As a database marketer, it is essential that you have confidence in your data and your marketing database solution. Over the years, Dovetail has identified four primary traits that are required to characterize marketing data for that data to be actionable. At Dovetail, we have coined the term “TAFI” (like the candy), to define the essentials for actionable marketing data. Think about your own marketing data, where it meets the mark, and where it might fall short as you read the description of TAFI below.

– Trustworthy

– Accessible

– Fresh

– Integrated

Trustworthy Marketing Data

Back in the day, I was the Director of Operations for an environmental company that did work in the petroleum industry. Our primary function was to monitor underground gasoline tanks for leaks. I was not a marketer, but the CEO and VP of Marketing would ask me how many tanks we were currently monitoring (customers) and how many of our client’s tanks were not being monitored (warm leads). In addition, since we could upsell services based on specific types of tanks, I counted those tanks too. I was a tank counting machine. Even back then I was a bit of a technology geek; I spent hours tinkering with and accessing various systems to get my counts. And I started to notice something. Depending on the system, I would get different answers, different counts. Sometimes the variation was minor, but other times it was significant. I will never forget the day that the CEO called each of the department heads into the room and asked us how many tanks Company N had, how many tanks we were currently monitoring, how many we were not monitoring, and how many tanks were type X, Y, and Z. Everyone in the room had a different answer. I am pretty sure we weren’t the first company to have such a scenario occur!

It turns out that the CEO’s primary focus was marketing. I knew little about marketing. But I did know enough to say that a) our data was not trustworthy, and b) we were counting tanks for marketing purposes using systems that existed to support other business functions-not marketing. Little did I know that the seeds of my database marketing career were being planted.

That was 1996. Now, it’s 2012, and the need for organizations to have trustworthy marketing data is greater than ever. And given our data inundated world, lack of trustworthy data permeates the marketing landscape like never before. The following will help make your marketing data trustworthy:

– A marketing database system must be enacted to support your marketing data needs. If you substitute one or two primary operational systems in lieu of a marketing database solution, your data will not be trustworthy for marketing purposes.

– Business rules specific to your marketing function must be identified, determined, and implemented, creating datasets that are custom to marketing, trustworthy for marketing purposes.

– Data needs to be managed at levels appropriate to your business. For instance, you may need counts at the unique individual, household, address, email, and phone number level. These levels need to be accurately managed in order for your data to be trustworthy for marketing purposes.

– Consumers and their associated transactions need to be defined. For instance, if you determine records with the same first name and email address are the same person and should be rolled-up into one record, regardless of their phone number or postal address, you create accurate data you can depend on for marketing purposes.

– Data validation and quality control processes must be established to ensure your marketing data is clean, dependable, and trustworthy.

Accessible

As the Director of Operations I needed quick access to data, which proved to be a constant challenge. For even the most basic count request, I had to go to IT. If the request was simple, I could usually obtain a one-day turnaround. But frequently, complex requests came from my boss or from a customer who wanted answers right away. I remember the simultaneous and conflicting mindset to provide a fast turnaround for the client while not overburdening the IT group.

Not only was I concerned about my own lack of access to our data, but many others in the organization faced the same problem. We were a growing company, with a lot of great things happening, but growth can cause some pain too. In this environment, as one might expect, IT was inundated with requests, under continually increasing pressures. I reacted by educating myself on how to access the system, learned how to write queries, and became a power user. It got to the point where other employees would come to me for requests instead of IT. For the short term, this approach worked and was even fun, but we had created an informal data access structure that struggled with its own delays and inaccuracies, and it soon became a burden on me-pulling me away from my primary responsibilities.

It seems our entire world needs constant access to ever-growing repositories of data. As a database marketer, you need easy access to your marketing database system and marketing data. This access must be convenient, intuitive, and immediate, characterized by the following:

– You need the ability to get to your marketing data, directly, on your own, with no dependency on anyone else. Depending on an outsourced database vendor or your IT group to access your data, even in the best of scenarios, can take too much time, and does not effectively allow for the inevitable back-and-forth questions/answers that occur.

– The system you use to access your data should be web-enabled, allowing you to access your marketing data from any web-connected device.

– Marketers frequently receive requests from other stakeholders in their organization to pull lists, run analysis, or provide reports. As a marketer, you need instant access to effectively support the requests of others in your organization.

– You want data securely accessed by only those personnel who have permission to access and use the data. You may also need various users to have different permission levels for functionality and data access. Your web-deployed software should be secure and support this multi-tenant model requirement.

– If you are a technical user, you may want other tools deployed, such as statistical or Business Intelligence tools to directly access your marketing database.

