7 solutions for 7 marketing problems - sas

7 SOLUTIONSFOR 7MARKETINGPROBLEMSData Visualization at the basis of data-driven marketing

7 SOLUTIONSFOR 7MARKETINGPROBLEMS

Data Visualization at the basis of data-driven marketing

TABLE OF CONTENTS

01.

Marketing Manager’s goals of yesterday and

today: changes and perspectives

02.

Data Visualization for solving 7 marketing

challenges

03.

Visual Analytics: making data-driven decisions

in real-time

05

11

42

4SAS Visual Analytics — 7 Solutions for 7 Marketing Problems

Marketing Manager’s goals of yesterday and today: changes and perspectives

The continuing development of new

technologies, the rise of smartphones, the

Internet of Things, the cloud and the big

data have changed the requirements that CMOs (Chief

Marketing Officers) and Project Managers need to meet.

We live in an age characterized by speed and strong

need for synthesis, combined with a depth of knowledge

In the past, the CMO was focused mainly on:

Today the CMO is focused on:

Sales volumes Constant measurement of performance

The 4 Ps of marketing (product, promotion,

price, placement)

Creation of a corporate value shared with the

client

One-way communica-tion

Customer experience

T


The CMO today must have access to a multitude of

information and data generated by the increasing

preponderance of the Internet in business life. The access

to such a huge amount of data have to be quick and easy.

Otherwise, understanding and interpreting rapidly all the

available data (more and more often in real-time) becomes

impossible if the CMO want to establish a dialogue with the

stakeholders.

This quote comes not from a guru of modern marketing, but

from Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.

If this was true yesterday, the challenges posed by the web

make this idea very relevant and even more essential today.

The marketing theories that many managers have learned

in business schools represent only the minimum dictionary

of skills needed to excel in the digital age. To survive the

tough competition and make a business prosper, now you

need an intuition, a step ahead, which can be hidden in the

interpretation of the interconnected reality all around us.

You can’t “play it by ear” in a field that is so full of information

to be interpreted. You have to know single customers, in

their entirety and their peculiarities. The technology is ready

to meet these challenges: behavioral analysis on the social

The new rules of the game

“There is nothing as terrible as activity without insights”

71 — Marketing Manager’s goals of yesterday and today: changes and perspectives

media, web-tracking and digital analysis are just some of

the activities that help companies to collect and manage

huge amounts of data in order to better define customers,

products, competitors and markets.

The exploration and visualization of data, even on an

individual customer and respecting their privacy, works

not only for the campaigns planned by the company,

but even more in the real-time relationship that is

established through social and digital channels.

This change rewrites the rules of the game and requires

an overall view of customer experience, operational

processes and business models.

Clearly, in this scenario, the CMO leaves behind them

the ‘old’ convictions of marketing, like physical stores,

carts and special offers. CMOs are facing the new

challenges of multichannel customers, of online retailing,

hypercompetition, increasingly smaller margins and

customers who are always less “loyal.” However, it would

be a mistake to prematurely give up marketing levers

(such as in-store marketing) which are still essential

today. The perception and the feeling of the experts

is that the digital sector has helped to create a new

filter (light layer) that is above these levers. It leads to

the challenge of omni-channel marketing and holistic

marketing (it was in 2011 that Brian Solis talked about

holistic business strategy).

From face-to-face sales to lead generation and mobile

marketing, it is clear to everyone that today you can’t do

marketing and you can’t create any successful brand

without the active and precious contribution of the

consumer.


The role of users/customers then emerges in the

purchase decision process: various industry researches

and studies from early 2015 (taken also from Idealo and

TechEconomy) emphasize how users have confidence

in the “trust signals” of other customers who have

already tried a product or service. Trust can no longer be

ignored. Nothing new, actually: this concept is found in

the main marketing manuals, but too often it is forgotten.

