Analytics achieving results: Are we making progress?
The purpose of marketing is to connect people with products and services that they want or need. Understanding your customer’s motivation and mindset—along with past patterns and behaviours—and combining these insights with the right offer, message and “hot buttons” at all points of interaction with your brand ultimately lead …
The year ahead: Building customer centricity
With a nod to the growing importance of knowing your customers, Direct Marketing has launched this “Customer Centricity” column for 2017. I’m pleased to kick off the new year with this inaugural piece and share my perspective on an orientation that I’ve always considered a key success factor for any …
Why marketers should support the 2016 Census
Beginning this week, Canadians are being asked to complete the 2016 Census. And this census brings good news for businesses, consumers and citizens alike. You may recall that the mandatory long-form census was replaced by a voluntary survey for the 2011 Census. This move resulted in a non-response bias that …
When it comes to data, quality matters more than quantity
With so much emphasis on analytics for business decision making these days, I often find myself reminding marketers about the importance of the quality of the data they are using—not just the quantity. To develop data-driven insights, marketers first need to address the question of what data is valuable to …