Recently we talked about the NPS-relevant study that shows how detractors (evidenced by the fact they leave as customers) influence those close in their social network to also defect.

In our NPS self-improvement efforts we read a lot of literature on the intersection of social networks and marketing and especially we take note of studies that use data from mobile telephone operators. Why? 

The great challenge for contemporary marketing is summed up very nicely in Rethinking Marketing (Harvard Business Review, Jan 2010):

'Never before have companies had such powerful technologies for interacting directly with customers, collecting and mining information about them and tailoring their offerings accordingly.

And never before have customers expected to interact so deeply with companies, and each other, to shape the products and services they use.'

It has been known for some time now that the 'physics' of customer loyalty has an uncertainty principle - the act of measurement changes the event you are trying to measure. The good news in relationship marketing is that the changes our measurement efforts cause in our customers... are generally positive.

We seem to read a lot of Forrester. I guess they have a focus on the sort of direct marketing / social media mash-up our customers are struggling to implement.

We are devout believers in the data driven market credo; 'why guess when you can know?' This means we keep a weather eye open for case studies and research that will move the decisions we make with our clients from the gut to the head (with or without blinking ;-).

The American gangster Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks answered; "Because that's where the money is."http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/sutton/sutton.htm" target

I was talking with Wayne - a old fashioned advertising man who has reinvented his thinking after having a 1:1 marketing epiphany some years back - about where classic 'branding' fits with the whole concept of marketing as a conversation. (He was the one who put me on to "The New Brand World" and persuaded me to re-read "The Cluetrain Manifesto").

In short, Wayne has convinced me that a company's brand is the sum total of the experiences they provide to their customers. Loyalty programs included - especially.

"The 20th century was about sorting out supply... The 21st is going to be about sorting out demand."