Sustainability reporting is a major, and contentious, topic. I wholeheartedly encourage academics to engage in topics like this — they matter. In theory, such engagement makes academic work extremely relevant. Consultants produce reports but sometimes these are over-optimistic, biased, or just plain wrong. This means academics can have an important place in improving the quality…
Category: Marketing Metrics
The ROI Of Customers
I am pleased to report that we have a new paper in the Journal of Interactive Marketing. My coauthors — Paul Farris, Raj Venkatesan, and Andrew Petersen — and I looked at the challenge of assessing the ROI of customers. One problem we saw was that marketers were getting misleading ROIs (returns on investment) for…
Managing Across Business Disciplines
One of the big challenges of running an organization is managing across business disciplines. That is one of the many insights shared in Stephen Diorio and Chris Hummel’s book Revenue Operations. Managing Across Business Disciplines The book I wrote with Shane (Xin) Wang — The Customer Asset — looked at the problem of customer valuation….
Recommendations Are Complex
Christina Stahlkopf looked at the Net Promoter Score (NPS) in a short 2019 Harvard Business Review article. The upshot of the work was that recommendations are complex. We want consumers to be simple but they consistently (and inconsiderately) do things to mess up the metrics that describe them. NPS As A Compass Stahlkopf takes a…
The Benefits Of Simple
There are many papers on the mechanics of NPS (the Net Promoter Score) across various disciplines. In many ways they are easy to write. Fred Reichheld’s original claim was a bold one. Namely, that NPS was the one number you needed to know to grow. It was clearly a sales claim. It was pretty absurd…
Double Jeopardy In Marketing
My second post on Byron Sharp’s How Brands Grow focuses on an excellent point he highlights that it is easy to forget. All those interested in marketing metrics should be aware of the challenge of double jeopardy in marketing. Sharp explains this and the impact it has on marketing metrics. This impact can confuse those…
NPS And Casino Patrons
I really appreciate when academic papers seek to address issues that matter to non-academics. Sanghee Kim and Tom Gruca looked at the use of Net Promoter Score (NPS) to predict customer retention and spending a topic important to many business people. What do they find about NPS and casino patrons? Casinos And Net Promoter A…
Understanding And Using The Customer Asset
My new book with Shane (Xin) Wang covers the use and meaning of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Being clear on the nature of the customer asset allows us to understand CLV. What Value Are We Looking At? The book starts with the basics. For example, what value are we looking at when we talk of…
What Customers Are Worth
Allison Hartsoe’s book — The Age of Customer Equity — looks at customer-based strategy. She highlights examples of firms successfully using customer centric strategy. The examples are interesting and there is much to learn from the discussions. I should note that this is not an academic book. The concepts are much looser than I would…
Market Research Lessons
Alex and Mike Sherman have a book of market research lessons. This is a nice little book of sensible ideas. I liked it and will highlight a few of the points that stood out for me. Aims Of The Research Should Impact What You Study This seems obvious, and it is really. Still, it is…