CRM, CLV, LOL, what does it all mean?

The above video shows actors Panatamiming a Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and drives home the point that it is important in this day and age to develop great customer relationships.  The average company loses half of its customers every 5 years, and if it can stem this tide it can increase profits.  Just by stopping this defections by 5% a company can increase its profits from 25-85%.

Customer Lifetime Value is another tool companies can use to determine how much to market to a specfic individual or class of individuals.  This video explains it well.

Briefly it shows that knowing what a customer's CLV is will help in making in marketing decisions.  I think it drives home the point that marketing should not be a guessing game for any company large or small, rather it should be about numbers and using knowledge to make informed decision.

I recently watched money ball, which is the story of how statistics changed the face of baseball, I think that is the same in marketing, and as more and more people get into the marketing game thanks to companies like Google who have lowered the barrier to join, we will see more and more statistics to make sound decisions.