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How would you like to profit from as much as 1000% ROI?
At Customer Communications Group (CCG), we know relationship marketing programs aren't just about building strong bonds with your customers. They're also about adding to the bottom line. That's why every comprehensive, full-service program we create has profitability built into the equation. With CCG you'll have real numbers - not gut feelings - to measure and refine your program. And the results are pleasing - our clients have profited from as much as 1000% ROI. Call 1-800-525-0313 or visit http://www.customer.com.
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http://www.relationshipmktg.com/FreeNewsletter.htm

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PREMIER ARTICLE:

1. How to Create and Use an Attrition Model (Catalog Success)   

"A continuous threat to the health of any company is the loss of customers.

That makes prospecting efforts all the more important, because newly acquired customers are worth more in the future. Profits rise because repeat sales rise, and most profits come from repeat sales.

Your catalog's attrition can be mapped using many variables. Recency, or how long ago customers made purchases, is the most common. Total spending, average amount spent, method and type of purchase are common variables used to estimate attrition by customer segments. Demographics and psychographics also may be helpful predictors.

A common strategy for marketers is to re-contact all customers who made a purchase within a certain time frame, typically two to three years. This may vary based on seasonal demand, but customers who haven't made a purchase after a certain length of time are dropped and assumed lost through attrition."

Visit www.catalogsuccess.com to read the entire article.

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2. PUBLISHER'S READING LIST

-- Tom's Honor Box: Extreme Service Means Getting Back to Fundamentals -requires free login (CRMguru.com)
Description: This article looks at how the declining level of "thin" trust between businesses and customers is affecting customer loyalty. Thin trust is defined as the basic assumption that most people are honest and trustworthy. In fact the box referred to in the title is found on a remote farm and holds chopped firewood. If you want to buy some just take it and leave some money. The author does a nice job of pointing out how counterintuitive this is in business today, and how revolutionary it would be if more businesses assumed their customers are honest.
Visit crmguru.com to read the entire article.


-- Top 10 Link Building Strategies (MarketingProfs.com)
Description: This article is written by Paul Bruemmer, who has written a great guide to managing Google Adword campaigns. Very concise, how-to piece about how to build your website's linking strategy which is a very important part of your search engine optimization and traffic building.
Visit www.marketingprofs.com to read the entire article.

-- Do Sweat the Small Stuff (internetretailer.com)
Description: Great look at how ecommerce sites are drastically improving their results by evaluating their sites and improving them in seemingly minor ways. In one instance HP increased the conversion rate in one product area by simplifying the navigation.
Visit www.internetretailer.com  to read the entire article.

-- Applying commercial CRM techniques to the public sector – Part 1 (crm-forum.com)
Description: Very "deep" little article that looks at how governments can apply CRM techniques to improve service deliverability and agency efficiency. Interesting stuff to ponder.
Visit www.crm-forum.com  to read the entire article.

-- The Payoff for Trying Harder (business2.com)
Description: How Avis Rent-a-Car built customer loyalty by listening to their customers and taking some prudent advice from outside advisors. Good, quick read that anyone who's ever rented a car can relate to.
Visit www.business2.com to read the entire article.

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3. WEB PAGE OF THE WEEK

www.alexa.com -- Well, I don't know if I've been living under a rock or if I'm being sold down the river. Either way for background sake I have to tell you how I found this site. In two days I had three different ad sales reps try to sell me space on their site. To prove how popular their site is they each took me to Alexa, had me type in their URL and then see that, Voila!, they rank number 17,002 or whatever. Amazingly they were all within about 1,000 of each other, so I'm skeptical to say the least. So I plugged in a bunch of my own URLs and got back a pretty scattered set of results. So who knows, maybe it is the real thing. Give it a try.

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4. STATISTIC OF THE WEEK, from AdAge

AT-WORK INTERNET USERS BIGGEST ONLINE SPENDERS

"The Avenue A study found that 64% of the at-work participants said they made purchases on the Web; 60% said they spent $100 or more online in the past three months, compared to only 39% of people who use the Internet at home. The number of online purchases increases as the amount of time spent online at work increases, according to the study."

Visit www.adage.com for the full story.

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http://www.relationshipmktg.com/FreeNewsletter.htm

Questions or suggestions? Contact:
Jon Lowder, Publisher
lowder@relationshipmktg.com
703-472-5623

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