CRM ROI

However good a product be, you need to have an efficient and cutting edge CRM system that helps you manage your customers, understand your customers and thereby target your customers more efficiently. So how do you understand whether your CRM system is turning out to be positive for your business?

I guess the straight forward method would be to understand ‘how many leads were generated due to the CRM campaign’ and ‘how many of these leads were really converted into customers’ and ‘what is the average life time value of these newly captured customers’

may not be easy..but this means that you need to have a mechanism to understand the tirgger for a new customer when he purchases from you..and thereby tie back to the corresponding CRM program or campaign you floated out..

when I went into a pre-school to enquire about admissions, the marketing executive wanted to know the signboard from which I got the address (it was a new establishment) very clear she wanted to understand which signoboard is giving her the maximum enquiries..a small example..

Primary Market Research

How do you ensure that the respondents in your market research are providing candid and reasonable answers..

What if the respondent just wanted to finish the survey and grab the money offered? Is there a standard practice to understand which respondent would be fair to the survey and set aside adequate time for the survey?

I believe any market researcher would have this concern about the data he receives from the study..that is why it is of utmost importance for the market researcher to know the data format and logic he is expecting, so that he can clean up the data of invalid responses (read respondents!) before analyzing the same. Otherwise , I believe the insights you are going to provide might be misleading…and may not go well with the client you represent..

thoughts?

treatment process

In pharma world, brand teams try to understand the treatment process to gauge the leverage points within the decision making process. The study mostly tries to understand at what point, the physician looks for options, what considerations come into his mind when he choses an option, what are the unmet needs or challenges at each decision point etc etc

I think even in FMCG business, they try to understand the customer touchpoints and try to market their offerings accordingly. Even though I believe it is more of phsycology of the consumer that you study in FMCG compared to pharma where these decision points might be fact driven or feature driven or attribute driven or perception driven…

Any thoughts?

relevance of Experiential learning

Education can be a pain, if it taught you just to get good grades and desire for more..Real education should be such that you learn how to make a system in place that would work for you and generate income for you in the long run…basically create assets that work for you..

I know the forst paragraph tries to summarize multiple things..but may be the book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ would help!

Does the concept of experiential learning gain relevance in this context?

I went and enquired about play school education recently..the marketeer there mentioned that if their kid is able to understand that 8 is greater than 4, then their objective is fulfilled and that their courses are designed to help kids learn that basic concept….sounded relevant!

Marketing via controversy

The latest book on Jinnah by Mr Jaswant Singh has created a lot of controversy. The subsequent expulsion of the politician from his parent party for the last 30 years and the huge cry over “how can someone hold the national leaders responsible for partition?” were all part of the controversy.

But the point that made me curious was the fact that the book was written with a purpose of being sold and was it making progress in that front. I tried to find out and it seems that the book is being sold like hot cakes in the last week!!! So I knew it – the controversy is definitely going to make Mr Jaswant Singh rich!!

The term used in “Controversial marketing”!! It is short term and lasts for couple of weeks..and it gives immediate results with higher eyeballs and subsequent customers!

Now, can we think that the author had a real marketing mind for his book to bring out this controversy by intention?? You never know:-) But then I guess, the controversy could have become more than expected in the sense that he was expelled from his long term bread giving firm [I mean political party:-)]!!!

Mahatma Gandhi as a brand!

I happened to read an article which described Mahatma Gandhi as one of the best brands globally still. It is true given the fact that he was able to do the following -

1. Message Awareness – During his time, each and every Indian was aware of the mesasge of independance. Even the enemies knew this, even though they tried to suppress this message spread. Such was the awareness level that the more they tried to suppress, the more stronger the message became.

2. Adoption – Mahatma was able to convince many a folks to adopt the message, evident from the fact that many of the famous personalities tried to help the cause of independence and felt proud about it.

3. Trial – The message of self sustainability was adopted and tried out by the masses – the Dandi satyagraha and the adoption of charka to symbolize the unanimity in the struggle is an example

4. Usage – The constant struggle taken up by the masses culminating in independance using the principles of non-violence and simplicity is mind blowing.

Mahatma Gandhi is said to be very clever in sending the right messages to the british and to the world regarding the objectives of his mission. I believe that this unidirectional objective and flexibility in messaging makes him a brand invaluable!!

But I wish he could have send the right message and went through the right Adoption and Usage methods in the case of partitioning of India!!

Product Adoption cycle

As a sales and marketing personnel your ultimate goal is to get the customer buying your product and continue using it over a long period of time.

So ideally you would follow the steps as below -

1. Awareness – This phase will allow the customer to know that there is a product or a service that is available for him and that will satisfy some of his unmet needs or the met needs in a better manner.

2. Trial – The customer would want to take a trial to understand whether the understanding he has about the product is correct or not. This could be through actual trial, through recommendations from sources who have used it, through research done online or by talking to others or just by observing the product.

3. The customer decides to purchase the service or product. This stage is only a beginning for the long lasting relationship the firm can start with the customer for 2 reasons -
a. A satisfied customer will continue using the product over and over again.
b. A brand trust developed which will help the firm to market its new or other products to this customer in an easier manner. A good experience with a brand tends to convince the customer that whatever the firm promises can be trusted and hence the purchase cycle gets shortened a lot. Also word of mouth publicity that the firm gets is also beneficial.

Market research techniques are available to measure the parameters in each of these phases and helps the firm to identify the barriers to their success in the market.

Now, what if we have all the players in the market following the scientific methods to come to decisions regarding how to play in the market?? no issues..the ultimate beneficiary is the customer himself!! or the firm that employs the best vendor for doing this market research wins over the rest:-))

VC tips

A nice article on “entrepreneur” vs “VC” relationship..

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124781609763756921.html

Jackfruit Festival 2009

A piece of news

“Kenlove, fruit farmer and photojournalist from Hawaii, inaugurated the Jackfruit Festival-2009 at the Uravu auditorium at Thrikkaippatta in the district on Friday.”

This festival happened in Kerala. In the inuagaral function, Mr Kenlove said that the western countries are big markets for jackfruits. Currently Philippines caters to the demand from the US, but then more suppliers are required to satisfy the demand and India has a great opportunity in doing so, provided the farmers are able to assure consistency and quality of value-added jackfruit products. He also highlighted the nutritional value of jackfruit.

Now I remembers the days when each and every house in kerala had jackfruits in abundance and everybody used to relish the season. But the trend is on decline in the recent years. People do not really consider jack fruit farming as anything of prestige and mostly convert the land to some better use.

Now since a westerner has said that jackfruit is nutritious and have got huge potential in the western markets, somebody will take pride in farming land for jackfruits!

Retain the valuable customers

I wanted to ship some stuffs from kerala to maharashtra. So I headed to see the carrier options I have. Checked VRL Logistics. They gave a quote for Rs1500. For door delivery they wanted to charge an extra of Rs 1000. [So a total of Rs 2500]

I went on to Indian Railways. The quote obtained was surprsingly low. I went ahead and booked the same consignment for Rs 200!!!

Interesting rite?

2 things I could understand -

1. VRL never considered small customers as their major chunk. For them, more of industrial and big consignments made business sense. Hence obviously they wanted to avoid me being their customer [which was evident from the way the VRL service representative dealt with my quotation request]
2. The logistics arrangement that railways had was suited for small consignments as well as elaborate. Thanks to the very large network of railway lines!

These factors enabled railways to take up my consignment and charge a very reasonable fee.

Yes. A business cannot cater to all types of customers. They need to understand the segment they need and retain them..and then do all that is required to keep the unwanted customers away:-) A good marketeer/salesman can do this effectively!!