Today, users are not just great guardians of the word of

mouth (so they are guardians of value). They are also

real creators of content, a content that heavily influences

marketing and communication strategies. Just think

about a well-known brand of beer that projected the

faces of the users who interacted on Facebook directly

onto a large billboard in Times Square.

Turning customers into brand ambassadors is a

challenge that companies cannot avoid. We must know

how to read into data, which is often too much and is

scattered among different channels.

The real value lies in the ability to integrate the

information in the company ecosystem with everything

BRAND

91 — Marketing Manager’s goals of yesterday and today: changes and perspectives

coming from outside and passing through the social

platforms. Collecting data, exploring it and personalizing

the visualization for business purposes.

With Big Data and the creation of data management

tools that are more and more intuitive, we are seeing a

process of “democratization” of corporate knowledge.

Previously, access to information and analytical

tools was the exclusive preserve of the CIO and top

management. Today all business functions are involved.

Today’s CMO must lead the information derived from

data analysis and make business decisions based on this

information – with deadlines that were unimaginable just a

few years ago.

Below we will point out the challenges of the new marketing,

the new rules of the game. And we will discover how Data

Visualization can be help dealing with them.

We will look at several concrete examples: from the

need to monitor the traditional KPIs (key performance

indicators) as well as sales, the margin on new products,

the spending power of customers, and more recent

KPIs such as the performance of online campaigns,

social return on investment or the sentiment analysis of

brands/products.


Data Visualization for solving 7 challenges of marketing

Increasing the Digital Lead Generation 1

Lead generation is a marketing objective

pursued to generate lists of potential

customers who are actually interested (target

customers) in the products or services offered by the

company. Typically, the target selected has a strong

propensity to buy. Profiling is therefore an absolute

necessity.

Over the years, CMOs have often used direct marketing

techniques (e.g. telemarketing, mailing campaigns). Today the

web (and in general digital contexts), plays a predominant

role, which make it possible to explore new, and not just

direct, marketing techniques. In particular, on the web, the

increase in the customers’ interest depends on:

• Traffic generated on a digital platform (e.g. site, app)

• Usability of the platform itself, which translates into an

experience of easy, sexy and intuitive browsing, thanks to

which the users can easily satisfy their needs

• Good organization of information (architecture). If the

search for a product takes a lot of time, the users are

discouraged, and the long and tiring browsing experience

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132 — Data Visualization for solving 7 marketing challenges

will negatively affect their future choices.

SAS Visual Analytics allows you to view the digital

Customer Journey of visitors and to identify the critical

issues that need work. In Figure 1, for example, the red

bars show 3 abandons at the first interaction on an

e-commerce website.

The solution allows you to view the number of clicks

made by the visitor, from the moment they enter the site,

until the purchase. The aim is to establish the reasons

that contributed to the increase in the number of clicks,

and thus to define the areas where work must be done

to stimulate the user to buy with the fewest number of

steps. Fewer steps mean a better web usability and an

excellent website architecture.

(Figure 1: Customer Journey) The screenshot shows the path of 13 different types of visitors and the outcome of the purchase: the image clearly demonstrates that only 2 of these have completed the online shopping. The screen also shows the pages most visited by users (in-site searches and viewing of products).

Data analysis is crucial for this purpose, especially the analysis of the user path made on the website.


In addition to displaying the volume of traffic, the solution

allows you to identify the exit pages of individual users,

following individual journeys (as shown in the Sankey

Diagram, Figure 2).

With a view to optimizing marketing campaigns, it is thus

possible to identify the most frequent paths of users and

the most visited landing pages of the website, to activate

any corrective actions and to understand in real-time

what topics are most appealing.

Any website built to sell products or services generates

data. The CMO must decide whether to take advantage

of this treasure, knowing better their digital customers’

behavior and increasing conversions and consequently

sales, offering the best experience.

(Figure 2: Sankey Diagram of a page) The screenshot shows in detail the navigation path of a single type of user (no. 8 of 13): from the “welcome” page to the purchase order (fifth interaction). The figu-re shows an excellent path, where the user enters the e-commerce area with just three clicks.


