Insight/ Strategic Planning  Customer Lifetime Value As
Marketing’s Organizing Principle   by John Parker Adjunct
Professor Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management  See More
by this author >  Article Highlights:    • Many areas within
financial services are not marketing-oriented, for several
reasons.   • CLTV is a function of three key metrics: total
margin, churn rate, and acquisition cost of a new customer.   •
The CLTV approach allows CMOs to ask tough questions on behalf
of their CEOs and CFOs  A friend of mine took a new position as
a financial-services CMO a few years back, and quickly was able
to add value by shifting resources to more productive uses.  In
an early update with his CEO, he proudly described changing
media mixes, killing dozens of small projects while starting a
small number of large, high impact ones, and restructuring to
make room for high-talent recruits.  My friend, however, was
taken aback by his boss’ immediate reply: “I am glad we are
figuring out where to spend, but the more