Patent Publication Number: US-7917383-B2

Title: Method and system for boosting the average revenue per user of products or services

Description:
PRIORITY CLAIM 
     This application claims the priority benefit of EPO Application No. 05425796.9, filed Nov. 11, 2005 and Italian Application No. BS2005A000136, filed Nov. 11, 2005, both of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. 
     BACKGROUND 
     The present invention relates to a method for designing and executing marketing campaigns for increasing the revenue received from a business&#39;s existing customer base. The invention also provides a system for supplying analytical tools necessary to implement the revenue boosting method. 
     Revenue is a key component of profit. In order to increase profit a business has two fundamental options: increase revenue and/or decrease costs. The focus of the present disclosure is increasing revenue. There are a number of ways a business may increase revenue. A business may add new products or services to its existing line of products and services in hopes of increasing its overall sales. A business may attempt to attract new customers for its existing products or services. Or, a business may attempt to increase the revenue it receives from the sale of its existing products and services to its existing customer base. This last approach is especially well suited to businesses that provide services to customers on an ongoing basis. Such businesses, for example telecommunications companies, have ongoing relationships with their customers and are well positioned to take steps to stimulate revenue growth among their existing customer base. For example, such companies may take steps to increase customer use of services to which customers already subscribe. Alternatively, the business may increase the rates it charges for particular services. This can be a somewhat riskier proposition, however, in that if rates are raised too high customers may choose to drop the service rather than pay the higher rates, resulting in a net loss in revenue. Finally, the business may attempt to increase revenue by selling additional services to existing customers. 
     In the unending quest for higher profits, businesses will often go to great lengths to increase revenue. Businesses often mount elaborate (and expensive) marketing campaigns designed to influence consumer behavior in a way that will lead to increased revenue. Often such campaigns are directed toward existing customers. Typically such campaigns will offer some incentive to influence the customer&#39;s behavior. For example a business may offer reduced rates to a customer for a period of time for signing up for a new service, or a business may offer rewards to customers whose use of a service surpasses a certain threshold. The types and variety of such campaigns are limited only by the creativity of the enterprise&#39;s marketing team. 
     The most effective campaigns are those in which customers are contacted directly. In such campaigns offers may be communicated to customers over many different channels. For example campaign offers may be included in billing statements sent to customers each month. Telemarketing campaigns may be instituted to contact customers by phone. Wireless telephone customers may be reached via text messages sent to their mobile phones. Email messages may be the best channel to reach other groups of customers. Faxes and direct mailings are still other channels by which a business may reach its customers to communicate special offers designed to stimulate revenue growth. 
     Direct marketing campaigns can be expensive. Because the cost of individually contacting large numbers of customers is high, marketing campaigns are often limited to smaller select segments of the customer population. Ideally each campaign will be directed toward customers who will most likely respond positively to the campaign, and whose positive response will lead to the greatest increase in revenue. For example, when designing marketing campaigns for telecommunications service providers, the incentive offered in a first campaign may be much more attractive to young prepaid mobile phone customers, and the incentive offered in a second campaign may be more attractive to older fixed-line customers. Obviously, offering the first incentive to fixed-line customers above the age of 60 will not likely increase the average revenue per user (ARPU) as much as making the offer to pre-paid mobile customers between the ages of 20-25. Conversely, offering the second incentive to younger pre-paid customers would seem a similar folly. 
     A number of factors contribute to the success of direct marketing campaigns. The first is that the campaign itself must be tailored to marketing goals. In other words, a marketing campaign intended to increase revenue from a specific service should have the effect of actually raising the revenue received from that service. Secondly, the campaign must be directed toward the appropriate customers. Ideally, every customer contacted during a campaign would accept the offer and the revenue generated from each customer would be increased. This of course is not likely to happen. However, if a marketing campaign is directed toward customers who are most likely to accept the offer, and who are likely to exhibit the greatest increase in revenue when they accept the offer, the odds of success are significantly enhanced. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY 
     The present invention relates to a method for increasing the average revenue per user (ARPU) of a business&#39;s products or services, as well as a system for providing data analysis tools for implementing the ARPU boosting method. The invention allows marketers to identify products, services, or lines of business in which revenues are lagging, and helps marketers or other business users design and execute marketing campaigns directed toward the business&#39;s customer base which are focused on increasing the revenue from targeted products, services or lines or business. Employing the method and system of the present invention, marketers can be assured that the marketing campaigns that they create are targeted to the customers who will most likely respond favorably to the campaign, and whose revenue will likely show the greatest increase when they accept the campaign offer. 
     The method of the present invention defines the activities that must be performed to identify opportunities for increasing revenue, selecting an appropriate campaign for addressing an identified opportunity, and identifying the most appropriate customers or users to contact in order to maximize the effectiveness of the campaign. The system generates a plurality of analysis tools which assist marketing personnel throughout the process of developing new campaigns. 