Improving Customer Experience 2

Philip Kotler, the greatest marketing expert in

the world, defined the CMO as:

Having a satisfactory customer service is the key

element for ensuring a strong, favorable and unique

image of your brand in the mind of the consumer.

Improving the efficiency of the company’s customer

service, analyzing and monitoring customer satisfaction

over time, and in real-time, responding to the broader

goal of keeping costs under control in line with a lean

organizational approach.

“the company officer who, along with other functions, must outline the company strategy. One of the CMO’s main tasks is to make sure that the rest of the company is focused on customers, not on products”.

P


The customer service, carried out by an interactive

telephone line, means savings in the use of qualified

personnel and faster and more standardized tracking of

data.

This type of customer service is widely used in the

educational sector, especially by universities. For

university departments, it is essential to investigate the

selection pathways of a student connected by telephone

network to the services desk, and to analyze them with

the aim of improving it. Monitoring telephone flows is

possible by mapping the interaction with the user, which

allows the analyst to identify the trouble ticketing path

(see example in Figure 3) and the precise point at which

the users:

abandon the conversation

follow the wrong path

do not find the information they seek

With SAS Visual Analytics, it is possible to view the path of

the calls and carry out the analysis more in depth so as to

obtain the experience of a single user. Or, starting from the

identification of the longest path in terms of resolution,

from the start of the interaction up to the contact with the

operator, it is possible to highlight with a few clicks the key

steps that led the client to abandon the call.

A concrete example: are you monitoring telephone flows?


With SAS Visual Analytics, the marketing area decision-

maker will be able to know exactly where to intervene, to

understand the origin of the problems and to propose a path

more suitable for the needs of users.

(Figure 3: Trouble Ticketing Path) The screenshot shows up to seven steps that the user can follow to solve a critical issue. In particular, the display has two types of paths that end with the solving of the problem. The dark green path is extremely efficient, while the other, although also solving the problem, involves a greater number of interactions, also including the suspension of the service (in yellow). The “in processing” label refers to the intervention of an operator, a step that, with a view to optimizing customer service, is an action that can be reported by the CMO.


Protecting the Web Reputation and the Social Sentiment of the Product/Brand 3

Being aware of how a brand or a product is

perceived by users on the web has become

a primary necessity for marketing managers,

who can no longer do without monitoring what is said

and shared online.

In a historical moment in which the users and

consumers (or ConsumActors) are increasingly more

informe d and active, the monitoring of brand awareness

and of brand sentiment is not a secondary activity.

Thanks to this, it is possible to activate crisis and

reputation management procedures with the goal of

fixing tricky situations.

With the advent of the web, we are witnessing an

overexposure of brands. The amplification of the perception

of a brand, a product, a service or an entire company, if

negative, can lead to a damaging of the image that is likely to

have long-term repercussions also on sales.

Knowing the attitude of the market about the brand values

is essential for understanding the best strategies to follow

during the planning of digital marketing activities.

Without this type of analysis, the CMO may not realize

the presence of negative user opinions, often related to

misinformation about the products.

The evaluation of the sentiment enables a key company

process, allowing to:

B


IDENTIFY quickly any problems

PLAN corrective and improvement actions

ACT quickly and react, in the case of significant threats

The analysis of social sentiment and of web reputation

are key operations in many areas and strategic

processes, such as in the banking sector.

This analysis is useful in determining the curve

of perception of the individual targets or prospect

consumer clusters (e.g. Millennials, business persons,

families), including the perception of each target, and

taking action where there is negative content.

