Failing to adequately differentiate your customer base will hinder your company’s database marketing efforts, says Jeff Hassemer, director of product strategy at the data management solutions division of marketing solutions provider Abacus.
During a Webinar hosted by MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT and “Direct” magazines, Hassemer said problems in the database can occur when customer preferences and behaviors are not well understood when developing messaging and offers.
“Put another way, return on a database investment is achieved through the use of the database,” Hassemer said. “The more confidence the users have in the data, the more they will use the database. Ergo, data hygiene is very important to achieving return on the investment.”
Hassemer considered the failure to adequately differentiate your customer base to be one of the seven deadly sins of database marketing because:
- It can lead to irrelevant messages and offers
- Disinterest leads to attrition and low repurchase rates
- Overall market opportunity is lost
Can marketers be redeemed for these mistakes, or better yet, avoid them altogether? Yes, according to Hassemer, providing you take the following steps:
- Use your marketing database to record customer preferences and behaviors
- Use this data to custom-tailor messaging content
- Deliver message via clients’ preferred offer channel
- Track results and improve on contact strategies and offers by key segments
For the rest of Hassemer’s Webinar, “The Seven Deadly Sins of Database Marketing,” log on to https://multichannelmerchant.com/events/webinars/seven_sins/ for a free replay. And if you have questions for Hassemer, you can send them to him directly at the “Ask the Experts” section of MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT’s Website: http://expert.multichannelmerchant.com/database_marketing/