Perhaps you've heard of intimidating terms like datamining and data warehousing, but there is nothing to be afraid of when you realize these are simply ways to effectively use database marketing. The big draw these days is how many followers you have on Feedburner, how many subscribers you have to your electronic newsletter, and how many members you have signed up on the restricted portion of your website. It's not enough that you build an audience. It's what you do with the data you've collected...

Adding structural ties

Let's cut through any long winded description and tell you the main idea here is to go beyond getting your customers to be loyal. The marketer's goal should be to increase the consumer's proclivity to repurchase your company's brand. You do that by creating structural ties with your customers. Here are three suggestions.

1.) Create long-term contracts. Get your customers thinking about annual renewals, or better yet multi-year renewals. This...

Adding social benefits

Do you have customers or clients? Here's a hint, you want to move in the direction of developing individual and personalized relationships with clients. Turn your customers en mass into clients. Consider for a moment the role of a dedicated Account Manager. They serve a limited list of clients, anticipating their needs, and giving them each the attention they deserve. Where customers are served by anyone who is available, clients are served by the professionals...

Adding financial benefits

From the perspective of running an online business, there are two financial benefits that might come to you as a no-brainer. One is a frequency program. This allows you to reward customers who buy frequently and in substantial amounts. Remember the old Pareto Rule that says about 20% of your customers actually generate 80% of your business? This is where the frequency program helps you to drive that 20% grouping into buying even more! Perhaps you can give...

So much rhetoric in those typical "making money online" discussions seems to focus only on skillful methods to attract new customers. Too much reliance on the front-end process means you are neglecting the necessary follow through, namely that your company must keep those customers in order to increase the business.

I'm a big fan of Philip Kotler. I want to use this blog to share more of the wisdom from my MBA program at Keller Graduate School of Management. So here are...