     According to an embodiment of the invention a method for increasing an enterprise&#39;s revenue is provided. Preferably the method is performed in conjunction with a system that includes an optimized data mart, a data mining tool and a user access module that includes a user interface. The method begins by receiving revenue and customer data from an enterprise&#39;s external operating systems. Preferably the data are received on a regular basis over time in synchronization with the enterprise&#39;s billing cycle. The received data are loaded into the data mart. Data stored in the data mart can be accessed to build an interactive diagnostic tree that may be viewed and manipulated by a business user via the user access module. The diagnostic tree provides an analysis of the enterprise&#39;s revenue based on individual revenue streams. Each revenue stream corresponds to the sale or use of various products or services offered by the enterprise. The interactive diagnostic tree displays, among other things, the average revenue per user (ARPU) of the products or services corresponding to each revenue stream. The customer and revenue data are next used for generating interactive reports illustrating ARPU trends for analyzing ARPU changes over time. The diagnostic tree analysis and the ARPU trend analysis assist the business user in selecting a revenue stream in need of ARPU boosting and assessing the effectiveness of past marketing campaigns based on past ARPU trends accompanying such campaigns. The next action that must be taken is to identify an appropriate ARPU increase lever that may be exploited to increase ARPU in the targeted revenue stream. Revenue and customer data stored in the data mart are mined to identify characteristics of customers relevant to increasing ARPU. The identified characteristics are used to create an ARPU increase model for predicting a customer&#39;s propensity to generate increased revenue and a positive response model for determining a customer&#39;s propensity to respond positively to a marketing campaign. Once models have been built, individual customers are scored according to their propensity to generate increased revenue and their propensity to respond favorably to a marketing campaign. The results of the scoring can be used for filtering the customer base. The scoring and filtering of the customer base leads to the compilation of a customer list representing the optimal mix of customers likely to respond favorably to a campaign and who will most likely generate additional revenue. Once the optimal customer list is compiled the campaign may be executed. 
     According to another aspect of the invention, a system architecture for facilitating the design and implementation of direct marketing campaigns is provided. At the core of the system architecture is a relational database that includes a data model that is optimized for fast retrieval and analytical reporting. At least one data source is provided for supplying customer and revenue data to the database. A population architecture associated with the database is provided for extracting data from the at least one data source, transforming the extracted data, and loading the transformed data into the database in accordance with the optimized data model. The data stored in the data base are used for analyzing an enterprise&#39;s revenue streams and customer base to identify opportunities for boosting the average revenue per user of the enterprise&#39;s products and services, to identify characteristics of customers that indicate a propensity to generate increased revenue and to respond favorably to marketing campaigns, and to identify customers sharing those characteristics. To this end, a data manipulation module is provided for pulling data from the database and preparing the data for data mining. A data mining module is provided for analyzing the customer and revenue data prepared by the data manipulation module to identify characteristics of customers leading to a propensity to accept a marketing campaign offer, and a propensity to generate increased revenue. The data mining module creates statistical models for predicting a customer&#39;s propensity to generate increased revenue, and propensity to accept marketing campaign offers. The statistical models are used to score individual customers according to their individual propensities. The results of the scoring are stored in the database. Finally, a user access module having access to the data stored in the database is provided. The user access module includes an interface for displaying data for a user and receiving commands from the user. The user access module includes a plurality of pre-configured reports for presenting data to the user, including reports illustrating the distribution of customers based on their propensity to accept a marketing campaign offer and their propensity to generate increased revenue scores to the user. 
     Other systems, methods, features and advantages of the invention will be, or will become, apparent to one with skill in the art upon examination of the following figures and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features and advantages be included within this description, be within the scope of the invention, and be protected by the following claims. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a flow chart showing a method for increasing average revenue per user according to an embodiment of the invention; 
         FIG. 2  is a diagnostic tree for analyzing the average revenue per user among a plurality of revenue streams; 
         FIG. 3  is a chart showing ARPU trends among business units; 
         FIG. 4  is a chart showing ARPU trends by various market segments; 
         FIG. 5  is a chart showing the distribution of customers contacted during a marketing campaign in relation to those not contacted during the campaign; 
         FIG. 6  is a chart showing the customer distribution of customers contacted by a marketing campaign by revenue class; 
         FIG. 7  is a chart showing ARPU trends of customers contacted during a marketing campaign and customers not contacted during the campaign; 
         FIG. 8  is a block diagram of ARPU increase value levers; 
         FIG. 9  is a chart showing customer revenue trend line slope v. revenue by customer segment; 
         FIG. 10  is a chart showing customer distribution by propensity to accept a marketing campaign offer; 
         FIG. 11  is a chart showing the distribution of customers from a class of customers having similar propensities to accept a campaign offer filtered by their propensity to generate additional revenue; 
         FIG. 12  is a block diagram of a system architecture for facilitating the design, creation, and implementation of direct marketing campaigns for increasing average revenue per user. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS AND THE PRESENTLY PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     An embodiment of the invention has been specially adapted for boosting the average revenue per user (ARPU) of a telecommunications service provider&#39;s (Telecom&#39;s) services. The invention as applied to boosting a Telecom&#39;s ARPU permeates the present disclosure. However, those of ordinary skill in the art will understand that the methods and tools described herein as adapted to the specific requirements of services offered by a Telecom are readily adaptable to the requirements of and the services and products offered by businesses in other industries as well. 
