Save resources and avoid offending surviving family members by removing deceased contacts from your file. Marketsoft is proud to launch its latest innovation by delivering the most comprehensive deceased flagging service for Australian customer records.

As you may be aware, the state governments manage the registry of births, deaths, and marriages however will not release this in the public domain.Marketsoft has developed techniques to gather and consolidate the death notifications that are advertised in the public domain.

Our advice to understanding the benefits is:

1. Request a free audit – most clients have averaged 1% in confident matches to client campaigns and a further 1% can be matched for a slightly less confident match
2. Calculate the ROI – based on number of communications and the age demographic the savings can be $1,000’s on every campaign
3. Automate your campaign process – ensure the process can be run within hours and becomes a seamless stage in your campaign process

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

In an age when marketing budgets are as stretched as the proverbial guitar string, one would be forgiven for feeling a little hesitant when it comes to even newer best practices. However, as radical revolutions such as digital marketing automation and social media engagement engulf a marketer’s psyche, focus is often diverted at a rate of knots. The flurry of new technology, channels and buzzwords is like a storm – storm’s pass, right?

Grab the sandbags and batten down the hatches because there’s some bad news; things are only going to get worse.

While marketing’s core fundamental - speaking to the right person at the right time with the right offer - has not changed in 30 years, the channels and abilities of marketers to do it better certainly have. Campaigns are smaller, more frequent and over a range of increasingly diverse channels. Customer engagement – that is, the ability to listen and respond – is now a must. As a result, the data raised by this array of processes has become far deeper, abundant and complex than ever before.

There is however, ways to get the most of whatever storm blows your way. Our advice is:

1. Stick to what you know – evolve a strategy you and your team is comfortable with; you’re far better off doing a few things well than being washed away by the storm
2. Start small – the marketing world now revolves around the concept of failing fast; model your marketing strategy in a way which allows you to test concepts before making more sizeable investments
3. Test and tweak – assign someone in the team to be accountable for each element (channel, tactic, or other) and build metrics around each; measure and tweak the formula as required
4. Bring it all together – the key to guaranteeing all your marketing initiatives exceed expectations is ensuring they’re on a single, agile platform; remember, data is central to this!

To talk through the range of options available to weather the marketing storm, 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 a world of data driven marketing, sometimes second best isn’t such a bad thing…

The unwritten rule of direct marketing is thought by some to be focused on selecting the best customers (and simply ignoring the rest). By employing this tactic however, marketers miss a world of opportunity in those customer who are not immediately considered, and also risk ending up on the wrong side of economies of scale with low quantities.

After all, just because a profile doesn’t fit the offer, why not tailor the offer to the profile?

Therefore, an alternative is to leverage the next most relevant product as a means of protecting that precious ROI, in combination with other channels.

Our advice to understand the benefits and to start generating greater product relevance is:

1. Single Customer View – consolidate all campaigns across the organisation including external data where possible to view the past 2 to 5 years of product level performance
2. Multichannel data – consolidate campaigns across channels (e.g. mail, phone, eDM) to gain a more accurate view of the customer or prospect experience
3. Agile testing environment– ensure you have an easy to use data selection and scenario planning environment so as to experiment with product cycle combinations

To talk through the range of options available around effective communication history 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.

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.