• by Mark Klein , April 30, 2014

CLUE:It’s faster than a speeding bullet and much more likely to hit you, but all too often this missile hardly knows anything about you but your name and address.

o      RESPONSE: What is email marketing?

CLUE: Everyone wants this high, but the more you send, the lower it goes.

o      RESPONSE: What is response rate?

CLUE: The Internet is commoditizing everything, and minting these faster than seemed possible a few years ago. For too many companies, they represent over 80% of their customers.

o      RESPONSE: What are one-time buyers?

CLUE: Five years ago it wasn’t possible; now it’s the best way to raise response rates and revenue.

o      RESPONSE: What is individualized marketing?

CLUE: Starting a customer acquisition program without knowing this number is like bowling with a blindfold.

o      RESPONSE: What is Customer Lifetime Value?

CLUE: If you can’t sell more to your existing customers, this is the next best way to grow your business,

o      RESPONSE: What is customer acquisition?

CLUE: Your growth has been stagnant, so you’re trying this difficult technique because it is the best way to build revenue.

o      RESPONSE: What is cross-sell?

CLUE: It’s a bargain, it’s a customer favorite, it’s an easy out if you can’t decide on the lead for your next marketing campaign -- but it’s not as effective as a relevant product offer.

o      RESPONSE: What is BOGO?

CLUE: Prospects go looking, and you keep marking the trail with eye-candy words.

o      RESPONSE: What is search marketing?

CLUE: It’s easy to understand and crucial to improving results -- but takes so long, it’s often ignored.

o      RESPONSE: What is A/B testing?

CLUE: You hold them back and hate doing it; it tastes like medicine and helps measure success.

o      RESPONSE: What is a control group?

CLUE: UPS and FedEx love it, but bean-counters hate it.

o      RESPONSE: What is free shipping?

CLUE: If customers can’t get past this, all your other work is worthless.

o      RESPONSE: What is the email subject line?

CLUE: It used to be that marketers were measured by ROI and revenue; now your search fate could be in the hands of this number.

o      RESPONSE: What is click-through rate?

CLUE: You have only hints about how Google calculates this, yet your success depends on it.

o      RESPONSE: What is Quality Score?

CLUE: This common analytics method identifies the best and worst customers, but falters in the important middle. Using it for cross-sell is useless because it contains no product information.

o      RESPONSE: What is RFM?

CLUE: This methodology was invented by a British agricultural scientist in the nineteenth century to make better artificial manure, but today it’s a crucial tool to improve websites and marketing campaigns.

o      RESPONSE: What is multivariate testing?

CLUE: You believe that neighbors and buyers think alike and purchase alike, so even in this age of infinite choice and big data, you use this technique to target your customers.

o      RESPONSE: What is segmentation?

CLUE: Many think you get it by using the recipient’s name, but today that is only table stakes when you are trying to capture someone’s attention.

o      RESPONSE: What is relevance?

CLUE: We used to say that art and creativity produced the best results, but today this is the way the most successful companies do it.

o      RESPONSE: What is data-driven marketing?