A case study: Sentiment analysis in the banking sector


(Figure 4: Reputation by Content) This screenshot shows the displaying of Reputation By Content in SAS Visual Analytics. The tool allows you to see the volume of positive content published in two years, divided by place of discussion with different colors (dark blue for blogs; green for forums; blue for mi-croblogs; red for news; yellow for social networks)

(Figure 5: Digital Influence by Twitter) Highlighted in the screenshot are the number of tweets, shares and replies for a campaign, and their volume of distribution in the three indices (positive, negative, neu-tral). Displayed at the bottom of the screen is the total sentiment of the campaign, positive in Figure 5. This is clear from the analysis curve of the tweet (in green), which rises in the positive area and decrea-ses in the negative area.

The analysis of digital content also includes activities

related to the social media: through SAS Visual Analytics,

it is possible to analyze the data from a campaign on

Twitter and understand the sentiment regarding every

single tweet.


In the case shown, there are no negative data:

The CMO can thus concentrate on monitoring the neutral

content, mostly found in the data from the CRM, as suggested

by the display, and take action for the improvement of these.

Figure 6 shows the curve generated from the brand

reputation analysis:

(Figure 6: Brand Reputation) At the top, the image shows the results of the Brand Reputation analy-sis divided by type of content: documents, CRM and social media posts. At the bottom, you can see the three curves generated by the content: the positive in green, the neutral in grey and the average of the two indicators in red.


Measuring the Social Network ROI in a multichannel perspective4

According to several studies published by the

Social Media Examiner portal and by Social

Media Today, the social networks have a very

strong impact on the company business.

Six facts about the American market:

1 92% of brands declares that Social Media have

brought benefits in terms of exposure to the target

customers and in website traffic (source: Social Media Examiner)

2 50% of companies reports an increase in sales

through the social networks, after three years of social

activities (source: Social Media Examiner)

3 Consumers expect a brand to be active at least in 3-4

social channels (Source: Hubspot)

4 73% of consumers says they would be willing to buy

from a brand that dialogues and responds with users

through social networks (source: Hubspot)

5 Consumers are annoyed by advertising. However,

82% of them says they are very interested in the content

generated by the storytelling of a brand (source: Content

Marketing Association – CMA)

6 79% of CMOs who use Twitter says they have reached

twice as many contacts as those who do not use Twitter

(source: InsideView)

A


The return on investment (ROI) is a much-discussed

indicator. In fact, when it comes to marketing

investments, it is more appropriate to speak about ROMI

(Return on Marketing Investment), as proposed by Guy

Powell.

The goals of a marketing campaign on the social media

are almost never directly linked to the economic return

on the investment. Social media marketing (SMM),

in fact, has a strategic impact on brand awareness

and on all social business, from caring activities to

brand protection. When social advertising investments

come into play and the SMM becomes connected to

lead generation, these online activities must be added

to offline activities to be able to calculate the ROMI

comprehensively.

Conducting a marketing campaign in an omni-channel

perspective means considering the indicators (conversions,

clicks, views, engagement) coming from all the channels

through which the campaign took place, for example:

online sales offline sales printed PR

activities

app downloads


It is clear that the dashboard becomes an integral part

of the decision-making process by providing precise

and easily viewable answers, which can support digital

marketing efforts and suggest new solutions for future

strategies.

The case: measuring the Social ROI in the telecommunications sector

The launching of a new product in the telecommunications

sector may be an example for contextualizing a case of

measuring the return on investment of a social campaign

(Facebook and Twitter) (Figure 7)

(Figure 7: Campaign Efficiency). This screenshot shows the data from a marketing campaign. Objec-tive: increasing the average customer purchase in a store. The different campaigns are displayed in a pie chart. While the diagram below shows the amount of the average purchase (displayed by the size of the spheres) of clusters of customers divided by age group. A histogram on the right side represents the volume and amount of sales, filtered by the gender of the users (marked with the colors blue, red and green). Note - In the representation, there are three genders because the user’s gender is often not entered in the data obtained from the social media (and therefore there is an “unknown”).


Determining Geotargeting in the launch of new products5

The launching of a new product on the

market is a key moment for companies. It is

an opportunity for differentiation and a way

to gain a competitive advantage over the competition.

