Do offline and online go hand in hand? Cross-channel and synergy effects of direct mailing and display advertising

Despite the rise of digital, direct mailing as a marketing communication tool remains relevant and widely applied in practice. Nevertheless, research into the effectiveness of direct mailing in the online environment is scant. Key questions that remain entail how direct mails affect different online and offline consumer activity metrics throughout the purchase funnel and how they interact with digital marketing communication tools. The current paper, therefore, investigates these two questions by conducting two studies. First, we focus on the effect of direct mailing on zip-code level upper, middle, and lower funnel performance metrics over time by analyzing quasi-experimental data from a large European insurance firm. The results reveal that direct mailing significantly influences consumer activity metrics in the online channel (i.e., online search and clicking behavior), in support of cross-channel effects of direct mailing. Moreover, direct mailing is shown to be effective throughout the purchase funnel, both directly and indirectly, with a positive net sales effect. Second, we study the joint effect of direct mailing and display advertising by analyzing field experiment data from the same insurance firm. The results show positive synergy between direct mailing and display advertising. Therefore, despite the rise of digital, direct mailing still serves as an effective marketing tool, both by itself and in combination with digital marketing.     

Catch Them If You Can: The Effect of Reminder Direct Mailings on the Return Rate of First-Time Donors

Despite the relevance of interactive marketing strategies, most nonprofit organizations rely on a marketing mix with a focus on direct marketing. Previous research shows that, by optimizing the mailing frequency, organizations are able to distinguish their mailing from other mailings that donors receive. However, some organizations, such as blood services, struggle to convert the frequency recommendations into their marketing practice. As donation events occur irregularly and blood donors are only able to donate a certain number of times, mailing strategies have to result in blood donations. This study examines a strategy in which a reminder direct mailing follows the regular invitation a few days before a particular donation event. A field experiment was conducted with 396 donors; 203 received the double mailing. Surprisingly, the results from hierarchical binary logistic regressions do not reveal any differences between the experimental groups. A single direct mailing approach is recommended, leading to considerable cost savings.     

Maximizing Profits for a Multi-Category Catalog Retailer

It is a common trend in the retail industry for catalog retailers to mail multiple catalogs, each promoting different product categories. The existing catalog mailing models do not address the issue of optimizing multi-category catalog mailing. We address this research gap by introducing a model that integrates the when and what components of a customer's purchase decision into the how much component (number of catalogs) of a firm's cross-selling strategy. In addition to comparing the impact of category-specific versus full product catalogs in generating sales in a specific category, the study also finds relative impacts of various category-specific catalogs. We jointly estimate the probability of purchase and purchase amounts in multiple product categories by using multivariate proportional hazard model (MVPHM) and a regression based purchase amount model in a Hierarchical Bayesian framework. The model accounts for unobserved heterogeneity, and uses a control function (CF) approach to account for endogeneity in catalog mailing. The results from the Genetic Algorithm (GA) based optimization suggest that the catalog mailing policy as per the proposed model would be able to generate 38.4 percent more customer lifetime value (CLV) from a sample of 10 percent of the households as compared to the current catalog mailing policy of the retailer by reallocation of the catalogs across customers and mailing periods based on their propensity to buy.     

From spending to understanding: Analyzing customers by their spending behavior

In customer segmentation, a common strategy is to use individual differences as a predictor of future behavior. Recent advances in data management in large financial institutions give an unprecedented and potentially powerful source of data for identifying such differences. We show that spending data can substantially help target the direct marketing of financial products, and constitutes new information, not captured by demographics. In particular, a systematic combination of this independent source and more traditional measures can enhance the predictive power of marketing research and improve the relationship with customers as illustrated in a direct mailing selection method which substantially raises response rates.     

Measures of marketing success

A mismatch of the meaning of “success”, as perceived by researcher and the firms researched, renders research less relevant and possibly, where the firm's resources are not directed at the goals selected by the researcher, misleading. This paper is concerned with the dependent variables used for business or marketing “success”, not its drivers, in seven leading marketing and strategy journals. The findings are that researcher, not respondent, views of performance dominate the literature which raises issues of relevance. Researchers are not necessarily being normative, and should be thoughtful in their selection of marketing performance objectives, i.e. the outcomes they seek to explain. A checklist of dependent variable considerations is provided together with a tentative definition of “success” against which performance may be compared.     