     A flowchart depicting the method for boosting ARPU according to the invention is shown in  FIG. 1 . The method can be divided into three distinct phases: ARPU scouting/campaign analysis  10 ; opportunity identification  12 ; and profit optimization  14 . The ARPU scouting campaign analysis phase  10  relates to identifying opportunities for increasing revenue within an enterprise&#39;s existing revenue streams. For example, if ARPU is below forecast for a particular product, service or other revenue source, that product, service or revenue source may present a promising opportunity for boosting revenue. The ARPU scouting/campaign analysis phase also considers trends over time to determine whether current measures of ARPU represent an accurate picture of where ARPU has been and where it is heading. Finally, the ARPU scouting/campaign analysis phase  10  includes an assessment of past marketing campaigns. This can provide valuable insight into what types of campaigns are most effective in boosting ARPU for specific revenue sources. 
     Upon completion of the ARPU scouting/campaign analysis phase  10 , a marketer or other business user will have determined whether the enterprise&#39;s ARPU is a problem and identified the various revenue streams in need of ARPU stimulation. The ARPU scouting/campaign analysis phase  10  also helps identify which business areas and customer segments would benefit from ARPU boosting, and what steps can be taken to improve total revenue, or mitigate or reverse declining revenue. Finally, the ARPU scouting/campaign analysis phase  10  provides insight into the campaigns that have been most successful in the past, and the areas of the business and customer segments for which the various types of campaigns have been most effective. 
     Armed with the information developed in the ARPU scouting/campaign analysis phase  10 , the marketer or business user moves into the opportunity identification phase  12 . From the ARPU scouting/campaign analysis phase  10 , the user has already identified a product, service, or line of business to be targeted for ARPU boosting. In the opportunity identification phase  12  the user determines the best strategies for boosting ARPU for the identified product, service, or line of business. The user determines what are the most significant variables for increasing ARPU, and models the characteristics of the best customers to contact in a campaign to increase ARPU for the identified product, service, or line of business. These characteristics include the customers most likely to respond positively to ARPU boosting stimulation, and those who will likely generate the greatest ARPU increase. 
     The profit optimization phase  14  may be thought of as an implementation phase. First, the customers are scored  30  to determine their expected revenue increase and propensity to respond favorably to ARPU boosting stimulation. The customers to be contacted during a marketing campaign are selected based on the customer scoring and the campaign is finalized  32 . Finally, the campaign is executed  34 . 
     All of the activities leading to the execution of a campaign are geared toward finding the areas of an enterprise&#39;s business that could most benefit from ARPU boosting, identifying the most effective campaigns for boosting ARPU in the identified business areas, and determining the customers who will most likely respond favorably to ARPU boosting efforts and add additional revenue, and the best ways to contact them. All of these factors lead to more effective campaigns. 
     We now turn to the constituent elements of the three phases of the ARPU boosting method. The ARPU scouting/campaign analysis phase  10  includes three components, a diagnostic tree analysis  16 , trend analysis  20 , and assessment by campaign effectiveness  18 . 
     The diagnostic tree analysis is an analytic tool that has been developed to provide insight into a business&#39;s revenue sources and for evaluating whether revenue performance, specifically ARPU, from various products, services, lines of business or other revenue streams, is satisfactory. The diagnostic tree analytic tool is the subject of a co-pending patent publication No. 2007/0118444, filed Dec. 1, 2005. The entire teaching of which is incorporated herein by reference. 
     An example of a diagnostic tree  40  is shown in  FIG. 2 . The diagnostic tree breaks down an enterprise&#39;s revenue stream along product or service lines into narrower and narrower tributaries as one moves up the tree. The diagnostic tree  40  shown in  FIG. 2  has been generated to illustrate the revenue stream of a telecommunications service provider. The diagnostic tree  40  shows the Telecom&#39;s revenue stream broken down to three levels of detail. A first column  42  includes all revenue components. A second column  44  shows Level  1  revenue components. These include revenue from: fixed (land-line) phone services  60 ; Internet services  62 ; mobile telephone services  64 ; and value added services (VAS)  66 . A third column  46  shows Level  2  revenue components. In Level  2  revenue from fixed services has been broken out into: Indirect-CPS (Carrier Pre Selection)  68 , and indirect CS (Carrier Selection)  70 . Internet revenue  62  has only one level  2  component, namely Fixed Revenue  72 . Mobile services revenue  64  is broken out into direct GSM  74  and direct UMTS in Level  2 . VAS  66  is broken out into VAS Not-Voice  78 , and VAS Voice  80 . A fourth column  48  shows Level  3  revenue components. In Level  3  the Fixed  60 , Indirect-CPS  68  revenue corresponds to a single source, FI-Outgoing On Net  82 . Fixed  60 , Indirect CS  70  revenue is broken out into FIC Outgoing Off Net  84 , and FIC Outgoing On Net  86 . Revenue from Internet  62 , Fixed  72  service is broken out into Direct  88  and Indirect  90 . Mobile  64 , Direct GSM  74  revenue is broken out into MDS-Outgoing Off Net  92  and MDS-Outgoing On Net  94 , and Mobile  64 , Direct UMTS  76  revenue has a single level  3  component MDU-Outgoing on net  96 . Value Added Services  66 , Not Voice  78  include level  3  revenue from Messaging P 2 P  98  and Messaging P 2 P-M 2 P  100 . Value added services  66  voice  80  includes the sole level  3  revenue component Voice Mail  102 . 