The preliminary stage plays a decisive role for the

success of the operation: at this moment, data collection

and a market analysis, conducted with the proper tools,

become essential for making the right predictions and

the right business choices.

In addition, it is crucial to identify the right geographic area

in which launching a new product or service in order to

concentrate the investments.

Therefore, it is necessary to know:

• all the information about the potential customers in a given

geographical area;

• their average economic value in the area.

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These are crucial data for making a successful choice. When

setting up a marketing campaign by locality it is important

to identify both the area where a retailer operates and the

spending power and habits of the customers, as shown in

Figure 8.

Consider, for example, the utility sector: if the CMO of a

company that distributes renewable energy wants to plan the

launch of a new “all-inclusive” service package, they will need

to identify the main distribution channels in which the launch

of the product can be more profitable.

A concrete example:Geotargeting in the renewable energy sector

(Figure 8: Areas of influence) This display shows how SAS Visual Analytics is able to highlight the areas of influence of the stores in a given sector in Lombardy (Italy). In addition, it is possible to carry out the analysis more in depth, down to the desired detail (e.g. municipality, commercial area, local health clinics, etc. ...). The intensity of the green color identifies the average spending power of consumers in the area.


With SAS Visual Analytics it is possible to know, depending

on the region, the profit generated by a product and to view

it through the distribution of the spheres, corresponding to

sales points, on the two axes, as shown in Figure 9.

You can also view the average spending of customers by

region, as shown in Figure 10.

(Figure 9: Average Value Cluster “Vita”) Shown on the left side of the image is the average value of the Italian regions, calculated according to the average value of the customers in the area. According to the intensity of the colors (red, corresponding to a low average value, and blue, corresponding to a high average value) it is possible to distinguish the profitability of the regions. If a particular region is selected, SAS Visual Analytics draw up a new chart on the right side. The axes show the quantity of products sold (x) and the relative profit generated by individual products (y). Colored spheres iden-tify the stores that carry those specific products, with the size of the sphere corresponding to their average purchase.

The average value of a customer is calculated with

respect to total takings and derives from the data collected

regarding a customer ID.

By collecting all of this information the CMO can decide


with confidence in which areas to launch a new product

and apply an appropriate pricing policy.

(Figure 10: Average Value of Customers) The screenshot shows how SAS Visual Analytics displays the average value of customers in a given area. The greater the size of the spheres, the greater the custo-mer spending power of a region with regard to a given product.


Determining and increasing the profitability of the individual customer 6


Among all their activities, CMOs pursue the

goal of increasing customer profitability.

This means that they have to examine the

decision-making processes that lead the customer to

purchase a product, in addition to the data coming from

market analyses (Figure 11). The path outlined by this

process is called customer decision tree, and makes it

possible to identify the values that have a greater impact

on the carrying out of the process.

(Figure 11: Decision Tree of High) The screenshot refers the decision tree of the customers belonging to a geographical area displayed through SAS Visual Analytics. It is possible to determine from the image the first and the second factor that can influence the customers- decision-making processes, regarding the brand and the quality of the product/service.

A


The product? The brand? The novelty?

With SAS Visual Analytics, you can do a cream skimming

between high and low spending customers in a given

territory. Once the analysis is focused on the chosen

target, the frequencies are displayed only in reference to

customers who spend over a certain amount, as shown

in Figure 12.

(Figure 12: Revenue by Facility State) The image identifies the distribution of the spending power of high-end customers broken down by state (USA). The box plots show the range of expenditure (recognizable through the extending of the whiskers of each box) and the average spending amount (which coincides with the center line of each box in blue).

If the CMO is planning a new campaign, with targeted high-

end customers, it is important to be able to identify what has

the greatest impact on their purchasing decisions:


A concrete case: insurance agencies customers

For insurance agency networks in Italy, it is important to

have both demographic and income data on customers,

in order to be able to outline the various offers in as

much detail as possible.

