Marketing and Sales Analytics

Cesar A. Brea is Managing Partner of Force Five Partners, LLC (forcefivepartners.com), a marketing analytics agency that works with clients in a number of industries to design and execute multi-channel marketing and sales strategies, and to build pragmatic, sustainable analytic foundations.   Cesar has more than twenty years experience as a line executive, advisor, and entrepreneur. Prior to co-founding Force Five Partners in 2008, Cesar served as Global Practice Leader for Marketspace, the digital media and marketing practice of Monitor Group, the international strategy consulting firm founded by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter. Formerly, Cesar was CEO of Contact Networks, an early LinkedIn competitor sold to Thomson Financial in 2006, and was Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing at Razorfish, the world’s leading digital advertising agency. Before Razorfish, Cesar was Vice President for Marketing and Business Development at ArsDigita Corporation, an open-source software firm focused on online communities acquired by Red Hat Software in 2002. Earlier, Cesar was a management consultant at Bain & Company and a banker at J.P. Morgan.   Cesar holds an MBA from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck School, where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar, and received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College. He is a frequent writer and speaker on marketing in the digital age. In 2012, Cesar published his first book on this topic, Pragmalytics: Practical Approaches to Marketing Analytics in the Digital Age. Cesar has been a guest lecturer in undergraduate and graduate programs at MIT and Harvard, and writes about marketing and ebusiness on his blog at http://octavianworld.org, and on Twitter (@cesarbrea).   Cesar and his wife Nan Leonard live in Dover, Massachusetts, and have three children, Ben, Kate, and Will. On summer weekends, they enjoy sailing on Nantucket Sound.  

Foreword x

Acknowledgments xii

About the Author xiv

Introduction 1

Why This Book 2

Who It’s For 5

Where It Fits 6

How to Use It 7

How It’s Organized 8

Part I  Improving Your Odds: Eco-systemic Conditions for Analytic Success 11

Chapter 1  Strategic Alignment—First You Need to Agree On What to Ask 13

Framing Your Focus Beyond the Answer Itself 14

Three Perspectives for Marketing and Sales Analytics 15

Venus 16

Mars 17

Earth 19

Applying the Three Approaches 20

Reconciling Organizational and Cultural Perspectives 22

Packaging for Balance: “The Analytic Brief”    26

Visions for the Analytics Capability to Serve These Needs 27

Chapter 2  Access to Data—Too Often Taken for Granted 29

Getting to Data: Historical Models and Patterns 29

The Paleo-Analytic Era 29

The Meso-Analytic Era 31

The Ceno-Analytic Era 32

Modern Times 33

Moving Forward 34

Lenovo’s “Analytic Maturity Model” 35

Building the Data Warehouse 37

The BENS “BRN” Story 38

Implications for Big Data Investments 40

(Aside: What’s Big Data?) 42

Supporting Ad Hoc Approaches to Defining Data Requirements 44

Managing External Sources 46

Chapter 3  Operational Flexibility—Don’t Analyze What You Can’t Act On 49

A “Common Requirements Framework” 50

Targeting 51

Content 52

Channels 53

Analysis and Testing 54

A Summary Picture 55

What’s Right for You? 55

Integrating Analytics into Operational Capability Planning 56

Chapter 4  People and Organization—Cultivate “Analytic Marketers” 59

Recruiting 60

Skill Mix 62

Developing 64

Organizing for Analytics 65

Part II  Practical Analytics: Proven Techniques and Heuristics 71

Chapter 5  Practical Frameworks—For Getting On the Same Page 73

The Analytic Brief 73

Chapter 6  Practical Research—Beyond Studies for Studies’ Sake 89

Chapter 7  Practical Analytics—Knowing When to Say When 95

Evaluating Performance 95

Do the Math 99

Proceed Iteratively 100

Interpolate Estimates 101

Model Iteratively 103

Assessing Solution Tradeoffs 104

Chapter 8  Practical Testing—An Underused Approach to Insight 107

Chapter 9  The Importance—and Limitations—of Storytelling 111

Chapter 10  Managing Bias—Like Air, Invisible and Everywhere 117

Part III  Making Progress 123

Chapter 11  Managing Pace and Results—Momentum Is Strategic 125

“Time is the fire in which we burn” 125

Keeping Score 127

Investing in Capabilities vs. Harvesting Results 128

Chapter 12  Governance Models—Because Analytics Are Political 133

Chapter 13  “Culturelytics”—A Practical Formula for Change 137

Part IV  Conversations with Practitioners 141

Chapter 14  Conversations with Practitioners 143

Paul Magill, Abbott 143

Doug Collier, La-Z-Boy Incorporated 147

Scott McDonald, Condé Nast Publications 154

Melanie Murphy, Bed Bath & Beyond 161

David Norton, MDC Partners, Harrah’s 166

Rob Schmults, Talbots 171

Annemarie Frank, HSN 177

Judah Phillips, SMARTCURRENT 182

Latham Arneson, Paramount Pictures 190

Mohammed Chaara, Lenovo 193

Belinda Lang, Belinda Lang Consulting, Aetna 199

Thomas White, TIAA-CREF    206

Perry Hewitt, Harvard University 210

Todd Purcell, The Hartford 214

Ben Clark, Wayfair 219

Index 225