     The diagnostic tree  40  displays the calculated average revenue per user (ARPU) for each revenue component displayed in Level  3  in the sixth column  52 . The diagnostic tree also displays a target ARPU for each revenue component displayed in level  3  in the seventh column  54 . The next column  56  displays the ARPU gap between the actual ARPU and the target ARPU for each revenue component displayed in level  3 . Finally, a “Dashboard” icon is displayed in column  50  for each revenue component displayed in level  3 . The “DASHBOARD” icon provides a quick visual indication of the size of the ARPU gap (column  56 ) for each data stream and whether it is positive or negative. 
     The system supporting the method presently being described calculates the ARPU values displayed in column  52  directly from customer invoice data each month. The target ARPU values in column  54  may be based on market forecasts, performance goals, or industry benchmarks. According to an embodiment, the diagnostic tree  40  is a dynamic, interactive tool. A user may select the level for which ARPU data are to be displayed, or the user may choose to view ARPU data for only a certain segment of the customer population. For example, a user may choose to view level two ARPU data for all male customers age 25-34. In this case, column  58  displaying level  3  information would not be present and column  52  would display ARPU data for all of the level  2  revenue components. Further, the ARPU data in column  52  would be calculated only from male customers aged 25-34. 
     The diagnostic tree provides marketers and business users a quick visual indication of which components of the revenue stream are performing well and which are in need of an ARPU boost. Those revenue components for which the ARPU gap is positive are performing better than forecast, or better than the industry trend, and those for which the ARPU gap is negative are performing worse. The revenue components having a negative ARPU gap are obvious targets for ARPU boosting. 
     Returning to the flow chart in  FIG. 1 , trend analysis  20  is another component of the ARPU scouting/campaign analysis phase  10 . Trend analysis essentially stretches the diagnostic tree into the past. Whereas the diagnostic tree provides a single month snapshot of ARPU based on the most recent month&#39;s available revenue data, the trend analysis looks at how the ARPU data have changed over time. These data can highlight areas of concern or positive developments that may not be apparent from a single month snapshot of the ARPU data from a single billing cycle. For example, the diagnostic tree analysis of a particular month may show that the ARPU of a highly profitable revenue stream is safely above the industry benchmark level. No cause for concern. However checking the trend over the past six months may indicate that the ARPU for this revenue stream has declined steadily in each of the last six months. Accordingly ARPU boosting initiatives may be appropriate to shore up this profitability source to prevent further erosion. 
     Trend analysis typically will have a granularity of one month increments since the revenue data on which the trend analysis relies corresponds to the enterprise&#39;s one month billing cycle. Of course if revenue data area available from other sources or on other time frames the granularity of the trend data may be based on some other time interval. 
     The trend analysis data may be segmented, grouped, manipulated, organized and presented any number of ways to provide multiple views of ARPU trends over time. The system supporting the present method includes configurable reporting tools for representing ARPU trends in convenient graphical form. For example,  FIG. 3  is a graph  120  showing the ARPU trend of pre-paid and post-paid business units over a six month period.  FIG. 4  shows a similar six month trend analysis  122  of ARPU by market segment. The graph  122  shows ARPU values for low-end fixed customers  124 , low end mobile customers  126 , and low end VAS customers  128  for each of the six months. These are but two of the essentially limitless ways in which the ARPU trend data may be segmented and displayed. A thorough analysis of ARPU trends allows a business user to evaluate how ARPU, revenue in general, the customer base, and other key performance indicators, change offer time. This allows the user to spot and anticipate seasonal effects and changing market conditions, and assess the effectiveness of previous marketing strategies. 
     The final component of the ARPU Scouting/Campaign Analysis phase  10  is assessing the effectiveness of previous campaigns  18 . The only meaningful measure of any program to boost revenue is whether, as a result of the program, revenue has indeed increased. In the case of direct marketing campaigns it is instructive to compare the revenue of customers who were contacted or “hit” during the campaign to those who were not revenue figures for time periods both before and after the campaign should be consulted. Customers not hit during the campaign may act as a control group isolating the effects of the campaign to ensure that any increase (or decrease) in revenue or ARPU, is the result of the campaign and not some other external factor or factors. The system supporting the present method includes reporting tools for assessing the effectiveness of campaigns. For example,  FIG. 5  shows a circle chart  130  illustrating the percentage of the total customer population hit by a direct marketing campaign. In this case, 22.22% of all of the enterprise&#39;s customers were contacted. 77.78% were not.  FIG. 6  is another circle chart  132  this one showing the population of hit customers segmented by revenue increase classes. In this example there are three defined classes; customers whose revenue decreased from 0% to −1%  134 , customers whose revenue increased from 0% to 1%  136 , and customers whose revenue increased from 1% to 2%  138 . This chart shows that more than 80% of hit customers saw an increase in revenue. Furthermore, over one quarter of hit customers saw a fairly significant 1% to 2% increase in revenue. This chart does not show, however, how the revenue increases of hit customers compare to those of non-hit customers.  FIG. 7  shows this analysis. 
       FIG. 7  is a chart  140  showing the ARPU trend over a six month period. The upper curve  142  represents the ARPU trend of customers hit by a direct marketing campaign. The lower curve  144  represents the ARPU of customers not hit by the campaign. The customers hit by the campaign show a substantial increase in ARPU over the six month period, whereas the ARPU of customers not hit by the campaign remained substantially flat. Clearly the direct marketing campaign had a positive effect on the revenue from customers hit by the campaign and could be classified a success. Such analysis may be performed on all campaigns in order to learn which campaigns are successful and which are not. Furthermore some campaigns may be effective for boosting revenue among certain segments of the customer base and not in others, and some campaigns may be successful for boosting revenue for certain business units and revenue streams and not for others. The assessment by effectiveness process  18  leads to a better understanding of which campaigns or types of campaigns should be employed to reach specific revenue goals. 
