Database
marketing is the technique of gathering all the data
available about your customer, leads, and prospects into a
central database and turning that data into information to
drive all your marketing efforts. The information is stored
in a marketing database and can be used at both the
strategic and tactical levels to drive targeted marketing
efforts.
A company that utilizes database marketing continually
gathers, refines, and analyzes data about their customers,
their buying history, prospects, past marketing efforts,
demographics, and so forth. They analyze the data to turn it
into information that supports all their marketing and sales
programs. More enlightened marketing companies also use
customer and prospect interests and preferences, generally
gathered on their web site, to tailor marketing efforts
right down to the individual level.
Who Uses Database Marketing?
The most successful companies on the Internet today are
database marketers. Dell Computer and Lands' End are great
examples. Database marketers can...
- Send targeted promotions to any segment of their customer
and prospect lists - Measure the value of their individual
customers - Track promotional efforts, measure responses,
purchases, and the return on investment for every dollar
spent on their promotional efforts.
Database marketing has long been in the domain of the
Fortune 500 - companies that spend millions of dollars on
their marketing efforts. It is now in the domain of smaller
organizations with smaller budgets and the biggest bang for
your dealerships marketing dollar!
Relational Database Marketing & Direct Marketing
Direct marketing describes a collection of tactics and
communication channels (direct mail, email, telemarketing,
etc) that share a common attribute...the results can be
measured. ("I mailed 1000 letters, 10 people responded, and
I made 2 sales"). A common, if simplistic, definition of
direct marketing is "marketing with measurable results."
Database marketing organizes a company's customer and
competitive data so that it can be used more effectively in
a direct marketing effort. It is a way of organizing the
whole marketing process. Database marketing allows you to
choose what to market to whom - and when, based on the sum
total of your knowledge and experience with a customer or
prospect. Then, assuming the use of good direct marketing
techniques, you can measure the effectiveness of the effort.
Benefits of Database Marketing
The single most important benefit of database marketing is
the ability to target your marketing efforts, which means
specific groups in your marketing database get specific
messages that are important to them. You will focus your
marketing dollars on customers that are most likely to buy
and spend less on customers that are less likely to buy. The
result is an increased return on your marketing investment.
5 Tips to improve your Relational Database Marketing
Efforts:
1- Get Historical - historical data is key to understanding
your dealerships typical customer. You can get the last 10
years of customer records from your OEM to help you do this.
Your market is not different but your make, your management
and sales team's skill and experience make different
customer segments better for your dealership; your
historical data will give you that customer profile.
2- Use your existing customer profile to create a
competitive customer database for growth.
3- Segment your customers, customer segmentation will allow
your database marketing efforts to sent targeted messages to
specific customers and talk to them rather than at them.
4- Don't limit your targeted marketing to just one channel
use all channels in an organized format (direct mail, email,
voice, call center, online marketing) and be CONSISTENT.
Database marketing is not just something you do when you
think you need a traffic boost, the most successful
dealerships are consistent with their database marketing
efforts.
5- You Cannot Manage What You Cannot Measure - constantly
track the performance metric of every campaign, best
performing segments, makes, models ect.
In summary... Database marketing makes all your marketing
efforts more intelligent by making marketing decisions based
on facts gleaned from your marketing database. The result is
enhanced sales with limited marketing expenses - and better
return on your marketing investment.
Larry Bruce is President/CEO of Aim Data and can be
contacted at:
[email protected]
|
