Customer Lifetime Value: definition, calculation, and an example
The Customer Lifetime Value (or CLV) is one of the best indicators to determine the value of a customer. It is very interesting to find the most profitable elements of its customer base. Nevertheless, the definitions of the concept differ according to the sources. However, our definition includes the most relevant scientific sources on the subject. In this article, we will also detail the calculation of the CLTV (click here to discover it). Finally, a numerical...
Market research in Belgium: the 10 best data sources
Last week we delivered our Top 10 in France. This week, find the 10 data sources to consult for your market research in Belgium. These sources will be useful to you, whether you are a newcomer to the market, a young entrepreneur or you want to expand your field of activity. A checklist is also provided at the end of this article. Summary Official national statistics Companies financial data Consumer protection Customs and border protection Sector...
Boco Brussels: the reasons behind the failure
Boco Brussels is over. The franchise was held by Star Food Company, who initiated legal reorganisation proceedings before the Brussels Commercial Court. This is the end of the Boco adventure in Belgium, a concept we have been following since its very beginnings. We had also met a long time ago with its co-founder Simon Ferniot (brother of the chef and TV presenter of the same name, also co-founder) to talk to us about a concept that,...
The secrets of conducting market research or how to ensure the success of your (future) business: Part 1
This article on market research is brought to you by the market research agency IntoTheMinds. It is the first of a series of 3 devoted to conducting market research (you will find the 2nd article here, and the 3rd here). We also remind you that in 2018 we wrote a comprehensive guide to conducting market research. You will learn, step by step, how to progress in understanding your market. This guide will give you the essential...
The secrets of conducting market research or how to ensure the success of your (future) business: Part 3
How to do market research? You will find the answers in this article, offered to you by the market research agency IntoTheMinds. Find here episode 1 and here episode 2. We completed this series of articles in 2018 with the creation of an online market research guide that you can access free of charge on our website. For any question, request or quote for market research in Belgium, France or elsewhere, do not hesitate to contact...
Market research: changes for consultancy subsidies in Brussels
The rules concerning the consultancy subsidies (which apply to market research projects) have just changed substantially for the Brussels region (see here the official website in French or in Dutch). On 31 January 2019, a new regional decree was passed which, although it does not really modify the conditions of attribution, dramatically affects the amount of the subsidies to the consultancy up to then granted. Three significant changes should be noted: the maximum amount of subsidies...
This Delhaize supermarket has been turned into an Urban Art temple
What can be done with an abandoned supermarket? A temple of urban art? In any case, this is what Alexandra Lambert and Fred Atax of the Strokar association, who initiated the artistic project around a former supermarket in Brussels, asked each other. And the very least we can say is that this has been a success. Follow us today on a tour of this unique project and read this article right to the end to find...
New in 2018: step-by-step market research guide for all
Happy new year everybody ! What an amazing year 2017 has been for us. We feel blessed to have carried out so many market research and Big Data projects last year : banking, retail, media, FMCG, luxury, IT, indusrail goods, … you name it. We have done dozens of projects in many different industries. We have welcomed one more consultant in the team who has proved to be very talented from the very beginning. We are...
How I got in the TOP10 of Linkedin’s most viewed profiles
8 weeks ago I started an experiment. I wanted to jump into the TOP10 most viewed profiles of my Linkedin network. I succeeded. Read further if you want to find out how I achieved jumping from the 100th place to the 10th and what it brought me. Short intro : what does my Linkedin network look like My Linkedin network is made of approximately 1980 connections. I removed very few of them along the years, basically...
Competition forces traditional taxis to change : finally !
The traditional press is full of articles regarding the legal procedures against Uber in Europe. In this judiciary fight, traditional taxis and VTC (Vehicule de Tourisme avec Chauffeur) have joined forces to fight Uber’s aggressive strategy to enter the market despite legal requirements (for more information read our previous article on this topic). Brussels minister for mobility was proud to announce that he had seized vehicles participating in the UberPop program (article in French). This is...
Delta Lloyd : qualitative methods used to reveal business opportunity
After the remarkable marketing campaign “The billable Talk” launched by Delta Lloyd to help independent workers get insured for revenue losses, we come back today with Karlien Kelgtermans, Marketing Communication Project Leader at Delta Lloyd Life, on the development of this project and its first results. IntoTheMinds: There are more than 1m independent workers in Belgium. Yet, only half of them are insured against revenue loss. Which other insights can you share with us on the current situation?...
Essential business tools for startups : 99€ training in Brussels on 29 November
Would-be entrepreneurs will be delighted : a 1-day training session will be organized on November 29th 2014 in Brussels to teach, refresh, train essential skills to successfully start or develop your venture. If you want to register, just follow this link and fill in the online form. Practical details on the workshops Price : 99€ early bid (if you register before November 15), 199€ otherwise Price includes lunch and coffee Venue : CoStation, 5 Parvis Sainte-Gudule,...
What are the main reasons to create a company?
After the post we published 2 weeks ago on why companies fail, another interesting piece of statistics published by the French National Institute for Statistics (INSEE) regards the motivations of people to start their company and how these motivations have evolved since 2006. You’ll find the complete table below (we did the translations ourselves given that those interesting statistics are unfortunately only available in French). There are a few interesting insights out of this survey. ...
Marketing strategy : Hello Bank launches a pop-up store in Brussels
Pop-up stores belongs to the marketing toolbox as a promotion instrument. Fact is that they have been usually used by brands in the fashion sector to promote a collection, raise awareness in conjunction with another event (for instance the Fashion week), or to touch customers in some particular areas. Pop-up stores are much less used by players from other sectors and that’s why the initiative of Hello Bank (a brand of BNP Paribas) is so interesting....
SIAL : the best place to conduct market research on food & drink trends
The worldwide largest food & drink fair will open next month (from Oct 19 until Oct 23rd). Some 6300 exhibitors from 103 countries (!) will attend the show and present what is thought to be the largest products range available on earth. The fair is held every 2 years and we have the pleasure to have be press-accredited for 4 years. Why is it important for us to visit the SIAL We visit the SIAL for...
New pop-up stores project : weekly update #2
As we announced last week we are finalizing an online initiative to store and maintain accurate and up-to-date information about the best pop-up stores worldwide. This initiative is a kind of POC (Proof Of Concept) to test our ideas to build a larger website on all new ideas, innovations and creative development in the retail world. We chose the retail world on purpose because it’s moving fast and represent approximately 50% of the companies. We also...
Delvaux and Dandoy associated in a co-branding initiative
Let’s finish the week with a brilliant idea of co-branding launched by our beloved brand Dandoy in partnership with Delvaux. For those who don’t live in Belgium Dandoy is a century-old company manufacturing high-quality biscuits, and Delvaux a renown leather goods manufacturer. Both companies are based in Brussels and members of the association Brussels Exclusive Labels. More than a century of tradition Quite incredibly in today’s world of failures and bankruptcies, these two firms have been...
Differentiation: A bookstore paints a dictionary’s page on its facade
Getting future customers’ attention is difficult. Consumers are subject to thousands of auditory, visual and olfactory cues every day. Retailers must be very creative to differentiate themselves. A book store in Brussels has found an interesting way to be different, yet still coherent with its positioning. Exterior and interior identities aligned with the store’s marketing strategy The Ptyx bookstore collaborated with Edena and Art-Mural to paint 68sqm of façade with 7 portraits and ca. 2400 letters...
Uber banned: Brussels taxis remain up to 122% more expensive.
On the website of the European Commission Neelie Kroes attacked publicly minister Brigitte Grouwels for the “crazy court decision to ban Uber in Brussels” (read more about Djump and UberPop business models in our article published a few days ago) Consumers will keep paying high fares. But are prices of Brussels taxis really outrageously expensive ? The answer is in the article. Let’s start with Kroes’ words on her website: I am outraged at the decision...
Successful market research and yet another store opened in Brussels
After last week’s announcement that a new store was opened in Brussels after a successful market research, we are also proud to report (with some delay however) that yet another store (this time in the HORECA sector) was opened by one of our clients near the European Commission in Brussels. Ethnik was opened by Steve Gravy on 5 Avenue d’Auderghem to serve customers’ needs for fresh, tasty and healthy food on the go. We coached Steve...
“42” School: why Xavier Niel’s initiative may fail
Non-French people are likely not to know Xavier Niel. He is however a famous tech entrepreneur, a billionaire and the CEO of Free, the telecom company that has been shaking the grounds of telecom competition landscape for years. Xavier Niel declared a war to the three French telecom operators (SFR, Orange and Bouygues) in 2012 when he launched in January its own mobile phone offer starting as low as 2€/month. One year after starting in the...
50% of the firms created in 2006 have died: all the factors influencing firm’s survival
There is a lot of controversy around survival rate of startups. A survival rate of 25% after 7 years is often mentioned although there’s no evidence around it; other authors speak of a 90% survival rate. The discrepancy is so huge that real actual figures are very valuable. Such figures have been published last week by the French statistical institute INSEE (Link to the original source – in French only). In 2006 a total number of...
Thank You Merci
From time to time you meet inspiring people. I have the chance to meet many entrepreneurs coming from very different horizons and with various backgrounds. Although they are all special some of them show world-class expertise and skills. My encounter with Jean-Luc Colonna d’Istria will certainly remain as one of the most inspiring moments of 2013. The marketing director of Merci, the now world-famous concept store of Boulevard Beaumarchais in Paris was kind enough to give...
Find your audience: how to position your research work
As I explained in an earlier post, I was very disappointed to see my research work rejected at this year’s EMAC conference. Fortunately the very same research work was accepted and presented at the 5th International Conference on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research. This conference, though more limited in size than the EMAC and its hundreds of participants, gave me a great boost of energy … and hope. I was finally able to find people...
Is the future of online pure players in brick-and-mortar shops?
The question may seem provocative but the reign of pure online strategies may slowly come to an end. Consider the following 53% of all EU retailers are selling through the internet In Ireland, Denmark and the UK, between 88% and 93% of retailers use distance sales channels But distance selling only represents between 5% and 7% of the retail turnover (FTI estimates) Add to this the economic crisis situation, the perception by consumers that transport doesn’t...
4 advices to remember when measuring customer satisfaction
The Heathrow airport has installed devices to measure satisfaction after the security checks. Yet, we think did not get customer satisfaction right. The biggest mistake they did was to put the device too far away from the lane, making it out of reach for most customers. Hence only customers with a good reason will find the motivation (or need) to walk the extra steps to the device to give an input. As a result you see...
Create a discipline to become more creative
Sharing thoughts with our clients Nicolas and Christophe the other day, we discussed the very interesting topic of how to find time, as an entrepreneur, to be creative. We had invited Christophe and Nicolas offsite for a Design Thinking session and Christophe said the mere fact of being offsite and walking through the city with Nicolas allowed them to think and discuss, what is normally hard to do in their daily routines. I then realized that...
Lessons learned on a Design Thinking session: DO’s and DON’T’s
I’m just back from a Design Thinking workshop we organized in Bordeaux (France) for a e-commerce project. The least I can say is it was successful and extremely enriching. We had invited a group of people from different horizons representing the spectrum of the different stakeholders across the value chain. After a day of work new ideas emerged for the different distribution channels we considered during the session. As a sign of how worthwhile this workshop...
Have supermarkets signed their own death warrant ?
The latest stats show that prepared shopping carts tend to help supermarkets sustain their growth. Whereas in France supermarkets (-0.2%), hard discount (-0.4%) and small urban stores (-0.2%) all lost market shares, “drives” gained 1% on the same period. It’s therefore logical that all players propose it. Only for our subscribers: exclusive analyses and marketing advice Email address * Subscribe By signing up, you agree to our Terms of use and privacy policy. "I thought the...
Visit at Stella Cadente shop: well worth a design award
Stella Cadente proves it’s possible to obtain outstanding results with (relatively) little money. We visited their unique store in Paris (opened in April 2012 on 102 Boulevard Beaumarchais) and although it’s relatively small (<50m²) it offers a wonderful experience. We were welcomed by Armand Perrier, the head of communication, who explained us the genesis of the brand and of the store. Stella Cadente is a fashion designer who was also hired for interior design. In her...
One Day One Idea : Aesop’s technique to get customers in the store
On our latest trip to Paris, after we interviewed Merci’s managing director Jean-Luc Colonna d’Istria, we went for a tour in Paris’ trendy area “Le Marais”. One of the stores that caught our attention was Aesop in Rue Vieille du Temple. Aesop is an Australian upper tier brand of cosmetics that you won’t find everywhere (it’s actually one of the two brands to have a corner shop at Merci). As you can on the pictures they...
3 steps to align your online and offline experience with your global brand positioning
Brands sometimes take advantage of their positioning to launch some funny initiatives and propose a funny communication. Yet, when the positioning doesn’t match the communication, it can backfire (remember for instance the example of this bank that we gave a while ago). We already dealt with these aspects here and we would like to give you here another –good- example of how products can carry a touch of fun and be extremely well aligned with your...
What does branding mean? The example of Miss Vicky Wine
Anne-Victoire Monrozier has an interesting entrepreneurial story to tell. Despite having little experience in the wine industry, she built a new wine brand from scratch. How did she succeed and is it really a wine brand? This is what we discussed with her in Brussels in January. Anne-Victoire, ala Miss Vicky, is well known for her blog “Miss Vicky Wine”. She is #26 in ranking of the most influential people in the wine industry. Not bad...
One Day One Idea: Let customers try your products and make them buy
We already mentioned the increased probability of selling a product when a customer has tried or touched it before. This principle is applied perfectly by Bodum, a Danish manufacturer of kitchen appliances and accessories. The flagship store they opened almost 2 years ago has testing area on the first floor where customers have fruits and vegetables and can use the Bodum products and cook if they wish. Advice for your marketing strategy Software editors have...
What you need to do to make your clients sign a contract within 24h
If you want to do business and land new customers, time is of the essence. Yet I see that very few entrepreneurs have this culture of responsiveness rooted in their DNA. Here is a story that happened to me last year and another one that happened this year. Example 1: what you should NOT do For one of our customers, I got in touch last year with a potential supplier who happens to share an office...
The Wine Business Innovation Summit in Brussels
The Wine Business Innovation Summit (WBIS in short) was organized on Jan 19th in Brussels to gather entrepreneurs and leaders of the wine industry and fuel inspiration among the participants. The least we can say is that it was successful. We were invited to this event back in 2012 a time when the organizers, Jens de Maere and Marc Roisin, were looking for someone to give an inspiring introductory speech. Unfortunately the tight agenda eventually didn’t...