     Armed with the data and insights developed in the ARPU Scouting/Campaign Analysis phase  10 , the marketer or business user proceeds to the Opportunity Identification stage  12 . At this point the user has determined which revenue stream will be targeted for ARPU boosting based on the diagnostic tree analysis  16  and trend analysis  20 , and will have knowledge of which campaigns have been effective for raising ARPU for this revenue stream in the past from the assessment by effectiveness  18 . The Opportunity Identification phase  12  includes ARPU lever selection  22 , investigation based on predefined variables  24 , building an ARPU increase module  26 , and building a customer response model  28 . 
     ARPU lever selection is the process by which the enterprise determines which value lever it will exploit in its effort to increase revenue. According to this aspect of the ARPU boosting process, ARPU boosting initiatives are classified by value levers. The value levers are a hierarchical classification scheme that organizes and defines various steps that can be taken by an enterprise to increase revenue. The classification structure may be based on enterprise wide or industry wide experience, and may take into account elements of the enterprise&#39;s overall marketing strategy. 
       FIG. 8  shows ARPU boosting value levers that have been developed for telecommunications service providers. This classification structure is based on combined industry experience and has been adopted by many Telecoms world wide. The first level indicates the purpose of the set of value levers, namely ARPU boosting  150 . The second level includes four levers that can be exploited to wring additional revenue from existing revenue streams. These include boosting usage of existing services  152 , increasing revenue per minute of use (MOU)  154 , creating new demand  156 , and enhancing the subscriber base  158 . Additional levers are defined for implementing these primary levers. 
     Selection of the ARPU lever defines the strategy for increasing revenue from the selected revenue stream. Over time, the enterprise may compile a comprehensive catalog of campaigns available for increasing ARPU along each value lever. The most successful campaigns may be classified under the appropriate lever. Furthermore, marketing personnel may expand and improve the catalog as new campaigns are employed and the results analyzed. By selecting the desired ARPU lever the user effectively determines the best campaigns to choose from when initiating a new campaign to increase revenue from the identified revenue stream along the selected value lever. 
     By this point in the process a user has identified the revenue stream targeted for ARPU boosting, identified the strategy for boosting ARPU in the targeted revenue stream and selected an appropriate campaign for achieving the enterprise&#39;s revenue goals. It remains to determine the best customers to contact during the campaign. This process begins with the investigation based on predefined variables  24 . The goal of this investigation is to identify characteristics of customers who have already responded positively to ARPU boosting efforts along the selected value lever in hopes of identifying additional customers having similar characteristics who would be appropriate targets for a marketing campaign directed toward increasing ARPU along the same value lever. 
     The investigation based on predefined variables begins with an analysis of each customer&#39;s revenue trend over a specified period. The period of analysis may extend from one month to several years. The only requirement is that there be at least two data points so that a trend line may be calculated to model the behavior of customer&#39;s revenue over the given period. If multiple data points are available, the trend line that best fits the data may be calculated via a least squares regression line or some other statistical method. The customer ARPU trend line calculated in this manner provides a rough estimate of how the revenue from the customer has changed during the period under investigation. The most relevant feature of the customer trend line is its slope. The slope of the trend line represents the average rate at which the customer&#39;s revenue has changed over time and likely will continue to change, at least in the short run. This ARPU trend line analysis is performed for each customer in the customer base. Customers may then be classified according to the slope of their trend line. For example revenue slope classes may be defined for customers having a positive revenue trend line slope of from 0° to 1°, 1° to 20° and greater than 20°, or negative trend line slopes of from 0° to −1°, −1° to −20°, and less than −20°. The various revenue classes may then be plotted against revenue, as shown in  FIG. 9 . 
     The graph  190  in  FIG. 9  is a “bubble chart” that shows the distribution of customers in a particular customer segment distributed between the various revenue slope classes and their average revenue. The center of each “bubble” corresponds to the respective values along the X and Y axes of the plot. The size of the “bubble” corresponds to the size of the customer population within the particular class as a percentage of the overall customer population. Thus, the “bubble”  172  corresponds to customers in revenue slope class 3 (positive trend line slope &gt;20°) and having an average revenue of $150. This class of customers represents 6.6% of the total customer population. Similarly, the bubble  174  represents customers in revenue slope class 2 (positive revenue line slope where 1.0°&lt; revenue slope &lt;20°). The ARPU for this group is approximately $210 and the group constitutes 6.2% of the customer population. Bubble  176  represents revenue class 1 (0° revenue slope &lt;1°). The ARPU of this group of customers is approximately $220, and the group comprises 1.6% of the total customer population. Bubble  178  represents revenue slope class −1 (0°&gt; revenue slope &gt;−1°). This group has ARPU of nearly $300 and comprises 0.8% of the customer population. Finally, bubble  180  represents revenue slope class −2 (−1&gt;° revenue slope &gt;−20°). This group has ARPU of approximately $430 and comprise 1.6% of the customer population. 
     An important aspect of the invention is that the revenue slope is calculated for every customer in the customer base. Bubble chart plots such as chart  190  in  FIG. 9  may be created for any number of different segments of the customer base. 
