[Re: Loose Cannon: And How Do YOU Feel About This?) Direct Newsline, Aug. 20, 2007]:
I have just one anecdote about data analysis that gave me some insight into what one big company believes is useful customer data.
Barnes & Noble surprised me last fall with a real one-to-one offer. Previously, in 2005, I purchased two Christmas CD’s by a band called Mannheim Steamroller. The band also uses its name for its independent record label, which records chiefly Christmas music. In the summer of 2006, B&N sent me a personal email announcing the new Mannheim 2006 Christmas release. The email offer was limited to that one CD.
It seemed surprising that B&N would have matched thousands of fall 2005 customers against thousands artist names and created special emails for each one. Database programs obviously can this, but how can it be cost-effective? The B&N analyst overcame his or her twitch and decided that the name of the artist, no matter however unknown, was the deciding factor.”
I grimly recall the analyst’s twitch from the old mainframe days, when it took weeks or months to write a program, and it cost thousands of dollars. You very carefully decided what customer data you wanted to record. “Do this carefully,” said the men in the black IBM suits, “because you’re stuck with your selections for the next year or two. You can’t go back and revise them.” Now there’s a real twitcher!
Fred Morath
Fred Morath Direct Marketing
Natick, MA
* * * * *
It occurred to me while reading your weekly missive that while this may be a new and yet unrecognized (by the psychological community, an oxymoron if ever there was one) condition, that this also presents a new market condition.
Should we be able to segment these twitchers and apply an email address to each, we might be able to “represent” a “Canadian pharmacy” selling a new Prozac-ginseng health drink specifically designed for “(put name here)” to calm the twitches yet prolong the ability to analyze data.
We would simply re-label some caffeine enhanced product and everyone would be happy: the employer (who still gets data, albeit caffeine enhanced and possibly less reliable), the analyst (placebos will placate the unknowing) and us, as we will successfully fund our respective retirement portfolios. Everyone wins.
And by the way, I have an elixir for Monday morning columnists…
Not that I have an opinion.
Mark Amtower
www.EpiphanyBook.com
Highland, MD
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