So I no longer post on this blog any more as I am sure it is obvious! Instead I've moved over to www.twosleevers.com where I post keto recipes, air fryer recipes, instant pot recipes, and more.

You can learn more about Twosleevers here.

Get more out of your consumer research

"On the average, companies only anticipated what customers would choose about half the time." I agree with de-emphasizing the role of "executive intuition" in market research and this article talks about a great way to reduce you reliance on "What we already know", and rely instead on the data.


For all the organizations out there that tell you they are data-driven, how many have CMOs that will humbly admit that their intuition is less reliable than their data?


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Scout Analytics: They Know Your Customers

Scout Analytics: They Know Your Customers

Interesting use of traditional online tracking with biometrics to identify individuals


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Know Where Your Visitors Have Been: beencounter

Know Where Your Visitors Have Been: beencounter

Is this an invasion of privacy or just another application gone online? Certainly offline, we know where you shop, what channels you use etc. Why does this feel so much more invasive?


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The Coming Bifurcation in Web Analytics Tools

The Coming Bifurcation in Web Analytics Tools
Very interesting article that differentiates between Google Analytics and other paid tools as well as the difference between analysis and reporting.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Who's overseeing your social media?

Interesting article in Ad Age. I think the whole "everyone is in charge of social media" comment is a bit over the top but I do like the way they described the centralized, distributed and combination models.

Gotta ask how Undercurrent etc. feel about ""We're always going to start with our agency of record," said Ford's Mr. Hultgren. "We may look at a boutique agency to manage a piece of social media. Boutique agencies can be singularly focused on something. But if we want a pure focus on some social-media task, we want a boutique to focus on a pilot. Once we've proven out that model, we'll hand off to Team Detroit to integrate."


Really? So in other words, you'll use an agency, let them take the risk and succeed--and then take the work away from them? Nice!

Should you be an Entrepreneur? Take this test

I got 20 yesses...I'm looking at my paycheck right now....How many yesses do you get?

Real leaders don't do focus groups

I love this article. I have always felt that focus groups on their own give you a very skewed version of reality, and that they are not useful when you're trying to beat the trend or innovate. I believe that focus groups are a great way to generate hypotheses--that then require validation in a more robust, quantitative fashion.

What exactly is a predictive model and why should I care?

Predictive models help you to find customers who are most likely to do something--whether that is buy your product, abandon your product, buy more of it, or buy it now.

So this is how they work. They look at your customer base and they try to find out what a certain group--let's take buyers--have in common. Typically you'd want to look at demographic information (age, gender, socioeconomic status, geography etc.), transactional information (what have they previously bought from you, how often do they purchase, how much do they spend, etc.), and sometimes, attitudinal information (are they savers, do they donate, do they want to be in control of their lives--whatever is relevant for your category).

Then, they come up with this equation that allows you to calculate a score for your customers. Now you can rank people based on their score--from who is least likely to buy to who is most likely to buy.

Models offer you two main benefits. They allow you to choose to communicate with the best prospects. Not only does this reduce your MARCOM, you are now also at less risk of annoying people with needless communications. (Hey, all I ever do is go to Alaska on your cruise lines. WHY do you keep talking to be about the Bahamas?? Do you even know me?)