MarketingProfs Articles : Cha-Ching!

If your company has customer and transaction databases, says Fred Pratt in a post at the Air Waves blog, you already have a wealth of information that can be harnessed for even greater profits.

"The challenge," he explains, "is making sense of all this information so that it is actionable. Marketing analytics translates the mountains of customer data into insights that can drive marketing strategies and tactics designed to increase return on investment and profits."

According to Pratt, you can improve your bottom line by using marketing analytics to:

• Increase retention by identifying customers who are likely to leave, and creating offers that entice them to stay.
• Identify the traits of your best customers, and use that data to create a profile. This profile can be used to target new prospects with the greatest potential as well as current customers who are likely to become "best customers" with the right cross-sell or up-sell offers.
• Determine the most effective allocation of your marketing budget. "Critical questions that marketing analytics can answer include how are current initiatives performing and which customers are most valuable?" says Pratt.

The Po!nt: Marketing analytics serves every aspect of your business, argues Pratt, from keeping customers engaged to delivering more effective programs. And it all adds up to increased profits.

Source: Air Waves. Click here for the full post.