Data isn’t worth much without hygiene…

November 1, 2010 By 2 Comments

In the digital world we’ve talked about the value of user data for quite a while – and it’s something direct marketing specialists have known for years. And yet it seems like the cost of old, outdated data and poor data hygiene is still ignored by so many companies.

In digital marketing terms, it can thousands, or even millions, of addresses which are being emailed and returning ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ bounces, with the cost of sending emails being wasted as those accounts are no longer active or checked.

Or wondering why you get a low response rate when it turns out only 1/5th of your registered users actually visited or logged into the site in the last 12 months.

Bad hygiene undermining brands:

I moved into my house over 3 years ago, and over that time we’ve returned tens, if not hundreds, of letters intended for the previous occupants – that’s something you tend to expect.

But one arrived today which stood out. It’s from a financial institution using details which are 3 years out of date – and furthermore, it’s a financial institution I use. So despite the fact I’ve been using their products with my home as the billing address for over 3 years, that didn’t stop them mailing the old residents.

And although I’ll just return it with the rest, it’s stuck in my mind when I consider the fact this company has probably more details and data on me than any non-Government agency, and yet still makes simple mistakes. If they can’t figure out that the details they’re using don’t add up, and don’t have any type of CRM flag to highlight the fact it doesn’t add up, do I really want them having access to more sensitive data?

Or will the wasted cost of one letter and envelope also potentially lose them a significant amount of business if I switch because they’ve lost my faith in them?

Filed Under: CRM, customer service, Direct Marketing, marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

One potential USP for Diaspora

July 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I’ve been following the progress of Diaspora since it started – in the midst of Facebook’s last privacy problems, four young programmers at NYU asked for funding to create ‘a privacy aware, personally-controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network’.

And they got a lot more funding than they asked for – before they’d written a line of code, their Kickstarter page raised over $200,000. And they’d originally set a goal of $10,000. Backers even include Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg!

They’ve just posted their one month update, and things seem to be going well. But in the midst of writing a post on 140char, something struck me.

The big worry about Diaspora is that even if it’s finished, available, and a great service – not enough people will necessarily care enough about privacy etc to sign up and get critical mass to it.

So what about taking a different route.

Advertisers and marketers are increasingly using social networks as a primary route for reaching consumers effectively.

Revenue generation is increasing for the social networks and companies using them.

Customer service and CRM are following along slightly behind.

So why not make the unique selling point to the average user something slightly different – why not make Diaspora the first social network to serve as a platform for Vendor Relationship Management?

With Diaspora, not only could you control all your own data from a privacy point of view, but you could control all your own data from a VRM point of view – selecting what you might want to release to a company, and how long you’ll allow it, whilst it’s relevant.

It could be the social network which doesn’t let you ‘Like’ a company – but lets you control your relationship with all the companies you’d like to do business with. And with the open source and distributed, open approach to data, it could be made easy for consumers and companies to hook up using Diaspora as a platform and channel, rather than having to be within the social network itself.

Maybe that would give both movements more leverage?

Filed Under: open source, social networks, Vendor Relationship Management Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Don’t worry about me…

October 12, 2009 By 1 Comment

There’s no need to worry about me, if you’re a company I buy products or services from.

After all, I’m just one person – you’ll barely notice the difference if I stop buying things from you. At most, I might make the buying decision for a family of three, so you won’t lose that much cash – particularly if you’re a global corporation.

Don’t worry about the things that matter – reliable products, good service, etc – I’m easy to replace with a bit of advertising or marketing. And with the internet these things are so cheap to do. This new ‘social media’ stuff means you could replace me for free, even if you’ve always just though of the internet as something for geeks and nerds – you just concentrate on email and checking one or two business sites to keep an eye on your share price.

And whatever do you, don’t worry about the fact that I’m able to tell the world about why I stopped my consumer relationships with you, and what exactly caused me to go to your competitors – quickly, for free, and able to spread indefinitely via search, social media, even news websites. And the fact I can use text, audio, video, photography to support what I’m doing.

You just relax and close your eyes.

It will all be over soon…

 

 

(This post is dedicated to the lost sales we’ll never see again – which in the last week have varied from a couple of pounds to a potential five figure sum – all lost down to bad service or products…)

Filed Under: Business, Digital Culture Tagged With: , , , ,

Why Twitter won’t replace Google search- but will overtake it

February 16, 2009 By 4 Comments

The reason why Twitter and real-time information will overtake Google search isn’t because of the aggregation of the ‘Thought stream’ as Techcrunch has proposed, as Lew Moorman has written, or even as Robert Scoble has written.

For some reason, we still think that a new service will totally replace the old, and that the two compete on the same field, even though Robert’s post alluded to where I see the real advantage for real-time information.

Google provides signposts for where you want to go. Twitter provides you with a guided tour by your friends.

Signpost by JCM_Photos on Flickr

Signpost by JMC_Photos on Flickr (CC Licence)

It’s not about searching the aggregate of real-time information.

It’s about asking the members of your network in real-time for responses.

And it’s about increasingly moving towards Vendor Relationship Management, rather than Customer Relationship Management.

I don’t care as much about the general consensus of the population of Twitter about a subject as often as I care about the opinions of the core group of my 2300 followers on the specific question I’ve posed.

And that’s where the threat to Google occurs. As a normal Twitter user, I’ll occasionally look at what the general populace reports around breaking news or a major event. But it’s the closer network within my followers who provide the real value of responding in minutes, or even seconds, to my requests and questions.

It allows people (and one day, perhaps companies), to come to me with the information I need, rather than setting out on my own to try to navigate my way to what I need.

Real-time web allows me to ask for information and have it brought to me by my core group of contacts and relevant people/companies. That’s the real-time benefit – not in evolving search.

But this doesn’t mean that there is no need for search.

Guided Tours by friends don’t remove the need for signposts, for example when friends aren’t available.

I’m already finding that I use search far, far less than ever before.

Real time search is only really valuable when there is a need to guage public opinion for businesses, marketeers, journalists, writers etc. (the last two refer to print, web, blog, tv, radio, mobile).

So trust me to choose search, questioning friends, or real-time search when it’s appropriate for what I want to do, and don’t rip up all the singposts in case I don’t know anyone in a particular town!

Filed Under: Digital Culture, social networks Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,