What we're reading this month

From Chief Marketer - Good Marketing Execution Happens at all Touchpoints

The author discusses the void between good marketing strategy and good execution of that strategy, looking at how even the soundest of plans can fall apart if it’s not well executed across all customer touch points. Often the most difficult of these execution points is on the human level, where humans are interacting with customers.

From Think Customers: The 1 to 1 Blog - Life After Facebook -- Why Email Remains Your Biggest Opportunity

The author discusses how despite the opportunities that social networks, such as Facebook, provide marketers, email eliminates much of the chaos associated with that channel, remaining one of the most effective tool for marketers to communicate and reach their customers.

From Marketing Week - In the mood for improving customer experience

This article discusses how some organisations are trying to take customer experience to a new level by trying to quantify mood and emotion and use that as a basis for marketing outreach.

From Think Customers: The 1to1 blog - Customer Loyalty -- Follow the Customer's Lead

Summary: In this article, the author discusses how companies should promote customer loyalty among a broader base of customers and can achieve this by ensuring satisfying customer experiences that move high-potential customers up the value chain. The author writes, “Customers are satisfied when the effort required to receive service is minimal,” and that they are “80 percent likely to measure satisfaction and effort the same way.

From DM News - Ideeli launches customer retention e-mail marketing campaign

The article discusses how Ideeli, the members-only online shopping community, recently launched an email marketing campaign which aims to retain lapsed customers by segmenting its data based on buying behavior, sorting it by active and inactive customers.

From eConsultancy - Ten steps to great CRM

Summary: This blog post discusses the best practises of implementing CRM to enhance business performance and delivering a superior service. However, it warns that ROI isn’t the easiest way to quantify the process and businesses need to focus on the benefits that streamlining customer interaction will offer their customers.

From CRM Buyer - 3 Trends that will Shape CRM Evolution in the Year to Come

Columnist Chris Bucholtz discusses this year’s CRM Evolution show and how the event reflected the way thinking about CRM has changed over the years. He identifies three developments he expects to see between now and next year’s show: 1) The (Latest) Rise in Analytics, 2) The Expansion of the CRM Ecosystem, and 3) Thought Leaders Walking the Walk.

Marketing Week - 1-To-1 marketing works on women

This data strategy post looks at research carried out by Rotterdam School of Management. It found that while both sexes do develop customer loyalty, men tend to be more loyal to a company or brand, while women value personal relationships.

From Think Customers: The 1 to 1 Blog - Don’t Stop at Satisfaction When Building Customer Loyalty

The author writes, “the customer experience and service philosophies must be consistent across all channels. The same level of service that companies apply over the phone or email should also be applied to Twitter streams, Facebook pages, and websites. Customers will no longer tolerate different levels of service across different interactions.”