The internet is already huge ( Google estimated the size to be 5 Billion Gb data in 2008 ) and becoming more so with several billion pages getting added every day to the "cloud". Over a billion people are connected to the net and 500 million surf at least once a week. You and I probably are among the 100 million who are on the net at least twice a day.
Consider the fact that people now can connect to the net in an instant - by just looking at the screens of their smart phones - not to mention push mail devices like Blackberry - which deliver e mail in your pocket phone - whether you want it or not - because it is connected to the net 24x365.
The time has been indeed ripe for the social media to appear : Twitter, Facebook and Linked- to save us from the onslaught of the trillions of pages of content on the net and help us to filter, follow & befriend only those we like to. People increasingly want to exercise a personal control on what I want to hear and from whom.
Marketers - used to sending generic e mails - using mail-merge and auto-send programs - are at best losing an opportunity to engage customers on the personal level that those customers now expect - and, at worst, they run the risk of being seen by their potential customers as "spammers". Once your customers see you as a spammer, your mails can actually frustrate them, damage your brand and reduce customer lifetime value because you are losing access to your market : they dont want to read you anymore. Every un-targeted and irrelevant message is a reminder to them that you neither understand them nor care.
For the last few years data mining has evolved to enable you slice / dice data to reveal patterns that will aid your decisions - and the next orbit of predictive modeling is just round the corner - which can identify customer groups
Consider the fact that people now can connect to the net in an instant - by just looking at the screens of their smart phones - not to mention push mail devices like Blackberry - which deliver e mail in your pocket phone - whether you want it or not - because it is connected to the net 24x365.
The time has been indeed ripe for the social media to appear : Twitter, Facebook and Linked- to save us from the onslaught of the trillions of pages of content on the net and help us to filter, follow & befriend only those we like to. People increasingly want to exercise a personal control on what I want to hear and from whom.
Marketers - used to sending generic e mails - using mail-merge and auto-send programs - are at best losing an opportunity to engage customers on the personal level that those customers now expect - and, at worst, they run the risk of being seen by their potential customers as "spammers". Once your customers see you as a spammer, your mails can actually frustrate them, damage your brand and reduce customer lifetime value because you are losing access to your market : they dont want to read you anymore. Every un-targeted and irrelevant message is a reminder to them that you neither understand them nor care.
For the last few years data mining has evolved to enable you slice / dice data to reveal patterns that will aid your decisions - and the next orbit of predictive modeling is just round the corner - which can identify customer groups
- who will buy (or renew) in response to a campaign - who otherwise would not have done so
- who would have bought - whether or not the campaign ran
- who would never buy - even with the campaign
- who hate being contacted
This will allow you in future to focus efforts only on narrow and specific groups which will not only reduce the cost of your outreach but it will also help reduce your cost of fulfillment as it will avoid your giving away incentives to customers who would have bought anyway - at full price.
