I recently wrote about combining PURLs and QRs (PQRs) as a way to reduce sales friction. In this latest article, I’ll focus specifically on how PURLs (Personal Uniform Resource Locator) are helping to modernizing missed point-of-sale Service Contract direct marketing. Service Contract marketing is one of the more operationally complex areas of the customer life ... Read More
Assortment planning is a critical area of retailing, but opinions differ on how to best accomplish it. I take a quick look at two divergent opinions published in the past month.
Fulcrum and Whirlpool Corp. were recognized for their marketing programs with a NCDM Excellence Award.
We’ve written a lot about cross-selling over the years — how important it is and how to to succeed at it. Check out some of our latest thinking in today’s article on the 1to1 site.
Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, it’s a good time to reflect on how pricing, branding, and other factors influence shopping and buying behavior. Coincidentally, I received an early Christmas present to myself on yesterday’s invented cyber-holiday, one that I can recommend to any marketer looking to make sense of the ... Read More
Over the past 20 years, I’ve learned a lot about all aspects of the service contract business. One important learning: significant risk management opportunities exist in every program. In this article, I share some case studies, as well as tips on how to improve performance.
Many of us on the data-driven side of marketing feel that analytics, data, and computing technology trump the fallible decision-making of humans whenever we have lots of data and many variables. But technology is allowing us to harness human computation in new ways that may become as central to marketing models as logistic regression.
As many of you know, Fulcrum sponsored a webinar with Chief Marketer on October 25, 2011. The presentations by David King and guest speaker Fatemeh Khatibloo of Forrester Research can be accessed here. You may also replay the presentation with audio by registering at this site: Note that these links will be active only for ninety ... Read More
Devices, such as Apple’s iPod, now celebrating its 10th anniversary succeeded not only because of great product design, but because they made it convenient for owners to access and buy content that enhanced the customer experience with the product. What other places, could such value-added products and services be incorporated into product designs?
Cross-selling additional products and services can be highly profitable, but getting customers to buy more can be a challenge, even more so when marketing has to flow across many channels. Gain insights on how to succeed from this recently published article.
Successful companies rely on analytics to make them more competitive. We discuss our to invest in ways that provide greater agility through analytics.
Our experience shows that extended service plans generate a wealth of customer and product data that can be used across the enterprise to improve customer experience, product design, and marketing.
Extended service plans often are though of as centers for producing short-term profits. Yet, when designed properly, they can also help foster customer continuity that translates in lasting relationships.
Eliminating sales friction, as noted by the behavioral economist Dan Ariely, encourages customers to buy more by reducing the thought and effort that needs to go into the buying process. Finding these areas of friction also is a way to identify processes that keep marketing from becoming more agile.
Extended service programs are often designed and run for maximum operational efficiency. As a result, good marketing often falls by the wayside. With modest investments, companies can modernize their ESP programs and realize significant gains in revenue and profits.