     The system that supports the method under discussion includes reporting tools that can quickly generate analysis results based on any number of different customer attributes. For example the system will include CRM related data for each customer, including geographic and demographic data, product and service portfolio data, usage behavior such as traffic volume, traffic type, traffic drivers, and so forth. Thus, for virtually any segment or category of customer, a business user can determine the percentages of similarly placed customers relative to the rest of the customer base. The business user may determine each group&#39;s ARPU and whether their revenue is trending upward or trending downward. Such information may have a significant impact on which customers should be selected to be hit by a marketing campaign. For example if a large group of like customers have high ARPU, but the ARPU is trending downward at a rapid rate, the enterprise may want to hit these customers with a marketing campaign to avoid further revenue erosion among a profitable segment of the customer population. Similarly low revenue customers where revenue is trending up slowly may be considered good targets to encourage more rapid revenue growth. Low revenue customers whose revenue is trending downward may not be worth the effort stimulate ARPU growth, and high revenue customers whose ARPU is increasing are generally not in need of ARPU stimulation. 
     The investigation on predefined variables identifies customer characteristics that are most relevant to increasing ARPU. This data along with historical revenue data are used to build an ARPU increase model  26 . Multiple preconfigured statistical models may be employed to identify the best targets for the selected ARPU boost strategy. The type of statistical model employed may be dictated by the selected campaign or other factors inherent in the customer base. Examples of the statistical models that may be employed include a market basket analysis; billed usage increase propensity, product purchase propensity; and customer loyalty analysis. A market basket analysis for purchase propensity is a statistical analysis of the characteristics of customers who own a specific product in order to find customers with a similar propensity. A billed usage increase propensity analysis analyzes the characteristics of customers subject to a certain increase in billed usage over a period of time in order to identify other customers with similar anagraphical, behavioral, and value based characteristics. Product purchase propensity is a set of models differentiated by product type and purchase type. These models identify the characteristics of the customers that purchased a specific product in order to identify targets within the customer base for selling the product. Customer loyalty analysis includes a set of predictive tools for calculating a customer&#39;s propensity to leave or cancel a service provider&#39;s services. 
     Different ARPU boost strategies may require different statistical analysis tools for analyzing customer characteristics and revenue data. Building the ARPU increase model includes selecting the appropriate statistical approach and training the statistical model on historical data. According to an embodiment of the invention the statistical analysis tool selected is trained on actual data gathered prior to previous marketing campaigns of the same type under consideration. The statistical tool operates on the historical data and makes predictions for the revenue increase propensity for each customer. The benefit of using actual historical data from past campaigns is that the actual results are known, and can be used to validate and refine the model. This process of training and validating the model with historical data and actual results may be an iterative processes performed many times in succession as new results sets become available. 
     In addition to the statistical aspect of the ARPU increase model, a more deterministic component may be added as well. Certain campaigns may have proven most successful among specific segments of the customer population. For example one type of campaign may prove very successful among university students under the age of 25 living within a specified radius of a city center. Another campaign may be more successful among suburban parents. Yet another among working professionals. These types of deterministic characteristics may also be taken into account when building the ARPU increase model, and may be used to filter either the input to or the output from the statistical analysis tools. 
     Building the response model is similar to building the ARPU increase model except that rather than trying to determine the expected revenue increase for each customer, the response model must determine each customer&#39;s propensity to respond favorably to a campaign. Again, a set of preconfigured statistical models may be provided. Models may be built for specific campaigns if data are available, but also for families of campaigns. Like the ARPU increase model, the response model may be trained using historical data. The predicted results based on the historical data may be compared to actual results to refine the response model. Again, this may be an iterative process to continually improve the predictive power of the model. 
     Building the ARPU increase model  26  and building the response model  28 , training them on historical data and validating the models with actual results marks the end of the Opportunity Identification phase  12  of the ARPU boosting method. At this point, the enterprise has determined what areas of the business would benefit from ARPU boosting and has designed a strategy for increasing ARPU. Further, the enterprise has examined the characteristics of its customer base relating to ARPU trends and other variables. The enterprise has created and trained statistical models for predicting the expected revenue increase for individual customers, and for determining their propensity to respond positively to a campaign. It is now time to enter the final phase of the ARPU boosting process, profit optimization  14 . 
     The profit optimization phase  14  involves scoring customers  30 , finalizing campaigns  32 , and executing campaigns  34 . The ARPU increase model and the response model are applied to current customer data in order to determine their propensity for ARPU increase and positive response to campaigns. Customers are scored according to their propensities. For example customers having a 0% ARPU increase propensity have the least likelihood of showing an ARPU increase, whereas customers having a 100% ARPU increase propensity are most likely to show an ARPU increase. Similarly, customers with a 0% propensity to respond favorably to a campaign are most likely to reject an offer, while those with a 100% propensity to respond favorably are most likely to accept. Most customer scores will fall between these two extremes. An important aspect of the present invention is that the two scores can be played off one another to identify an optimum mix of the customers most likely to respond positively to a campaign and those who show the greatest propensity for ARPU increase. A campaign in which all customers accept an offer, but exhibit little or no revenue increase will not be a successful campaign. Similarly, a campaign that reaches all of the customers having the highest propensity toward increasing ARPU but which is not accepted by any customers will likewise exhibit no positive ARPU increase results. The ideal mix is one in which a substantial number of customers will accept the campaign offer, and who exhibit a healthy propensity toward increasing ARPU. 
