, I have the privilege to work with a wide variety of organizations. From retailers to the banking sector, whether ‘B2C’ or ‘B2B’ oriented, one constant is...Read More

Have you heard of About the Data? It’s a website that lets consumers see what personal data’s been collected and is being used to drive the online ads they see and offers they receive. It’s a free service provided by ...Read More

Big data – or whatever you prefer to call it – is a game changer for marketers and throughout the enterprise. And not to mince words: If you’re not using big data to improve your business – e.g., revenues, profits...Read More

Déjà vu. For me, this term immediately conjures images of Bill Murray waking up in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on Groundhog Day – repeatedly.  In French, déjà vu means “already seen” and while I...Read More

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” -Dr. SeussAbout three months ago, I invited marketers to join me on a journey through the Big Data Archipelago, a collection of 10 islands, each focused on a key big...Read More

 “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston ChurchillHurricane Sandy, one of the most destructive hurricanes to hit the eastern United States came ashore in October 2012. Airbnb,...Read More

Last weekend, I took my nine-year-old son to a batting cage to get ready for his upcoming baseball season. He's a natural athlete, but soccer has been his full-time sport of choice for the last two years, so he needed some reps swinging...Read More

“Data is a precious thing and will last longer than the systems themselves.” –Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide WebLast year, the International Institute for Analytics (IIA) and SAS published the research report...Read More

 “If we have data, let’s look at data.If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” – Jim Barksdale, former Netscape CEOHave you read Tom Davenport’s “Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st...Read More

Photo credit: The Digital Future of Retail, Merchandising Matters.The other day I received a letter in the mail. What was in the letter left me feeling depressed. It left me feeling inadequate, unprepared, incapable of mustering the mental and...Read More

“Human errors and systems glitches caused nearly two-thirds of data breaches globally in 2012.” - Ponemon Institute and SymantecNothing has accelerated the proliferation and sharing of personal data more than the internet. Some may...Read More

 “Data that is loved tends to survive.” – Kurt Bollacker, data scientistAwhile back, I had the pleasure of traveling to five countries in Europe to participate in a 10-day, SAS-sponsored executive roadshow. Jill Dyché...Read More

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.” – Andrew S. TanenbaumThere’s been a lot of buzz about the Location Isle for several years due to a strong interest in its...Read More

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” - André GideEver heard of OpenOffice, Hadoop, Android, Firefox or MySQL? If so, can you identify the common denominator...Read More

“If you build it, he will come.” – From the movie “Field of Dreams”“Build it and they will come” is a popular quote often attributed to the movie Field of Dreams. But guess what? This quote is not from the...Read More

“I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and  talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” (Editor in charge of business books for Prentice...Read More

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns.  That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don...Read More

Come along with me on a journey through the Big Data Archipelago. It involves "visiting" a series of islands - an archipelago if you will - that each present a different opportunity to find value in big data.Big data is arguably one...Read More

As the best of the best golfers converge in Pinehurst, NC at the US Open Golf Tournament, it seems only natural to relate golfing to marketing optimization. I assure you this is not a stretch - please read on.You see, everything in life is an...Read More

Maybe you’re like me – you work with (or within) a lot of large companies with big marketing departments. Everyone is crazy for “customer intimacy,” but what exactly does that mean? As much as I preach about knowing and...Read More

“We are living in the era of the connected customer - one in which normal customer behavior is to capture moments and share it in near real-time.” - from "Customer Love - it's All About the Connection" by...Read More

We’ve talked in the first two posts about how the digitization of everything is disrupting marketing and changing the face of commerce. Organizations are having to change the way they operate, and that’s causing roles in the C-suite to...Read More

It’s 10:30 in the morning, and her Jawbone buzzes. Jane is notified that she’s been sitting too long, and her meeting is ending anyway. She rises up from her booth at the coffee shop, bids her associate good bye, and walks through the...Read More

For nearly a century, the buyer’s journey was relatively linear. Advertising messages distributed across a few mass media outlets were the primary method of spreading awareness. Purchase consideration generally occurred by reading product...Read More

Recently, I attended a symposuim hosted by the Calvin Institute with my wife.  Some of the many sessions I attended focused on how to create an awesome worship experince.  By hearing many of the different musicians...Read More

Experiencing a major sporting event in person is a hard-to-describe experience for a fan. When your team is winning, a feeling of euphoria rolls through the stadium or arena. I have hugged and high-fived complete strangers when a game-winning shot...Read More

“Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind seeing our loyalty card program go away, but we’re not there yet.” - A retail CEOI invite you to put on your consumer cap for a minute and answer these questions:How many loyalty cards do you...Read More

A question often asked by marketers about big data is “Where do we start?” For newcomers and seasoned experts alike, there is no shortcut to finding the “signal” in the “noise” of today’s...Read More

We as marketers always try to secure  the customer at the center of our universe.   We learned this basic truth from early years as marketers but often times we stray from that guiding principal.  We get distracted by...Read More

I recently had the pleasure of moderating a panel focusing on the top of Marketing Operations, which included Kim Collins of Gartner, Cedrick Shelly of State Farm Insurance, and Stephan Nobs of SAS. This panel was extremely timely as...Read More

Brands like Comcast, Dell, and Nike have made names for themselves on Twitter as customer service pros. Their responses to customer mentions in the social sphere are known for being useful, timely and fun.At SAS, we were hoping to develop a...Read More

I don’t want to have a relationship with a marketing department. I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t want to engage in conversation with you. I feel no loyalty towards you. When I say I like you I’m...Read More

Marketers – like most people – like to see their accomplishments in some sort of visual representation. We are a profession who lives in PowerPoint, prezi or some other sort of tool that makes what you are working on look really...Read More

As a somewhat healthy and active guy, I pay attention to — and sometimes shake my head at — product packaging that boasts “40 percent less fat” or “all natural ingredients.” When you look at the fine print, it...Read More

Brian Solis of the Altimeter Group has a compelling vision of the future - one which is replete with promise made possible by great technologies. But these great technologies come with a need to keep them in the right...Read More

When it comes to online customer data, marketers today have to balance a fine line between consumer privacy and effective marketing. The problem is that it’s quite easy for marketing to be intrusive, annoying and even creepy, so there is a...Read More

Are you invisible or remarkable? That's the question that Seth Godin believes that marketers should ask themselves in the new economy and there are 3 simple reasons why:All media is now optional - no one is going to look at your tweet or open...Read More

Hi everyone! I'm excited to be a new contributer to this blog - I've taken the road less traveled when it comes to marketing. My goal out of college was to see the world which landed me in the travel industry. I later became a...Read More

Hello!  As a new contributor to this blog, I'd like to introduce myself.  My name is Dwight Mouton and yes that's a French last name.  I'm orginally from the heart of Cajun country, Lafayette, Lousiana.  I've...Read More

We're pleased to have Scott Brinker, a thought leader and entrepreneur at the intersection of marketing and technology, as the newest contributor to our sister blog from our friends Down Under called "Left of the Date Line."In his...Read More

Shawn Skillman and Lori Jordan A little over 2 years ago, I wrote a post about our vision for turning big data into a strategic asset.  The outcome of this vision was the development of a Global Marketing System that provides marketers...Read More

In the last decade, CMOs have made great strides in elevating their stature. According to the latest SpencerStuart survey, CMO tenure has steadily climbed from 23 months in 2004 to 45 months in 2012. What are the reasons for this improved...Read More

Springtime...Baseball...Hot Dogs...Peanuts...Coke...  I remember growing up on the south side of Chicago watching my beloved Chicago White Sox play at the old Comisky Park.  My father would take me to a few games during the summer and...Read More

We have a few hundred bloggers here at SAS, and people are always asking me about how to increase page views to their posts. I'm going to give you my top ten answers to that question below, but first I have to give you "the page view caveat,...Read More

I consider myself lucky to have confirmed first-hand that Nate Silver is a relatively smart guy. Nate Silver was not telling a fish tale here. He most recently published a book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – but...Read More

I was driving back from Washington, DC this weekend after spending a couple of days admiring the cherry blossoms and taking my oldest son sightseeing. Wanting to grab something fast for lunch, we stopped at McDonald's a few miles outside the...Read More

New research by the CMO Council and SAS, entitled "Big Data's Biggest Role: Aligning the CMO & CIO," shows more overlaps than differences between marketing and IT. Big data is uniting the CMO and CIO in their common quest for a customer...Read More

Online marketers all want the same thing - for our customers to get what they, want when they want it, and with the fewest clicks possible. We already know that satisfied customers usually return, and now they share their experiences so the...Read More

Ever wonder what is going through your customer’s minds prior to their deciding to purchase your product? If that is the case, well then you are in luck today! In this post, we will be examining consumer behavior leading up to and including...Read More

