Michael Schrage tells us that customer lifetime value is a problematic measure but to me his criticisms seemed to be unreasonable. I have one message for him: Don’t Expect Marketing Metrics to be Magical. Overegging His Critique Firstly, I think he may be overegging his critique for effect. We might all have sympathy with that….
Category: Marketing Metrics
How To Identify What Metrics Matter?
Having a lot of data is great but like pretty much everything in life that is a good thing it still brings its own problems. With a lot of data there are any number of metrics you can produce. Some even look pretty impressive in reports. Yet which ones are actually useful? How To Identify…
Marketing Metrics Must Add Up
Marketing metrics can get a bad reputation. This sometimes for good reason. A key, unsurprising, idea is that marketing metrics must add up. To Build Trust Marketing Metrics Must Add Up Kevin Lindsay discussed why this is: why do marketers (and people working with marketers) sometimes lack trust in the numbers they are being given?…
The Problem Of Goodwill And Marketing
Tony Tollington’s book on Brand Assets is fascinating. The book is not an especially easy read. Indeed, it gets into some pretty detailed philosophical debates around the nature of assets and accounting which can be tough. That said it is good to think about these things and Tollington definitely made me think. There is a…
Net Promoter, Do You Really Recommend?
I have mixed feelings about NPS (Net Promoter Score). It is rare for a marketing metric to be quite so successful. As such, I have got to admire how professionally it has been promoted. That said, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that it is over-hyped. It certainly isn’t the one number you need…
The Politics of Accounting
Tony Tollington’s book on Brand Assets is fascinating. (Accounting rules have changed a bit since he wrote it. The acronyms and rule numbers aren’t what are used nowadays but the ideas are similar). He makes fascinating notes on the politics of accounting. The Politics Of Accounting For Intangible Assets Tollington notes the problems with the…
Don’t Use One Industry To Create Examples For CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)
Lloyd Melnick has a short and snappy book on customer lifetime value (which he terms LTV). At its best this is a useful insight into the games industry. There is a lot of detail there in a very easy to read form. For example, you will learn about ARPU (Average Revenue per User) and ARPDAU…
Political Candidate Brand Strength
Beth Fossen, David Schweidel and Michael Lewis published a paper on political candidate brand strength in Customer Needs and Solutions. They used inspiration from the idea of performance premium measures of brand strength. In essence, these measures consider how a brand should be doing given certain important features. Then they look at how it is…
Two-Part Tariffs and Disneyland
Interesting questions often precipitate (good) academic research. A great question is “why does Disneyland not make you pay for each ride”. This is the setup for Walter Oi’s examination of pricing back in 1971. Oi asks “If you were the owner of Disneyland, should you charge high lump sum admission fees and give the rides…
The Marketing-Accounting Interface
There is a lot of work linking marketing and finance. Unfortunately, at least from my perspective, nearly all of this has focused on linking marketing to financial markets. Such work is useful but I would like more looking at more diverse linkages between marketing and accounting. Sidhu and Robert’s article is an exception. They look…