       FIGS. 10 and 11  show how the expected revenue increase model scoring and the positive response propensity model scoring can work together to identify the optimum campaign customer list for improving ARPU.  FIG. 10  shows a circle chart  200  showing customer distribution by responsiveness to a marketing campaign. A first wedge  202  shows the proportion of customers having a positive response propensity of 10%-20%. A second wedge  204  shows the portion of the customer base having a positive response propensity of 20%-30%. Additional wedges  206 ,  208  and  210  show the portions of the customer population having positive response propensities of 30%-40%, 40%-50%, and 60%-70%, respectively. As can be seen, the group  204  having a positive response propensity of 20%-30% is the largest portion of the total customer base, comprising 36% of all customers. This group is followed by the wedge  208  representing customers having a positive response propensity of 40%-50%. These constitute 25% of the overall customer population. These groups are followed by groups  202  and  206  representing customers having positive response propensities of 10%-20% and 30%-40%. Each of these groups constitutes 17% of the total customer population. Finally, customers having a positive response propensity of 60%-70% are represented by the narrow wedge  210  forming but 6% of the total customer population. 
       FIG. 11  shows the results of filtering the group of customers represented by wedge  208  in chart  200  of  FIG. 10  by their revenue increase propensities. This group, 25% of the total customer population, represents customers having a positive response propensity of 40%-50%. Of these, 31% fall into wedge  214  of the chart  212  in  FIG. 11 . This group represents customers having only a 10%-20% propensity to increase ARPU, 55% fall into wedge  216  which represents customers having a 30%-40% propensity to increase ARPU. 11% fall into the wedge  218  which represents customers having a 60%-70% propensity to increase ARPU. 
     By drilling down into the customer scores and filtering the data as described, business users can determine the best mix of customers having a high propensity to respond positively to a campaign and who will likely exhibit strong revenue growth. The power of such an analysis is evident when one considers the fact that an enterprise will typically have limited resources available to implement campaigns and may only be able to contact a limited number of customers during the course of a campaign. In order to conduct the campaign as efficiently as possible the enterprise will want to contact only those customers who are likely to accept the offer and who have a strong propensity toward increased revenue. As indicated above, selecting only those customers with a high propensity to accept an offer may not generate the greatest increase in revenue. Typically there will be a trade off between contacting customers who may be less likely to accept the offer, but who are much more likely to generate increased revenue. Analyzing the positive response propensity scores and the revenue increase scores together in this way assists the user in striking the most appropriate balance. 
     Alternative strategies for identifying the best group of customer to contact based on their ARPU increase and positive response propensity scores may be employed. One alternative may be to train the ARPU increase model on customers who responded positively in the past. In this embodiment a customer&#39;s ARPU increase score will reflect not just a general propensity for increasing revenue, but rather a revenue increase propensity resulting from a positive response to a particular campaign. Individual customers will likely exhibit different revenue increase propensities depending on the campaign offer presented to them. Accordingly, individual customer scores will be different from campaign to campaign. Employing this strategy customer lists may be compiled separately for each campaign. Customers may be selected based on their propensity to respond and their revenue increase propensity associated with a particular campaign offer. Again, customers having a high propensity to respond and a high propensity to increase revenue as a result of responding positively are the best targets to contact in the campaign. Other strategies may also be employed for analyzing the interaction between customer&#39;s positive response and revenue increase propensities. 
     Once the ARPU increase propensity and positive response propensity values have been determined and the criteria for selecting the most desirable targets have been established it is a relatively straight forward process to identify the customers satisfying the established criteria and building a campaign list from the identified customers. In fact, this process may be fully automated in the system architecture described below for supporting the present process. Once the initial list has been compiled the campaign may be finalized by adding additional requirements for defining targeted customers, such as excluding customers that have been contacted in other campaigns, and by making other refinements. Once the campaign has been finalized at  32 , it only remains to be executed at  34 . This simply requires communicating the ARPU boosting offer to the selected customers via the selected channel. Execution of the campaign may be performed by a dedicated campaign management system, marketing personnel, or by some other mechanism. 
     The method for boosting ARPU just described includes a number of automated and manual tasks. It combines human marketing prowess with highly automated and efficient data accumulation, storage, analysis, and presentation tools. The method allows business users to efficiently determine the best areas of the business in which to look for ARPU boosting opportunities, the best strategies for boosting ARPU and the best campaigns to use for boosting ARPU. The analytical tools employed in the ARPU boosting method further assist the marketing team in identifying the customers most likely to respond positively to a marketing campaign and who will likely generate the greatest increase in revenue by accepting an offer. By concentrating on the right customers, the campaign has a much better chance of achieving its goal, namely increasing the average revenue per user. 
     An important aspect of the present invention is the system that supports the analysis necessary to implement the above described method. The system captures an enterprise&#39;s operational data and stores it in a manner that is accessible by myriad analysis and reporting tools that allow the business user to analyze revenue streams, the effectiveness of previous campaigns, and various characteristics of the customer base in order to create the most effective and profitable marketing campaigns possible. 
