I know. You are saying to yourself, "Skip this review. It's just one more self-promotion of the obvious." And while there is some truth to that,
we, in fact, do need a book like this. Why? Because it is an excellent description of the model which companies should aspire to, in order to maintain their customers' loyalty and interest. And because it is carefully crafted to show you
the steps to create that loyalty.

It's also a damn good read. The book is Opt-in Marketing - Increase Sales Exponentially with Consensual Marketing, by Ernan Roman and Scott Hornstein, McGraw-Hill, 2004. The title is pretty unremarkable and unmemorable. But maybe that is one of the authors' messages. Nothing flashy, nothing extra is promised. In fact, on the cover "exponentially" is in smaller type than everything else. The cover says it's about opt-in marketing. And it is, with some attractive
differences.

One difference is that much of the first part of the book reads a little like a novel, or a good salesman's opening description of your problem and his solution to it. It is captivating. I found myself rushing ahead to the next chapter to get to
the next step in the process, to read another case study, to find out "what happened with IBM," or "how can we do this at the DMA"?

How's this for a tickler?
"Why commit to CMO? What's in it for me?...
1.Minimum 15% reduction in marketing waste.
2. A 12 to 19% response, or higher.
3. A 100% increase in field follow-up to leads.
4. Minimum 21% increase in sales... (page
12).

The bulk of the book describes the problem*, and offers the solution in a series of sequenced steps that will implement consensual marketing processes built around customer opt-in. (*You know the problem: lousy response rates after
"spray and pray" efforts built on a database that isn't the responsibility of sales or marketing and doesn't have really relevant information about the client base. In the b-to-b realm, sales and marketing are in separate silos, if not separate planets, i.e., customers are fed up with your giving them junk they don't want and can't use.)
Implementation follows a diagnostic phase, for which tools are provided. These are built around "Voice of the Customer" research, i.e., actually asking customers what they want. A significant part of the implementation is a variant of customer relationship marketing which the authors call "integrated direct marketing," "the art
and science of integrating and synchronizing media and message" in order to "surround[...]the customer with an effective mix of media and
response options" (p. 10).

Another difference is that the various processes described in the book are laid out in detail, and the pitfalls are very clearly articulated. The entire book is bursting at the seams with real-life case studies and examples from the authors' 20 years
of practice and on-point and pertinent quotations illustrating the lessons. (It didn't hurt that the authors had the great good sense to quote me a few times.) There are living examples of what not to do, and intriguing detailed case studies of successful implementations from big and small companies.

Each of the seven sequential process chapters has at least one and sometimes two case studies illustrating the lessons.

Step One: Focus on the CustomerRelationship...Golden Rule Insurance and Applied Biosystems.
Step Two: Voice of Customer Research...Applied Biosystems.
Step Three: How to integrate media and message: AT&T.
Step Four: Let's get real about e-marketing: Golden Rule Insurance.
My particular favorite is
Step Five: Rethinking customer care: Franklin Covey Public Programs and other
good companies like Ritz-Carlton and QVC are quoted.

This chapter, on turning the "customer service" department into a "customer care" department, is alone worth the price of the book. How much does an in-bound call cost you? Bet you think in terms of overheads. But you should think in terms
of actual and potential revenue.

Finally, the authors provide metric tools to measure progress and results and to assist in measuring the cultural change necessary to reach to goal: keeping customers buying. Again, none of these tools are particularly new or exotic, but
together they can provide significant businesscontrol power and having them all in one book is very useful.

There is absolutely nothing radical about consensual marketing. It's what everyone
preaches: ask customers what they want to hear about. Give them only that. Be responsive to the needs they express. Don't deluge them. But we don't do that. Why not? The authors tell us why, again, in the pithiest and most memorable of
ways. Basically, corporations (and non-profit organizations) are built on product-line silos and the only individuals who truly are "performancecompensated"
are salespeople. The result:

 

1. The acquisition of new customers is more important than retention of existing customers. Existing customers already bought. We need new
customers. Now.
2. Customers are viewed more as demographics than as individuals. We are content to infer data from third parties and outside lists versus talking
directly to our customers. We use technology to manufacture communications faster, easier, and cheaper, and send them out en masse." P.39

And do we train our customer-contact staff? (Well, I told you my favorite chapter was on the "Customer Care Center".)

Let's be clear here that the book focuses primarily on serving customers, keeping them now that you have them, making the next sale when it needs to
be made from the customer's point of view. All of the case studies involve exercises at companies with substantial housefiles. But that's not a weakness, it's just a focus. If one went prospecting with the ears open to those customers one anticipates finding, then half the battle - the mindset- is already in place to keep
them. Listen for needs, and how the prospects want them responded to.

This is a good book to spend a few hours devouring, and then to go back to. I found myself jotting down bits and pieces of wisdom here and there, until I found I was nearly copying the book. And like most business-process engineering
books, this one has its own particularly pithy observation echoing Pogo's observation: " We have met the enemy and he is us." In this case,
"culture eats change for lunch."