When most people think of silos, they think of the farmyard variety, full of grain. Full due to a big harvest, which by all rights sounds like a metaphor for success, right?. Why then in marketing, should silos be broken down and removed?

The answer is integration.

Do you work in an organisation with eDM platforms, CRM systems, data bureaus, mail houses and call centres all processing campaigns, or finally, a myriad of social media marketing activities running?  As the new world of online channels continues to expand and even more technology platforms become available, marketers are faced with a huge integration challenge.

Our advice to minimise these marketing silos and increase your ability to listen to your customers and respond consistently are:

1. Incremental Data Integrationone by one, begin to join each silo by measuring the ROI and use to gain buy-in for the next silo integration
2. Measure keycustomer behaviourfocus on the top 20 or 30 variables and avoid being distracted by the 100’s of variables available in data these days
3. Fast adaptingas marketing channels continue to evolve, be first to start listening and testing the next few behavioural variables
4. Leverageremoving those legacy marketing silos means you can explore, test and expand on the way you engage your customers – don’t forget to use this ability!

To talk through the range of options available around starting the journey towards marketing data integration or for any help in ensuring you’re getting the most out of your data, give us a call today on (02) 9432 7401.

Heading along to ADMA forum 2011? We’ll be at the ADMA stand from 10:30am on Wednesday (17th August), giving top advice around all things data quality. Pop in and challenge us with your trickiest questions, or just to say hi. Don’t forget to ask about our free data audit service which might reveal more than you thought you knew about your marketing database!

We’re looking to expand our team of data passionate analysts, so if you or someone you know is interested, check out http://www.marketsoft.com.au/about/career-opportunities/. We’re a company built on a strong culture of passion, belief and the knowledge that we’re all being useful, so if you can relate to these values, what are you waiting for?

It’s not always easy to understand or get a clear picture of the opportunity which lies within your customer or prospect data. Every data set is different, and as a result, the methods to extract and exploit potential need to be as equally dynamic.

Our advice to help better understand and create relevant strategies around your data begins with:

1. Wastage eliminate marketing wastage by identifying and removing records which fail to provide value to your communication
2. Opportunity increase your ultimate opportunity pool by increasing relevance – data hygiene processes, third-party address enhancements and agile data selections are some examples
3. Measure as always, benchmark and report ROI of data processes to ensure your strategy remains pertinent over time
4. Automate implement regular systematic data processes to remove human intervention which are better spent on your actual marketing

To talk through the range of options available around ensuring your data is up to scratch, or to enquire about our new free data audit service, give us a call today on (02) 9432 7401.

We’re looking for a data passionate analyst in the Sydney area. If you’re interested in joining our funky team of direct marketing database experts, or know someone who might be, head over to http://www.marketsoft.com.au/about/career-opportunities/.

Many clients are moving towards more informed decision making abilities on their marketing strategies and tactics, however many still struggle to “put their house” on a decision given the many moving targets clouding their view.

Our advice to remove these clouds and increase decision confidence is to pursue the following journey:

1. Optimise Data Processes adjust your many legacy data processes to generate more relevant and accurate data
2. Data Visualisation create a flexible environment whereby your data is easy to view, visualise and gain ad-hoc actionable feedback from
3. Dashboard Benchmarking beyond ad-hoc data visualisation comes benchmarking. Create simple dashboards to measure your performance consistently over time
4. Marketing Intelligence a nirvana that can always be improved. Continual review of the first 3 steps will efficiently evolve your speed and quality of informed decisions

To talk through the range of options available around starting the journey towards Marketing Intelligence or for any help in ensuring you’re getting the most out of your data, give us a call today on (02) 9432 7401.

In the past this may have a required a heavy investment or lengthy project, however with a range of solutions and services now available this is no longer the case. While we’ve found there to be a number of key players in the data visualisation market, as is typically the case, the key to accurate and actionable insights is ensuring quality & relevant data is leveraged to begin with.

Our advice is:

1. Quality spend the majority of your time ensuring data is correctly processed, consolidated and leveraged in order to maximise your data visualisation ROI
2. Insights create a flexible environment whereby your data is easy to view, visualise and gain ad hoc actionable feedback from
3. Benchmark beyond insights come benchmarks. Create simple dashboards to measure your performance over time and changes against
4. Evolve combine insights and benchmarks regularly to produce an ongoing evolving environment where you learn and implement changes on a perpetually faster basis

To talk through the range of options available around data visualisation or for any help in ensuring you’re getting the most out of your data, give us a call today on (02) 9432 7401.

Loosing customers just because their contact details are out of date is the last issue marketers should have to think about.

Sure, some subscription based product organisations avoid interrupting their customers for fear of churn, however the majority of organisations have no valid reasons not to follow some simple processes to minimise this loss.

Our advice is:

1. Automate implement regular standard processes
2. Reference match to 3^rd party sources for change of address, left address, correct address, deceased, etc.
3. Leverage include reminders on as many communications as possible for customers to update their details
4. Innovate explore, measure and tweak the many available channels for encouraging detail updates, such as post-paid reply forms, web landing pages, or even incentives

To talk through maximising your customer recovery processes or for any help in ensuring you’re getting the most out of your data, give us a call today on (02) 9432 7401.

Unless you have the ultimate marketing database containing every demographic detail, every behaviour, every preference, and every relationship across all customers, there will always be marketing initiatives that are inhibited due to missing or out of date data.

The next question we get from clients is how do we fill these customer knowledge gaps without having to make too many assumptions? Ah ha… Enhance it! Data enhancement is the fine art between balancing cost, reliability, and end value.

Our advice is:

1. Cost Focus on high value customers where possible
2. Reliability Be wary of 3^rd party data refresh rates, breadth of population, and privacy policies. Sometimes it is worthwhile to simply cross-pollinate your data by leveraging other internal data
3. Value Try find past results or test samples on lift in response rates due to enhancement. This is critical on the high cost enhancements such as phone & geo-demographic data

To talk through our range of data enhancement techniques or for any help in ensuring you’re getting the most out of your data, give us a call today on (02) 9432 7401.

We’ve found over a number of years that there are several key elements required to enable centralised campaign management:

1. Consolidated Marketing Database A clean, accessible and relevant marketing database should always be the main enabler of successful direct marketing, let alone evolved centralised management. This includes regular data health checks and cleansing, as well as housing the data on a platform relevant to your needs.
2. Single Customer View By establishing a clear picture of each customer across various data sources, marketers are far more empowered to get a view of true performance across campaigns, as well as establish more accurate recency/frequency behavioural patterns.
3. Campaign Level Data It may seem simple; however a common pitfall we see is companies not recording consolidated and precise campaign level data. This may include straightforward values such as products and dates; however you may also consider storing costs, campaign influences or creative groups.

To talk through these and the array of other centralised campaign techniques, or for any help in ensuring you’re getting the most out of your data, give us a call today on (02) 9432 7401.