Donor Segmentation: When Summary Statistics Don't Tell the Whole Story

Funding pressures amidst the slow economic recovery from the late-2000's recession have forced universities, as well as other not-for-profit organizations, to increase the volume and sophistication of their direct marketing activities. The efficiency of direct marketing strategies is linked to an organization's ability to effectively target individuals. In this paper, we present a finite-mixture model framework to segment the alumni population of a university in the midwestern United States.Much of the research on customer segmentation summarizes response data (e.g., purchase and contribution histories) via recency, frequency and monetary value (RFM) statistics. Individuals sharing similar RFM characteristics are grouped together; the rationale being that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Summary statistics such as RFM, however, introduce aggregation bias that mask the dynamics of purchase/contribution behavior. Accordingly, we implement latent-class segmentation models where alumni are classified based on how an individual's contribution sequence compares to those of other individuals. The framework's capability to process contribution sequences, i.e., longitudinal data, provides fundamental new insights into donor contribution behavior, and provides a rigorous mechanism to infer and segment the population based on unobserved heterogeneities (as well as based on other observable characteristics). Specifically, we analyze Markov mixture models to segment alumni based on contribution-behavior patterns, under the assumption of serially-dependent contribution sequences. We use the expectation–maximization algorithm to obtain parameter estimates for each segment. Through an extensive empirical study, we highlight the substantive insights gained through the processing of the full contribution sequences, and establish the presence of three distinct classes of alumni in the population (each with a discernible contribution pattern). The proposed framework, collectively, provides a basis to tailor direct marketing policies to optimize specific performance criteria (e.g., profits).     

The role of innovation,entrepreneurial self-efficacy and local uniqueness on marketing performance in small and medium-sized restaurants

ABSTRACT

The growth of the food service business in Indonesia cannot be optimized by small and medium restaurants due to a lack of innovation and entrepreneurial skill. This present study combines marketing and entrepreneurship literature and explores the link among innovation, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and marketing performance. Using a purposive sampling methodology, data were collected from 124 respondents of small and medium-sized restaurants in Bogor city, Indonesia. This study used Structural Equation Modeling to analyze the influences of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, innovation and local uniqueness on marketing performance. The findings indicate that innovation activity has a direct significant influence on marketing performance. This study also indicates that entrepreneurial self-efficacy positively influences marketing performance reflected by increasing sales, profits and number of customers. In addition, local uniqueness, which is an intermediary variable, is not affected by innovation activities and does not directly affect marketing performance. Even though this study supports most hypotheses, two out of six were not. As such, the results of this study provide important practical insights as well as interesting contributions to the theoretical advancements in entrepreneurship and marketing especially in the setting of small and medium-sized restaurants.     

Firm capability and performance in China: The moderating role of guanxi and institutional forces in domestic and foreign contexts

This study examines the moderating effects of institutional forces on the capabilities–performance link by combining the resource-base view and institutional theory. From a survey of 324 Chinese manufacturers, this study tests the impacts of the importance of guanxi (an informal institutional factor) and legal support (a formal institutional factor) on the performance advantages of firm capabilities. The results indicate that both marketing and technology capabilities relate positively to performance, but the performance advantage of technology capabilities is less prominent when guanxi is important and the legal system is ineffective. In addition, guanxi importance strengthens the performance advantage of domestic firms' marketing capabilities but reduces that of foreign firms' marketing capabilities in China.     

Marketing program standardization: A cross-country exploration

This study explores the antecedents and consequences of marketing program standardization in subsidiaries of multinational corporations by contrasting the case of a lead market (Japan) and of an emerging market (Turkey). The findings show that: (1) marketing program standardization is positively related to performance in Japan and Turkey; (2) centralization of nonproduct decision is negatively related to performance in both markets; (3) customer similarity is positively related to marketing program standardization in both Japan and Turkey. Whereas, in Japan, marketing program standardization has a direct, positive relationship to performance, in Turkey, in addition to such a direct effect, there is also an indirect effect at work, through centralization of nonproduct decision.     

A hybrid data mining model of feature selection algorithms and ensemble learning classifiers for credit scoring

Data mining techniques have numerous applications in credit scoring of customers in the banking field. One of the most popular data mining techniques is the classification method. Previous researches have demonstrated that using the feature selection (FS) algorithms and ensemble classifiers can improve the banks' performance in credit scoring problems. In this domain, the main issue is the simultaneous and the hybrid utilization of several FS and ensemble learning classification algorithms with respect to their parameters setting, in order to achieve a higher performance in the proposed model. As a result, the present paper has developed a hybrid data mining model of feature selection and ensemble learning classification algorithms on the basis of three stages. The first stage, as expected, deals with the data gathering and pre-processing. In the second stage, four FS algorithms are employed, including principal component analysis (PCA), genetic algorithm (GA), information gain ratio, and relief attribute evaluation function. In here, parameters setting of FS methods is based on the classification accuracy resulted from the implementation of the support vector machine (SVM) classification algorithm. After choosing the appropriate model for each selected feature, they are applied to the base and ensemble classification algorithms. In this stage, the best FS algorithm with its parameters setting is indicated for the modeling stage of the proposed model. In the third stage, the classification algorithms are employed for the dataset prepared from each FS algorithm. The results exhibited that in the second stage, PCA algorithm is the best FS algorithm. In the third stage, the classification results showed that the artificial neural network (ANN) adaptive boosting (AdaBoost) method has higher classification accuracy. Ultimately, the paper verified and proposed the hybrid model as an operative and strong model for performing credit scoring.     

