How do crooks get away with this? I submit that it's becoming harder for them to do -- except with each other! Somehow giant corporations don't get that other giant corporations are scamming them out of huge amounts of cash for dubious deliverables.

CRM (customer relationship management) software costs upwards of $325,000 with additional integration costs of up to $100,000 and according to a recent Interactive Week Magazine article,

http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2777006,00.html

that expensive software is so effective that it triggered a direct mail promotion from American Express to a heterosexual man, but that promotion was targeted at gay men, lesbians and domestic partners. His wife was as confused as he at obvious blunder! That interesting vignette comes from same article.

Let's see now, I'm going to pay about a half million dollars so that my company can offend and confuse my customers. Not a bad investment! What this means to consumer is that they may receive appropriate advertising and promotional material if software can draw logical conclusions based on past purchases, inquiries and page visits. A laudable goal if it worked perfectly but it clearly does not!

What it means in reality is that users of datamining software can send innapropriate promotions to people that may be confused, may be offended and certainly annoyed by their material even when it was requested, as it was in this case. You've taken a potential sale and turned it into a blunder. What does that do for lifetime customer value? How about return on investment figures with that?

I have a hosted application that can provide you incorrect and mixed-up customer data mining which cost only $60,000 yearly to host for you! I'd sure like to see ROI (Return on investment) generated by that chunk of change! I also have a bridge for sale.

Is it any wonder that corporations are going bust? They're falling for scams that rip them off on a huge scale perpetrated by con artists offering data mining, knowledge management, CRM solutions.

I'd like to offer up a scenario that might illustrate awful data mining results. I also like to suggest that this is probably illustrative of why this expensive software might work but is inherently flawed in conclusions it draws.

In other words, learn how to test test various elements of your marketing to find which of them really work - and which don't - and you can learn how to market effectively.

Notice that Jay did not say that by testing anyone would BECOME a marketing genius. He said "marketing genius EQUIVALENT." In other words, if you're willing to do what most marketers don't do - test, and adjust accordingly - results can be same.

Yes, by testing, you can generate same results as a marketing genius, without having to be one.

Despite dramatic increases in response that can be gained through scientific testing, most marketers and copywriters today still don't take advantage of it. Still others either don't test enough, or don't test properly.