After identifying an area with greater potential for

business, the Chief Marketing Officer of an insurance

company can move business efforts to where customers

are profiled as high spending and try to increase sales

and, consequently, the agency’s profitability.

If the CMOs are instead interested in increasing

profitability through the expansion of low-end products,

with SAS Visual Analytics they can isolate medium or

low spending customers, with a very high frequency of

spending, and identify the geographical areas to which

they belong. With this information they will be able to

decide if, how and where to implement the offers in the

portfolio.

All this information can be limited to a specific territory to

identify the areas with the highest value.


Knowing the seasonality of the product 7

The case: the sales trend in the pharmaceutical industry

The seasonality of a product depends on

several factors, including human input

(experiences and sensations) and the

historical sales data. The ability to make accurate and

timely forecasts on the future sales trends of a particular

product is one of the main goals of every CMO. Having

this information can speed up and simplify decision-

making processes and support strategic choices through

solid considerations.

Optimizing this process is an ambitious goal, which

can change product performance and transform trade

marketing activities, allowing at the same time an

efficient and effective replanning and rearranging of the

supply chain.

Being able to predict the trends of the demand becomes

essential for planning the total investment in stocks and

marketing activities, as happens in the pharmaceutical

industry.

This sector is in fact subject to a very fluctuating

demand for certain products.

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A key indicator that aids company decision-makers in

monitoring the seasonality of a product is the long-,

medium- and short-term sales trend.

Thanks to this indicator, the CMO can understand the

sales trend of each store, identify the seasonality of the

products, and decide whether and when to increase the

investment on those that are subject to a high degree of

seasonal fluctuation.

With SAS Visual Analytics it is possible to estimate the

future sales of a product based on the distribution of

sales corresponding to the variations taking place in

previous years, as shown in Figure 13:

(Figure 13: Forecast of Profit by Date by Month) The screenshot shows the relationship between the price of the product and the profit of stores in certain periods of the year. Shown on the left side of the image is the historical data, while on the right side the forecast of profits and prices for future months is highlighted.


The identification of the gap regarding the profit and the

price of a product makes it easier for the CMO to decide

whether to increase or reduce seasonal investments and

to make solid forecasts about future sales.


Visual Analytics: making data-driven decisions in real time

If the analysis method described above is

the basis for the development of quality

projects, the availability of data visualization

technology is the armed wing that allows you to extract

all the value that companies already possessed but

still did not know they could use. The huge amount of

information and the need to interpret it in real-time, calls

marketing management to embark on a new adventure:

the relating and the communication of the data at

various levels in the company.

Data Visualization thus proves to be a quality approach

that is able to respond to the important needs of data-

driven marketing. The budget is not the only resource

that is limited today. For top management it is also, and

above all, the time available.

A customizable and self-learning tool is vital for

extracting a given datum that is urgently needed or for

providing an analysis to be included in a presentation

to be prepared in a few hours. In addition, the pervasive

availability of the tool, with different levels of access

and use, allows you to respond to a mantra that can no

longer be ignored, “to each his own data.”

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433 — Visual Analytics: making data-driven decisions in real-time

A platform of excellence must be able to provide, through

a simple, flexible user experience, the reference data at

all levels, from the CEO to the operator, considering IT

an ally for personalization and not a filter for individual

extractions – all without the need to know the source

code or programming.

To find out why Data Visualization has become crucial

in business, download our e-book “4 Reasons Why You

Can’t Do Without Data Visualization”

In addition to the benefits that Data Visualization can

bring to your business, you will find useful success

stories of those who have already tried SAS Visual

Analytics.


http://www.sas.com/gms/redirect.jsp?detail=GMS22211_35432



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Stephanie Chandler,The Hidden Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Belle Beth Cooper,10 Surprising Social Media Statistics

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453 — Visual Analytics: making data-driven decisions in real-time

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