The digital world we live in gives marketers the opportunity to capture, record, measure, analyze and report just about anything nowadays - and we do it! Clicks, conversions, likes, attrition, business drivers, value destroyers - you...Read More

In the first post in this series, we discussed how there are a number of terms that describe how organizations manage their customer engagements: customer intelligence, customer analytics, integrated marketing management and marketing analytics...Read More

In two previous posts, we have investigated the terms customer intelligence and customer analytics in more detail. We continue on our journey today by defining our third of four terms – that of integrated marketing management (IMM). Each of...Read More

Content plays a critical multifaceted role in marketing today - simultaneously beckoning and informing your customers at any given time. Content imparts details, stirs emotions and sways decisions. And when created and promoted...Read More

On advantage of being a marketer at SAS right now is that we have a roughly 35-year head start on our competitors in terms of helping organizations manage big data. And because much of big data is driven by customer data, marketing is...Read More

This post originally appeared in our SAS Voices blog, published by my colleague and fellow blogger Courtney Peters. It's a great story about how Oberweis Dairy harnessed the power of marketing analytics to cultivate loyalty. That effort...Read More

SAS World Headquarters The idea of customer centricity in marketing is as "old as dirt" - it's probably been around as long as people have been interested in buying or selling things to each other. So why are we still talking about it...Read More

I have been fortunate enough to work on some of our various marketing analytics’  implementations. One specific solution I have talked about before is Customer Experience Analytics (CXA), a solution that facilitates the...Read More

The SAS booth at #NRF13 is a popular place. One of the amazing things I’m finding about the National Retail Federation’s “BIG Show” is the incredible amount of experience and knowledge walking the halls. There are 10...Read More

It's easy to see how a newcomer to "Retail's BIG Show" could be a bit overwhelmed. The booths are big, attendance is booming and there are "hot and new" solutions everywhere you turn. But as I've walked the halls and looked at what...Read More

It's remarkable how the women my life really like shopping at the different Chico's FAS stores. I think a big reason is that somehow they manage to deliver a boutique experience for every customer at all their stores. ...Read More

The Economist Intelligence Unit recently published a report that highlights some C-suite dynamics that remind me of that childrens' game "monkey in the middle." The report details multiple ways in which surveyed CMOs believe one thing about...Read More

As we turn the calendar to a new year, we tend to take a look at our lives and make some goals for improvement. Maybe it involves fitting in our favorite pair of jeans again or finally starting the next great American novel. Change and...Read More

Marketers all focus on what we think our customers will like.  We analyze mountains of data, look at what our competition is doing, ask our staff for ideas, look at past year's marketing campaigns, look at our...Read More

A colossal man-made storm known as “the fiscal cliff” looms on the horizon of the United States economy.  Much attention has been paid to the political wrangling behind this situation in Washington, while Congress seems...Read More

In today’s fast paced marketing software industry, sorting through terms and naming conventions can be quite a confusing task. Often times – in an attempt to “differentiate” themselves from other vendors – software...Read More

Apparently the “big” in “big data” is only going to get bigger. And it turns out that organizations have not prioritized big data as much as they perhaps should because too many of them aren’t effectively leveraging...Read More

Hello, everyone! I’m excited to be part of this great blog and share a few of my ideas. A little about me – I’m a marketer at heart, passionate about strategy, creativity, branding and analytics. I love discovering marketing...Read More

The number one rule about product launch blogging is to never blog about your product launch. Take that, Fight Club! And yet, most marketers are expected to write multiple blog posts in conjunction with a launch. How do the smart marketers...Read More

Understanding the customer is more and more complex with each passing every day, especially due to the ever-increasing amoung of customer data - generating what is commonly known as "Big Data." Adding to the complexity is all the ...Read More

"Awesome" is possibly the most over-used word in the English language, and its over-usage is driven by its versatility. Generally, something awesome is impressive in a way that warrants talking about it - so it's something remarkable...Read More

Businesses can no longer ignore the importance of social networking and social capabilities as part of their enterprise applications. According to a Forrester survey of 200 U.S. companies, social listening and digital engagement can influence...Read More

Standing in my own crosshairs as my own target market means that almost all work that I do can be a learning opportunity, and going to DMA2012 was certainly a biggie. What I saw and experienced at the show reaffirmed the idea that it’s...Read More

By and large, marketers are an optimistic lot. We're often big extroverts with big ideas, laying grand plans and generally having a good time along the way. Our view of the future is usually rosy, with all sorts of reasons to hope for the...Read More

