Did you hear the one about the mobile phone provider who increased customer churn by actively marketing to customers? Or the one about a bank that realized 45% of its direct mail budget went towards reducing sales by 8%?
No, they’re not the opening lines to jokes. This is the real-world of direct marketing, and unfortunately these scenarios are common. Because there is no fiscal cost associated with pressing send, marketers are more inclined to e-mail their audience with whatever offer is available. Overwhelming customers with irrelevant messages causes mental or actual opt-out, reducing customer lifetime value and increasing churn.
Smarter, more effective e-mail campaigns are tailored, precise and well-timed. They target only those who are likely to care about the message and avoid those who don’t. This type of tailored outreach can be achieved by incorporating analytics into campaign targeting. Uplift modeling, fueled by intelligent analytics, segments the customer audience based on the predicted reaction to marketing outreach. By using this approach, marketers can better determine which customers will react positively to a given campaign, and which are not worth the investment.
Mark Smith is EVP at Portrait Software
