Research Notes

How Firms Manage Database Marketing Services.

If you outsource your marketing database systems management, see how your operational practices compare to those reported by execs at 50 companies. Most senior marketing execs 'own' the relationships with such vendors, rather than the IT department. Almost 60% of participants in the survey reported that their marketing databases had been in production for two years or less. What ranked as most important in vendor/client relationships? Service and industry knowledge on the positive side and vendor lack of resources on the downside. Less than 10% mentioned technology, which, according to the report 'underscores the business orientation of firms that outsource.'

Proactive Customer Analytics Turns the Date Tide.

Feel like you're drowning in client data? Once you start pulling in data from activities on your firm's Web site, the information volume will continue to rise swiftly. This research brief details the ways undisciplined approaches to analytic data provide inefficient and incomplete views of clients. To avoid a further deluge of data, make your fact-finding missions proactive, have experts design the data collection instruments and focus on management, not measurement systems. The brief also offers directions to a 'starter set' of readings about proactive customer analysis.

The BTI Consulting Group, Boston, MA just released the results of a new survey of law firm Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs). The results are based on telephone interviews conducted during the first quarter of 2003 with the CMOs of 62 AmLaw 200 firms. Among the findings:

• The Pareto Principle is alive and well. A typical law firm derives 80% of its revenue from 25% of its clients.
• There are 13 people on the marketing staff of a typical law firm. That translates to one person for every 41 attorneys.
• The range in gross billings per marketing staffer runs from $8 million to $20 million.
• One hundred percent of the CMOs surveyed have undertaken technology changes to improve marketing efforts and results. One in four CMOs have implemented or improved their CRM systems in the past year.
• 42% of law firms have conducted formal client satisfaction surveys in the last two years. This is up 20% from 2001. While most use a mix of channels for conducting surveys, only 11% rely on Web-based or e-mail instruments.
• Over the past twelve months, 62% of CMOs have implemented changes designed at improving client retention.

The full analysis of the survey is available in BTI's 'CMO Strategies for Success' at http://www.bticonsulting.com/

www.ftc.gov eMarketer.com www.metagroup.com www.forrester.com

Building a Customer Experience Metrics Portfolio.

How should firms measure customer experience? Customers naturally rate their interactions based on factors such as previous experience and current perception. If your firm wants to change customer perceptions, or influence future 'buying' behavior, you must build a metric portfolio that includes data on customers': past actions and experiences; demographics and psychographics; and direct observation of customer behavior. Short of becoming a crystal ball gazer, you can talk with firms such as ForeSee Results and Usability Sciences (for online behavior) and InContext Enterprises (for offline behavior) to evaluate future activity based on past behavior.

How Firms Manage Database Marketing Services.

If you outsource your marketing database systems management, see how your operational practices compare to those reported by execs at 50 companies. Most senior marketing execs 'own' the relationships with such vendors, rather than the IT department. Almost 60% of participants in the survey reported that their marketing databases had been in production for two years or less. What ranked as most important in vendor/client relationships? Service and industry knowledge on the positive side and vendor lack of resources on the downside. Less than 10% mentioned technology, which, according to the report 'underscores the business orientation of firms that outsource.'

Proactive Customer Analytics Turns the Date Tide.

Feel like you're drowning in client data? Once you start pulling in data from activities on your firm's Web site, the information volume will continue to rise swiftly. This research brief details the ways undisciplined approaches to analytic data provide inefficient and incomplete views of clients. To avoid a further deluge of data, make your fact-finding missions proactive, have experts design the data collection instruments and focus on management, not measurement systems. The brief also offers directions to a 'starter set' of readings about proactive customer analysis.