Female franchisees; a lost opportunity for franchising sector growth?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate why female franchisees are under-represented in franchise ownership. A qualitative approach was adopted using a collective, instrumental case study of 30 female franchisees. A number of different types of influences were identified in the literature and then elucidated and assessed. It was found that push and pull factors, work–family life balance, franchising sector characteristics and external influences act as variable incentives and disincentives among female franchisees’ selection of the franchise business model with different levels of risk-taking propensity. The marketing efforts of franchises would be more effective if the way in which the identified influences that impinge on the selection of the franchise business model informed the prospecting of potential female franchisees. A further need is identified for franchises to adjust their recruitment programmes to reflect the variable effect of incentives and disincentives at different levels of capital investment. Limited research specifically examines the selection of the franchise business model by female franchisees with various levels of risk-taking propensity and identifies the nature of influences that act as incentives and/or disincentives on that selection decision.     

Evaluating discounts as a dimension of customer behavior analysis

Today, increased competition between organizations has led them to seek a better understanding of customer behavior through identifying valuable customers. Customers’ expectations about the price and quality of products and services play an important role in their selection process. In online businesses, competition and price differences between suppliers is high, so discounts will attract different customers. As a result, discounts and the frequency and amount of purchases can lead to better understanding of customer behavior. Customer segmentation and analysis is essential for identifying groups of customers. Hence, this study uses a model based on RFM called RdFdMd, in which d is the level of discount used to analyze customer purchase behavior and the importance of discounts on customers’ purchasing behavior and organizational profitability. The CRISP-DM and k-mean algorithm were used for clustering. The results indicate that using the R_dF_dM_d model achieves better customer clustering and valuation, and discounts were identified as an important criterion for customer purchases.     

The role of customer gratitude in making relationship marketing investments successful

This paper recognises that customer loyalty is important for many competitive organisations, and that retail firms make investments to build and maintain loyal relationships with their existing and potential customers (e.g. loyalty programs). However, there has been little focus on the mechanisms by which these relationship investments operate to achieve customer loyalty. This paper examines one mechanism, namely customer gratitude, which works to make a firm’s relationship marketing investment a success or a failure. Using data from 1600 undergraduate students, this study empirically confirms the mediating role of customer gratitude between the customers’ perceptions a firm’s relationship marketing investments and customers’ perceptions of the value of the relationship with the firm. Further, a significant moderating effect of perceived benevolence on the relationship between customers’ perceptions a firm’s relationship marketing investments and customer gratitude was identified. For theorists, this customer gratitude model offers a better psychological explanation of how relationship marketing investments operate to improve the value that customers place on their relationships with retailers. Our research suggests that managers should invest resources to stimulate customer gratitude in order to build strong customer–seller relationships.     

How consumption values and perceived brand authenticity inspire fashion masstige purchase? An investigation

Rising income and the aspirations of the middle-class have resulted in the emergence of a new category of luxury brands popularly known as “masstige brands”. Researchers have attempted to establish masstige branding and masstige marketing as a differentiated research domain from luxury marketing. As an attempt to this end, the current study, which is confined to women's fashion clothing brands, investigates whether various luxury consumption values are equally applicable in inspiring masstige purchase. In addition, this study investigates whether dimensions of perceived authenticity of a masstige brand moderate the association between various consumption values and masstige purchase intention. By employing an online survey, 462 useable responses were collected from middle-income female consumers in India and analysed using PLS-SEM and multi-group analysis. The findings show that functional, experiential and symbolic consumption values inspire masstige fashion purchase but the zero-moment-of-truth consumption value does not. Quality and sincerity (but not heritage) dimensions of perceived brand authenticity enhance the consumption value perceptions leading to masstige purchase. This study is the first of its kind to examine the applicability of various luxury consumption values in masstige consumption besides testing the moderating effect of perceived brand authenticity.     

