It’s a Predictable World! (Save 15% on the Predictive Analytics World conference)

These are great times for friends of business analytics. There are many telltale signs that after all these years, business analytics are still a rising star. Especially so, when it comes to advanced analytics such as predictive modeling.

Analytics, Superstar

In 2007 we were given the eye opening book Competing on Analytics by authors Davenport and Harris. While mostly a compilation of all the various kinds of analytics that have been used in the enterprise, its claim to fame is to motivate that analytics can be more than just rear-view mirror reporting.

Analytics can and should form the strategic basis on which companies compete.

The kind of math that Davenport and Harris find deserving of the name analytics are in fact predictive analytics, i.e. data mining and discovery of unexpected insights in data. In contrast, the kind of math used within most of today’s web analytics and business intelligence merely deserve the name reporting in Davenport and Harris’ description.

Enter: Predictive Analytics World, Feb 18-19 in San Francisco

For the very first time next month, conference chair Eric Siegel and team are bringing us the Predictive Analytics World conference. The timing couldn’t be better!

 

Now more than ever, businesses require leadership from their analytics teams. We are all asked to do more with less. If predictive analytics are the top of the line, the kind of analytics that are most likely to form the strategic basis on which our companies can compete, then we all need to learn how, and we need to learn asasp.

In my Multichannel Marketing book I review

• why it is so imperative for direct marketers to draw on predictive analytics for prioritizing their contact lists.
• why brand marketers draw on marketing mix modeling to predict the effect of an extra marketing dollar spent on TV vs. radio vs. print, and even vs. online.
• that web marketers can draw on predictive analytics for behavioral targeting
• how central customer analytics teams at Wachovia (now merged into Wells Fargo) predict which of multiple promising offers should go out to each customer in order to make it most likely that overall results will be maximized.

But most importantly, I touch on practical challenges with getting predictive analytics right.

Why attend the Predictive World Conference?

I couldn’t imagine a better opportunity than the upcoming Predictive Analytics World conference for practitioners to learn first hand how to turn the theory into practice.

My personal prediction is that the math is the least difficult part of predictive analytics.

If nothing else, modeling software can take care of the math anyway and make it user friendly to Marketers.

What is much more critical however is to know how to apply the analytics for generating business value.

Of the many things you could analyze, where do you start and how do you go about it? Rather than spending 2009 doodling in the data, here is an opportunity to make predictive analytics a work horse for your company.

Are Predictive Analytics Worthwhile?

Companies that have competed successfully on predictive analytics include for example Capital One. They used to be a tiny, peripheral player and grew to be a dominant giant by getting predictive analytics right.

Take the survey

Predictive Analytics World starts being educational even before you attend. I encourage you to take the informal survey that they just put out. It doesn’t take more than 4 minutes but it will already teach you something, namely about more business applications for predictive analytics than you ever knew. I certainly learned something.

Plus, you can request to receive a copy of the survey results once the polls are closed. Then you will really know how your peers are using predictive analytics.

Get a 15% discount on Predictive Analytics World

The Predictive Analytics World organizers were kind enough to extend a 15% discount to readers of Multichannel Marketing Metrics. Use registration code

akinpaw09

when you get your ticket and save a big chunk of money.

Not a bad start!