Nigel Lester is the retail solutions group manager at Pitney Bowes Software. He will be joining Mark Harding from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Steven Ogden-Barnes from Deakin University Business Graduate School and Mani Shishineh from AudioClinic on a panel called Decision Making in Retail Marketing: The End of the Gut Feeling.

RB: Briefly (in one or two points) explain what you'll be speaking about at the Conference?

NL: The topic will be on the importance of using data in retail marketing decision-making.

Retail panel discussion points:

  1. The new ABS Census – How can we best utilise the (new) Census data to inform our marketing and location decision making?
  2. There’s a lot of data relating to consumers out there. How can we use this diverse information in a coherent way to inform our decision making?
    We’ve got a loyalty program but are my customers loyal? Is this the best program to retain them?
  3. How do we track their evolving relationship with me and learn when to target across the relationship lifecycle?
  4. Mass marketing – Blitzing everyone doesn’t seem to work anymore. How can we effectively segment our customer base and get the right promotional messages to the right target segments?
  5. Location planning – How can we practically use demography and geography to optimise my location planning?

RB: Why do you believe this/these topic(s) are important and relevant to retailers?

NL: