RFM anyone?

While one talks about databases and targeting, mining, beyond demographics and such terms today in marketing I am yet to find a refined use of the basics of database marketing in practice. Is it because of lack of energy to do it (remember there are tons who seem to be talking about it) or lack of the abilty of how to do it? Wonder which angle...

R = Recency, F=Frequency, M= Monetary Value... three behavioural aspects of customers. Fundemental to any marketer, especially when the category is repeat purchase led. (like say retail.)

Even following basics like studying latency would streamline any marketers offerings and deliver high end ROI on every Rupee spent! Latency would mean studying the time intervals before one interaction (choice of the interaction would be the marketers.) For example, one could be studying latency for web site visits, or actual purchases, or complaints, or calls to customer care etc...

And worse when you do tell people the how to do, they still don't buy it! The answer to it is "my CRM system is coming that will help do much more". WOW!

Any category that has a repeat interactive behaviour would benefit by using tracking and using the knowledge of the behaviour. RFM or latency anyone?

This is a huge subject that I am trying to simplify. Some of the basics covered here.