Over the last decade, five companies have emerged with the potential to aggressively reshape the landscape of multiple industries – and to change life as we know it. They are the "Tech Titans:" Amazon, Apple, eBay , Facebook and ...Read More

The challenge of "big data" is well recognized as multi-faceted in terms of its Volume, Variety and Velocity, and SAS has had a roughly 35-year head start on the rest of the industry in dealing with it. Our solutions are dyed-in-the-wool to...Read More

The phrase “Content is King” may not be new, but it certainly has enduring relevance in our digital world where so much of our lives are experienced online and increasingly shared online. In fact, the very essence of social media is...Read More

Hi everyone! I am Jim Hiepler-Hartwig, the newest member of the SAS Customer Intelligence marketing team, and I am happy to be a new contributor to this blog. In previous roles, I've held positions in both sales and marketing, and...Read More

The ability to manage cross channel customer interactions is no doubt a critical part of business strategies. Business strategies that focus on continually improving customer loyalty, constantly reducing marketing costs, and always communicating...Read More

I recently read an excellent research report by the IAB and Forrester titled Digital Attribution Comes of Age. In the paper, they talked specifically about improved multichannel measurement, data driven decision making and media...Read More

We're working on a project with a retail industry thought leadership organization called Retail Systems Research (RSR for short).  My colleague, Wilson Raj, is working with RSR Managing Partner Nikki Baird to explore how data...Read More

For Insurers, social media is no longer just for marketing. As Hurricane Isaac threatens in the Gulf of Mexico, many proactive insurance companies are using social media to communicate with customers; offering insight on preparing for the storm,...Read More

My colleague Matt Fulk and I work closely together on a number of fronts, and the last time we posted was about Lead Management Automation Using SAS. One initiative that has really been rewarding to work on has been our internal...Read More

Here's what usually happens: You attend a conference and decide to live blog a session or two. You might even pre-draft or pre-research a small portion of the post to include the names of the speakers and some background information about them...Read More

In case you've missed it, our friends from Down Under have written some great posts about customer intelligence on our sister blog, Left of the Date Line.  Each one of our colleagues have a few posts, so here is a summary of my...Read More

We have experimented with Twitter chats here at SAS, including a lively #statchat that we hosted two years ago for World Statistics Day. Likewise, our publications team has hosted a few fun Twitter chats with SAS book authors. Outside of SAS...Read More

17 days ago, I posted Olympic inspiration for marketers  and in it I shared a few good lessons for marketers from the Games. With a long-term focus, discipline, results orientation and teamwork, all sorts of victories are possible - for...Read More

A weekly ritual at our house is to pore over the local Sunday newspaper print edition and drink big mugs of strong coffee. My wife and I take different sections, we discuss various items that strike us along the way, and we can...Read More

This is the third in a series of four posts that focus on how marketing solutions can help marketing fulfill its role in the organization. In the first post, I outlined the three specific functions for the solutions to fulfill - to drive...Read More

Welcome back to the jaw-dropping discussion on what really matters in your social media strategy.  Harkening back to Katie Paine’s amazing presentation at the recent SAS Government Executive summit, there are six steps to...Read More

Recently, SAS had the pleasure of hosting Katie Paine, social media maven,  expert on media measurement, and author of Measure What Matters, at the SAS Government Leadership Summit in Washington D.C. The session was jam-packed with the...Read More

Certain things are just hard to squeeze into your day. For some of us, it's exercise or doing laundry. For others, it's blogging. You want to do it  almost every day, but you can't seem to find the time. If you're one of the...Read More

The Centre for Economic and Business Research is a respected economic consultancy.  Earlier this year we asked them to look at the value of analytics to the UK today, and forecast the likely growth of analytics over the next five years...Read More

As you might expect, blogging is a lot like many other skills – you have to work at it over time before you start to see improvements. Blogging does not at all come naturally to me, so it’s a personal goal of mine to keep working at...Read More

The Supreme Court of the United States is set to reveal its ruling on the landmark health care legislation known as the Affordable Care Act. Much angst has resulted from this law and many parties that feel obliged to support or criticize the law...Read More

I had a chance to attend a moderated panel discussion at the last SAS Global Forum Executive Conference with executives from Best Buy, Seminole Gaming and Office Depot, and each speaker offered their own unique story about how...Read More

For the last three years, doing more with less has been a constant rallying call that one could argue has become the new normal within business. Within the realms of the marketing department, it means generating the same or higher revenues from...Read More

We asked David Chong, an SVP of marketing at a leading Malaysian Bank to talk to us about where they are focused today and tomorrow. There may be lots of data out there, and ever increasing forms of technology to tame and mine that data, but...Read More

According to Warren Murray, Facebook is an opportunity. Warren is the head of business decision support at eBucks, South Africa’s leading multi-partner rewards program. More people have Twitter and Facebook accounts. More people are...Read More

We just completed our largest annual event for Financial Services, the SAS Financial Services Executive Summit, where the theme was using analytics to drive innovation and create change. Even in the earliest stages of planning, it was clear that...Read More

Executives from Bank of America, USAA and the United Nations discuss big data. Yesterday’s SAS Financial Services Executive Summit included a session titled “Big Data for the Next Big Idea,” which was moderated by SAS CMO...Read More

Challenging assumptions is a good business practice. As a marketer, one of the highlights of the SAS Financial Services Executive Summit has been the interactive session titled "Exploring and Exploiting Trends to Really Understand Today...Read More

Panel discussion: How well do you know today's customer? Today's second annual SAS Financial Services Executive Summit included a great panel discussion moderated by Lori Bieda from SAS, and featuring Greg Holzwarth, SVP and...Read More

Conversations are dynamic and free flowing.  One idea begets another.  As people interact and knowledge is shared, perspectives can change … and with them, expectations.Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group a leading research...Read More

We had the good fortune to have Ralph Thomas, Ph.D., VP of Strategic Analytics and Database Marketing from Seminole Gaming, participate in our integrated marketing management panel at the 2012 SAS Global Forum Executive Conference along with his...Read More

There are no silver bullets that guarantee success for marketers. Betting on a single channel, technology, process or team is very much like betting everything on “Red” in a casino – there’s no more than a 50% chance of...Read More

I am at the 9th Annual SAS Health Care and Life Sciences Executive Conference, an extraordinary event that draws the best and the brightest leaders as both speakers and attendees from the pharmaceutical, health insurance, health care and related...Read More

I had the pleasure to sit in on a panel discussion at the  the 9th Annual SAS Health Care and Life Sciences Executive Conference focused on the topic of understanding and managing customer behavior in the changing health care...Read More

Alan Adams, Senior Director of Customer Analytics at Office Depot, took part in a great panel discussion on integrated marketing management at the 2012 SAS Global Forum Executive Conference along with his colleagues from Seminole Gaming and Best...Read More

SAS Executive Lead for Customer Intelligence Lori Bieda moderated this panel and introduced the concept of Marketing Optimization as the "Holy Grail" of marketing for the power it holds to enable marketing to fulfill its mandate as driving...Read More

I had the distinct pleasure today to hear Guy Kawasaki deliver a keynote address at the SAS Global Forum Executive Conference 2012.  I thought of his engaging address as a nice guide for personal effectiveness, particularly in a professional...Read More

We recently held a half-day session devoted entirely to search marketing that gave us an opportunity to cast a wide net internally about this very important topic. I learned some new things and also had a few moments where it seemed the obvious...Read More

Wired had an interesting article recently, discussing how “Darpa,” the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) research agency, is requesting proposals for implantable biosensors. Darpa is interested in the application of this...Read More

Greetings! My name is Kelly Miller and I am a marketer at SAS, focused specifically on the health care industry for 8 years now.  And what an intriguing industry it is!  Technology and market demands have led...Read More

As a new contributor to SAS’ Customer Analytics blog, let me introduce myself. I’m a SAS field marketer focused on integrated campaigns, digital strategy and the marketing investment for Financial Services in the US. As a marketer, I...Read More

In my view of things, as a (semi) professional in software product marketing focused on the needs of direct marketers, with the possible exception of “CRM”, there may be no term more abstract, than that of “campaign management...Read More

Whose mobile communications are hitting the spot?  Which broadcast strategy helps banks make an emotional connection with their customers? Who sends out such badly targeted e-mails that customers see them as less personally relevant than a...Read More

Without fail, at every social media conference I attend, someone will approach the microphone during the Q&A portion of a presentation and ask the speaker or the panelsts, "How are you measuring influence for your blogger outreach...Read More

Happy New Year! As we begin 2012, I think we can all agree there is no question that the explosion of digital technology over the past few years has redefined the relationship between vendor and customer. With so much product and vendor...Read More

According to Wikipedia, marketing with music can roughly be traced back to 1923 with the dawn of commercial radio broadcasting.  What we now know as a "jingle" first aired on Christmas Eve in 1926, touting...Read More