     An embodiment of a system  300  is shown in  FIG. 12 . The system  300  includes a plurality of data sources  302 ,  304 ,  306 . A dedicated data mart  310  forms the core of the system architecture  300 . A population architecture  308  is provided to perform extraction, transformation and loading functions for populating the data mart  310  with the data from the various data sources  302 ,  304 ,  306 . A data manipulation module  314  prepares data stored in the data mart  310  to be input to other applications such as a data mining module  316  and end user access module  318 , or other applications. The data mining module  316  performs various statistical analyses on the data supplied to it in order to identify common characteristics of customers that may be relevant to boosting ARPU. The end user access module  318  provides an interface through which business users may view and analyze the data collected and stored in the data mart  310 . The end user access module  318  may be configured to generate a plurality of predefined reports  320  for analyzing the data, and may also include online analytical processing (OLAP) so that a user may manipulate and contrast data “on the fly” to gain further insight into revenue data, historical trends, and the characteristics of customers who have responded positively to ARPU stimulation efforts in the past. Finally, other systems such as CRM  322  may also consume the efficiently stored data in the data mart  310 . 
     In order to support the ARPU boosting method described above, the data mart  310  must be populated with revenue and customer data for each customer in the customer base. Revenue data may be provided by the enterprise billing system. Customer demographics, geographic data, and other data may be provided from a customer relationship management system (CRM). If the enterprise is a telecommunications services provider, usage patterns, traffic and interconnection data may be provided directly from network control systems. Alternatively, all or some of the data necessary to populate the data mart  310  may be provided by a data warehouse system or other mass storage system. 
     According to an embodiment, the data requirements of the system  300  are pre-configured and organized into logical flows, so that the data source systems  302 ,  304 ,  306 , etc. supply the necessary data at the proper times to the proper location. Typically this involves writing a large text file (formatted as necessary) containing all of the requisite data to a designated directory. Because of the monthly billing cycle of most enterprises the data typically will be extracted on a monthly basis to update the data mart  310 . 
     The population architecture  308  is an application program associated with the data mart  310 . The population architecture is responsible for reading the text files deposited in the designated directories by the various data sources at the appropriate times. The population architecture may perform quality checks on the data to ensure that the necessary data are present and in the proper format. The population architecture  308  includes data loading scripts that transform the data and load the data into the appropriate tables of the data mart&#39;s  310  data model. 
     The data mart  310  is a traditional relational database and may be based on, for example, Oracle 9i or Microsoft SQL Server platforms. The data mart  310  is the core of the system  300 . The customer and revenue data are optimized for fast access and analytical reporting according to a customized data model. Star schemas allow an efficient analysis of key performance indicators by various dimensions. Flat tables containing de-normalized data are created for feeding predictive modeling systems. 
     The data manipulation module  314  is provided to prepare data to be input into the data mining tool  316 . The data manipulation module  314  generates large flat files dubbed “customer analytical records” (CARS). The CARS include multiple rows and columns. Each row relates to a customer. Each column represents a customer attribute or characteristic. The customer attributes contained in different CARS will vary depending on the variable being investigated. For example pre-defined CARS may be created based on industry specific knowledge in order to optimize the discovery power of the data mining tool  316 . In this case, the CARS may contain specific customer attribute information regarding products and services that are relevant for mining data with respect to particular revenue streams, product or service offerings, marketing campaigns, and so forth. 
     The data mining tool  316  itself may be a commercially available product such as SAS Enterprise Miner, or the KXEN data mining tool. The data mining tool runs a plurality of different statistical models to evaluate customers and generate a score for each customer based on a specific variable. The score essentially ranks the customers by percentage according to the likelihood or the extent to which the variable under investigation applies to them individually. For example, if expected ARPU increase is the variable under investigation the data mining tool will return a value for each customer in the range from 0% to 100%. A customer receiving a 100% score being the most likely customer to see an increase in revenue, and a customer receiving a 0% score being the least likely to see an increase. The data mining tool  316  returns a flat file containing each customer, the customer&#39;s ID, the customer&#39;s score, and various statistical variables related to the customer&#39;s score. The data manipulation module  314  loads the output of the data mining tool back into the data tables of the data mart  310 . In this way the data mining tool  316  may generate expected ARPU increase scores, and propensity to accept campaign scores for purposes of compiling target lists according to the ARPU boosting method described above. 
     The end-user access module  318  pulls data from the data mart  310  to be displayed for a user of the system. The end user access module  318  includes a plurality of preconfigured reports  320  as well as reports that may be configured by the user. The multiplicity of reports allow the user to dissect the customer and revenue data from as many different perspectives as may be desired. The preconfigured reports  320  include the diagnostic tree and trend analysis reports, the bubble charts associated with the investigation based on predefined variables, and the ARPU increase and propensity to accept campaign scoring results among many others. Because all of the data are accumulated and stored on a customer by customer basis, the online analytical processing capabilities of the end user access module  318  allow the end user to alter display criteria and filter customers by various customer attributes to significantly expand the business intelligence insights that may be gleaned from the various reports. 
     Finally, data stored in the data mart  310  may also be provided to external systems such as CRM  322 . Information such as a customer&#39;s expected revenue increase may be used by such other systems in order to classify customers and to determine or affect the various protocols for interacting with different classes of customers. 
     While various embodiments of the invention have been described, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that many more embodiments and implementations are possible within the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not to be restricted except in light of the attached claims and their equivalents.