DM p10 Opinion Dec08.qxp 02/12/2008 10:36 Page 10
Opinion
D
atabase marketing is a well developed strate- This lack of integration means rich behavioural data
gy offline, but not so well developed online. available online is barely used for targeting. For
Why is this and what can you do about it? example, a very small percentage of online marketers
A killer application for database marketing is know- do basket/process abandonment email. Yet, you do
ing where people are on the loyalty ladder and talk- not get a hotter prospect than someone who has
ing to them in the most appropriate way to trade dropped out of the buying process at the last hurdle.
them up that ladder; converting prospects to cus- Using targeted emails personalised for the receiver
tomers, customers to multi-buyers and so on. Online based on site behaviour can drive up to 30-40%
increases in response and conversion. Event-triggered
What is holding
email can drive up to 40% improvements in response
and reach. Combine these and it can realistically gen-
erate the 20% percent improvement most companies
online database
need to grow their business, or at least retain their
position in a declining economy.
marketing back?
Which leads to the next reason why online CRM
does not happen. It is too easy to spend more with
Google. It is a lot simpler than pulling together all
the pieces to carry out behavioural marketing and
Database marketing is
improve conversion. This is why conversion is typi-
cally only 2%.
a well developed So what can you do about this? Move from web
strategy offline, but it is
analytics reporting to actionability, and that means
segmentation. A lack of segmentation holds online
not so well developed marketing back. Optimising 100% of traffic is a good
online. Why is this and
start but it is only the start. No self respecting data-
base marketer would treat everyone the same. You
what can you do about
profile first, then target. Online we do exactly that –
it, asks Mark Patron?
test usability on lowest performing segments.
UIrecordKISS. Use a simple segmentation schema to start
with. For example start with a product or interest
based segmentation and then develop to a more
behavioural view and financial view of your cus-
tomers and prospects.
this means exactly the same thing. So, if a customer UIrecordMake it actionable. Don’t segment unless you have
abandons a shopping basket, email them with a link a great hypothesis to test against and some
back to their abandoned basket. This timeliness is thoughts on how to build action around these
typically not possible offline. UIrecordUse product segmentation to measure variances in
Data silos are another reason why database market- performance, and behavioural segmentation for
ing techniques are not applied online. Web analytics, triggers and action plans.
email and CMS or e-commerce systems are all sepa- UIrecordEnsure segment sizes are significant and meaningful.
rate and battle to talk to one another in an actionable
way. This leads to poor use of data. CRM databases The Internet allows for better, more granular target-
sometimes contain summaries of online transactions. ing, reducinga waste and saving valuable spend.
However CRM databases are normally not updated Unlike any other medium or channel, it allows mar-
frequently enough to be able to use online behaviour- keters to reach prospects throughout the entire buy-
al data effectively. ing cycle, from initial awareness through pre-infor-
So why do we have a lack of data integration? If we mation gathering to sales and post sale feedback and
compare the development of offline and online data- support.
base marketing we can see the three platforms are Probably the biggest thing holding online database
still separate, which is a great pity. marketing back is attitude to time. To digital marketers,
1. Email marketing developed on back of offline mar- CRM and database marketing is slow and dull.
keting databases. Developing a CRM system is not as quick as setting up
2. Web analytics developed from log file analysis in IT an online campaign and getting next day results.
departments. Offline and online CRM are on different timelines.
n
3. CMS or e-commerce platforms developed by the
likes of IBM, Oracle and Microsoft as ways to sell Mark Patron is CEO of online behavioural marketing and
software. analysis company RedEye.
10 Database Marketing December 2008 www.dmarket.co.uk
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