My friend and colleague, Matt Fulk, has detailed in his posts some of the great ways we've used SAS Customer Intelligence to improve our own marketing.  Using SAS fits with our culture of measurement and analysis that keeps us...Read More

2011 has been a big year for social media at SAS. Our award-winning blogging program got a major makeover We relaunched the Knowledge Exchange in WordPress to provide great thought leadership content to our customers We debuted new...Read More

Let's start with a true/false quiz: True or False: Nobody comments on B2B blog posts. True or False: Quality blog posts will always generate comments on their own without promotion. True or False: Using your personal contact list to...Read More

In my last blog post, titled Taking the Best Marketing Action, we focused on making sure our marketing activities were relevant, optimized, and automated. Getting to this place within your marketing organization takes work, but the payoffs from...Read More

One of the best things about having marketers as my target market is that I personally benefit from thought leaders I get to work with to offer my audience valuable content.  And this blog is a great way for me to share some of the...Read More

?Healthcare was one of five sectors looked in the Pleased to Meet You research (the other four were Banking, Supermarkets, Soft Drinks, and Mobile). In the UK the majority of healthcare is publicly funded, and so healthcare was chosen to as a...Read More

Just today we published a new “success story,” our term for customer testimonial, with a great customer of ours, Chubb. As I was reading through the story, I realized what a complex environment insurance marketers find themselves in,...Read More

As mentioned in a previous post, We had the pleasure to sponsor the eMetrics Marketing Optimization conference again this year with a marketing lab.  Our featured story was an innovative use of customer analytics by Organic, a digital...Read More

Most bloggers start thinking about blog editorial calendars from a planning perspective. You want to make sure you have enough content to keep the blog updated somewhat regularly, and you want to make sure you are publishing content that your...Read More

Andy Swenson, VP of Database and Revenue Management at Pinnacle Entertainment outlined their approach to customer loyalty, which included some great takeaways for companies in any industry. The gaming resorts leader partnered with Teradata to...Read More

Scott Hudgins, VP of Customer Managed Relationships at The Walt Disney Company shared details about how Disney has approached CRM and the guiding principles and key learnings that have driven their success. They began their CRM process in...Read More

Jim Bampos presented in a session today at PBLS11 titled, Driving the Total Customer Experience with Data.  He described the extraordinary journey he’s led his company on to manage customer experience and how it literally ...Read More

ANA Masters of Marketing kicked off its general session with blockbuster brands, and equally interesting Marketing executives. I knew I would hear from some executive firepower, but I did not expect to walk away with this level of inspiration...Read More

Which new channel is winning with the customer? Given the current hype about social media as a marketing channel I thought it might be nice to see how our respondents in the Pleased to Meet You survey responded to this channel. In particular we...Read More

I just returned from a vacation to the Pacific Northwest.  What a place!  The highlight was a whitewater rafting trip we took on the White Salmon River in Washington.  The trip is scenic and chaotic.  The track of river we...Read More

In my last post, titled How to find the most profitable growth opportunities, I talked about the first of three main customer challenges that we solve with our Customer Intelligence solutions, finding the best growth opportunities, which...Read More

Before I can even talk about blog strategy, I have to admit that I am not naturally a strategic thinker. I am rumored to be organized and slightly more analytical than your average writer, but I am first and foremost a creative, right-brained...Read More

As previously mentioned, I am at DMA:2011 in Boston with David Meerman Scott and he was the featured guest at our executive dinner this evening.  We invited marketing executives attending this conference to have dinner with the best-selling...Read More

For marketers with a lengthy, complex sales cycle, it is still imperative to engage a potential buyer as quickly as possible with relevant information. In an online world, tools like “click to chat” help with those willing to...Read More

The instinctive answer to this question is “Yes, obviously they do”. But as a marketer the obvious answer is not enough. Yes they do, but what does that look like in practice, and how does this affect the way I should approach my...Read More

SAS will be at the DMA2011 conference in Boston on October 1-6, 2011, sponsoring David Meerman Scott in the Thought Leadership Series.  David is a noted marketing strategist and author of seven books on marketing and PR, including The...Read More

At the end of Todd Wheatland's presentation, "Transforming a large organization into a content machine," at Content Marketing World, he offered a top ten list of tips for creating corporate content. I've pulled a few tips from his list...Read More

I'm pleased to share a new installment of our “Nuts & Bolts of Social Media” video series. In this video, SAS’ Deb Orton talks with Charlotte Sibley, of Sibley Associates, about how engaging in social media can...Read More