Comparing advertising effectiveness in South-American and North-American contexts: testing Hofstede's and Inglehart's cultural dimensions in the higher education sector

ABSTRACT

This research compares the effectiveness of advertising and relational marketing in two countries characterized by varying levels of both Hofstede's and Inglehart's cultural dimensions – Peru (high-power distance, high collectivism, survival and traditional values) and Canada (low-power distance, high individualism, self-expression and secular-rational values). Survey data from a high credence service sector (higher education) in both countries is used for the analysis. The results indicate that advertising and relational marketing have direct effects on choice in Peru, but do not have significant direct effects on choice in Canada. Advertising does, however, affect positively perceptual outcome measures (perceived marketing effectiveness) in Canada. Additionally, we find that advertising and relational marketing have an indirect impact on choice and perceived marketing effectiveness through the mediation of perceived informativeness and influencers in both countries. These results point to the need to account for mechanisms and mediating variables when building theoretical frameworks in cross-country studies.     

Configuration and coordination of international marketing activities

With this paper, we contribute to the literature of configuration and coordination in international firms. While previous literature emphasized that headquarters decide upon the configuration and coordination of their foreign subsidiaries, we suggest that the configuration–coordination decision takes place at the level of activities. With a focus on international marketing activities, our study on German firms from the automotive industry comes up with the following major findings: (1) With respect to configuration, firms tend to centralize the planning and the control of marketing activities, but to decentralize the implementation of marketing activities. (2) For the coordination of marketing activities, direct personal supervision and informal communication are preferred to other approaches, such as socialization or formal bureaucratic coordination. (3) When combining configuration and coordination of marketing activities, we identified distinct clusters. Firms that have a high decentralization of marketing activities and that use a high level of coordination yield better coordination results than firms from other configuration–coordination clusters.     

Service Quality Perceptions of Foreign Direct Investors

ABSTRACT

In this article, the potential disparity between foreign direct investment (FDI) clients' service quality expectations and the actual service experienced (Gap 5) and how these impacts FDI inflows are investigated. Methodological triangulation encompassing quan-titative and qualitative methods is used. Contrary to the quantitative findings, the qualitative findings indicate that Gap 5 exists among the FDI clients. This is the first time the service quality model (performance-based construct) has been used to study FDI issues. Rather than applying the predominant “inside-out” mindset, the model adopts an “outside-in” mindset that uses perceived (actual) service as a reference point for clients' evaluation of service quality.     

Information Technology Use and Firm's Perceived Performance in Supply Chain Management

Purpose: This article proposes a theoretical model to investigate (a) a positive direct relationship between the specific use of ITs (applied to management) and the firm's performance as perceived by retailers and (b) a positive indirect relationship through information quality and information sharing.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The theoretical model proposed in this paper is contrasted using structural equation modelling of the retail distribution channel for home appliances.

Findings: The research shows that there is no positive direct relationship between the specific use of ITs and the retailer's perceived performance in the relationship with the provider. The results do, however, provide evidence for a positive indirect relationship through both information sharing and satisfaction obtained from the relationship with the provider.

Research Limitations: The analysis has been developed from the retail perspective. We suggest that future research focus on the retailer's and the provider's perspectives.

Practical Implications: In the context of SCM, the competitive advantages achieved through IT use derive from a better network of relationships between the firms involved as a result of greater information quality and information sharing. Specific use of ITs stimulates greater information sharing between retailer and provider and thus greater satisfaction and better perceived performance of the retailer in the relationship with the provider. However, the effect of IT use on information sharing occurs only through the quality of the information shared.

Originality/Value: The study shows that information quality is an antecedent of information sharing and that both information quality and information sharing act as necessary conditions for improving the retailer's perceived performance in the relationship with the provider. This article develops a measurement scale to evaluate the intensity of IT use. Finally, the research confirms that firm performance can be modeled as a second-level latent variable composed of three different dimensions (economic benefits, marketing benefits, and adaptation benefits).     

Exploring the Internal Customer Mind-Set of Marketing Personnel

SUMMARY

With a traditional focus on external customers, marketing personnel could be expected to provide a leadership role in bringing an internal customer focus to the organization. In this study, we focus on the internal customer mind-set (ICMS) of marketing personnel and how this might impact the organization. We present a theoretically driven model that integrates current human resources literature by representing ICMS as a mediator of job satisfaction/organizational commitment and job performance/turnover intentions. The most notable results are found between ICMS and job performance, through both direct and indirect effects. Future research and study limitations are discussed.     

时相调制信号的S变换和反变换性能分析

将S变换（ST）时频分析方法应用到时相调制（TPM）信号的分析和处理中。ST及其反 变换（IST）分别有多种实现算法,这些算法组合的选择对TPM解调系统的性能有重要影响。 在介绍ST和IST多种实现算法的基础上,仿真了TPM信号的ST和IST,对比分析了 各种算法组合的性能。仿真结果表明：在恢复TPM信号波形方面,fST-fIST组合的性能最优 ,tST-tIST（mtIST）组合的性能次之,交叉算法组合的性能最差。所得结论为后续的TPM信 号滤波和检测过程中ST和IST算法的选择提供了重要依据。