Fresh

I remember people in my old organization being concerned that we could not keep our data Evergreen. And they were right-keeping data Fresh/Evergreen was a significant organizational weakness. Our business was performing leak detection on underground gasoline storage tanks. We would pull data from several databases into files and use those files for various types of analysis, planning, and execution. A key part of our operations and marketing centered around how many tanks we were monitoring and for which customers. This is where Evergreen, or Fresh data was essential.

We had a major oil company customer that had 2,500 tanks eligible for monitoring, but we were only monitoring 1,500 tanks. To determine these quantities and who to contact, we used extracted data from several systems. We wanted to use this data to upsell our customers and bring the additional 1,000 tanks onboard for monitoring. Our customer was large and we communicated with numerous contacts across several regions via multiple channels. It quickly became apparent that as time passed, the classification of an active or inactive tank was not always correct. Our data had quickly become stale, and we had no idea how to keep it Fresh.

Additionally, we would also use our data to suppress current customers from our prospects, engaging in acquisition marketing. But this suppression data would sit on the shelf and become out-of-date. I remember our CEO saying in no uncertain terms that we cannot be marketing to existing customers because a) it made us look terrible, and b) there were downward price pressures in the industry, and if we marketed to a current customer, it was likely at a lower price than they were currently paying, causing a large problem.

As the head of operations, it was obvious to me that our lack of Fresh data was hindering and in some cases greatly damaging our acquisition and upsell efforts, in many ways the life blood of our company. It’s a truth of marketing and business: Fresh data is essential. As a database marketer, you need your marketing data to be perpetually current. Your marketing data must be updated and ready-to-use at all times. A Fresh marketing database is characterized by the following:

– Updates to your marketing database system are performed frequently, most likely on a daily basis.

– If you are like most organizations, Recency is the most important aspect of your RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary), and Fresh, updated data allows you to fully capitalize on how you market to recent purchasers.

– Your marketing database effectively supports time-sensitive offers and promotions because you keep your data in a perpetually Fresh state.

– Your Fresh marketing data provides a framework for your dynamic database marketing initiatives, allowing you to act with agility in your campaign deployment.

– Automated lists and triggered campaigns are effectively supported and easy to enact because your Fresh data supports them.

Integrated

When I started with my former company, it was a small start-up. Systems were established for sales, billing, and operations, but none of these were intended or built for marketing purposes. Several years into a fast growth curve, we tried to use these systems for marketing. The same customer would have a different customer ID in each of the three systems. We also had several secondary systems that had relevant data for marketing, but we had no idea how to associate the data to the proper individual to fully integrate our marketing data. Unfortunately, this probably sounds all too familiar to many of you.

Our business was performing leak detection on underground gasoline storage tanks. Like many companies, we wanted to upsell, acquire new customers, and anticipate and minimize churn. Our CEO and our Director of Marketing routinely discussed the rich data repositories we had at our fingertips to make these marketing endeavors succeed. I was the Operations Director, and along with my IT counterpart, got very nervous when we were asked to “just get our data from everywhere it exists and merge it together”, and market the right product to the right customer with the right offer at the right time. I couldn’t help thinking that within each of our systems there was a distinctly different representation of the same customer. Therefore, we could easily have at least three different records for the same person and we would be marketing to that same person three different times, possibly in three different, uncoordinated ways.

Trustworthy, Accessible, Fresh, and Integrated marketing data will empower you to reach all of your customers and prospects with the right message, at the right time, using the right channel. And, you will have actionable data at your fingertips for analysis, leading to smarter marketing decisions.

The theory of one integrated, cohesive view of each customer was appealing, and it seemed within our grasp. But this sharply contrasted with the reality that our data was in silos, fragmented, and disparate. Our data was not integrated, and we were at a loss for how to get there. As a database marketer, above all else, you need all of your relevant marketing data integrated. Your marketing data must be cohesive, unified, and interconnected across all channels and touchpoints.

Jeff Barela has been in the database marketing industry for over 15 years and the database industry for 21 years. As co-owner and Vice President of Business Development & Partnerships at Dovetail, Jeff has developed an excellent understanding of issues confronting businesses in marketing data integration and database management today. To learn more about Jeff and successful database marketing visit us at www.dovetaildatabase.com

In the marketing database industry for over 15 years, Jeff Barela is the co-owner and Vice President of Dovetail, Jeff has developed an excellent understanding of issues confronting businesses in marketing data integration and database management today. Learn more at http://www.dovetaildatabase.com.

Author Bio: Jeff Barela has been in the database marketing industry for over 15 years and the database industry for 21 years. As co-owner and Vice President of Business Development & Partnerships at Dovetail, Jeff has developed an excellent understanding of issues confronting businesses in marketing data integration and database management today. To learn more about Jeff and successful database marketing visit us at www.dovetaildatabase.com

Category: Marketing
Keywords: marketing database, database marketing, marketing data integration, marketing data, direct marketing