Isn't it time that marketers stop shooting for the average and start maximizing their ROI? To do so that would mean no longer targeting segments of customers with the "winning" offer, but instead determining the best message for each customer. Carriers have the opportunity to leverage hundreds of behavioral and demographic attributes to target a customer. So why would a "winning" offer ever be the best offer for you, me, and 100 of our closest friends? It wouldn't if you're looking to maximize ROI on every customer communication.
With traditional A/B testing you might see that offer A gets a 3% response and offer B gets a 2.5% response. So, you roll out offer A, the "best offer," to everyone. But, what if you dig deeper and see that males respond at a 4% rate with offer A (vs 1% with offer B) and females respond at a 5% rate with offer B (vs 1% rate with offer A)? By applying just one demographical trait and delivering offer A to males and B to females, your overall response rate increases to 4.5% - a 50% lift. Now what if you could determine the best offer for each and every customer?
With a shift in strategy from customer acquisition to customer monetization, mobile operators are being challenged to increase the success of their campaigns. The benefit of true one-to-one marketing is clear - personalized, relevant offers lead to higher conversion rates. But how many carriers are equipped with the tools to rapidly determine what works best for whom, when, and where?
According to a study by Aberdeen Group, "Marketers are focused on delivering a clear return from their investments. And to demonstrate strong program results, one area reins supreme - accessing and understanding customer data." With mobile, the quantity and quality of customer data easily surpasses that of any other channel. But how does a carrier effectively consolidate, analyze and act on the data, without a team of 2,000 marketing and analytics experts?
Although traditional campaign management tools are effective for executing segment-based campaigns, the manual intervention required and dependencies on other systems (and other teams) for data and analysis can limit the potential for true one-to-one marketing. Instead of focusing on determining which customers are right for the latest new product or service offering, carriers need the tools to determine the best offer for each individual customer.
The fact is that campaign management systems can be easily enhanced with automation and machine learning capabilities to do the work of an army of analysts, allowing a marketer to rapidly sort out which offers work best for whom. With these tools, marketers are able to move smarter and faster while driving better results.