The Customer Resume - More!

Here's an image from yesterday's Customer Resume of first-time buyers purchasing in December 2019.

In my work, I have nineteen channel-based variables, twenty-nine merchandise-category variables, and ten additional "attribute" variables. In your project, instead of it saying "Channel 01" it would say "Email" or "Social" ... instead of it saying "Merch 15" it would say "Widgets".

I like to look at "what" a customer buys in the future, and I like to look at "where" a customer purchases in the future.

In this case, customers distribute future volume across Categories 2/11/16. These categories are the "gravity" of the brand, they are the categories that customers generally prefer. The majority of your marketing efforts should focus on those products, of course.

Here's the Customer Resume for first-time buyers acquired in September.

December newbies spent 18% of their future dollars on Category 2, 18% on Category 11, and 11% on Category 16.

September newbies spent 16% of their future dollars on Category 2, 14% on Category 11, and 26% on Category 16.

That's a big difference ... look at Category 16. My goodness. September newbies have a fundamentally different product preference than September newbies had. Your Customer Development plan has to account for this factor. When you try hard to convert the customer to a second purchase in months 1/2/3, you are going to personalize the website to take this into account, and you are going to personalize email campaigns to this audience to capitalize on this effect.

By the way, did you look closely at the differences on the left side of the Customer Resume?

December Newbies Rebuy Rate = 19.7%

December Future 12-Month Spend = $14.69 per customer.

September Newbies Rebuy Rate = 26.9%

September Future 12-Month Spend = $26.00 per customer.

It's going to be a lot harder to Develop the December newbie, isn't it?

In terms of Loyal status after twelve months?

December Newbies = 0.9% become loyal within a year.

September Newbies = 5.8% become loyal within a year.

It is CLEARLY OBVIOUS that this company does not have a plan for Developing December newbies.

As a marketer/analyst, it is your job to figure out how to move these (December) customers along. The customers won't likely ever become as loyal as September newbies, but even moving 2.0% to 2.5% to loyal status within a year is not an unreasonable goal.

Use the Customer Resume to identify where your weaknesses are. This brand has a major December newbie weakness that must be addressed.  And then do something about it. Doing the same thing for every customer (i.e. mass email campaigns, Friends & Family postcards, same homepage presentation) doesn't cut it. "Develop" your customers.