Top Tips: 3 Data Marketing Resolutions You Can Keep in 2014
Forget about joining the gym and drinking less coffee; make 2014 the year you get your data marketing strategy watertight with these top tips from CRM guru Pamela Bath of award-winning agency The Blueberry Wave.
1. Integrate your business channels for maximum ROI
Imagine your CRM platform is a shiny new bucket, and empty all your channels into it – that includes everything from social media and websites to call centres, retail outlets and mail orders. Pulling this platform into a clear, structured order that’s easy to interrogate will help you target your customers as individuals, rather than transactions.
Look carefully at how many years your customers have chosen to conduct business with you, how frequently they’ve engaged with your brand and how much money they’ve spent with you. That way, you’ll not only be able to recognise who is most valuable to you, but you’ll also be able to reward customers in a way that maximises their loyalty to your brand.
2. Communicate more effectively with your customers
It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of bombarding past customers who haven’t opened an email from you in years. The same applies to treating all your customers the same, because it’s quicker to send them one piece of standard email copy than to set up some good dynamic content.
But if you find yourself asking why your CRM campaigns are producing little returns, it’s time to up your game. The answers are all in your data; look carefully at the way your customers have reacted to previous campaigns, and which channels they’re responding to.
Make your marketing database work harder for you by setting it up to recognise your most valuable and most profitable customers, so you can approach them in a different way to someone who hasn’t interacted with your brand for years.
3: Manage your data collection methods
January is the perfect time look at your data protection statements and organise your permission requests. Key points to look at include whether all your customer touch points carry the same data protection statement, and whether you actually need to ask permission if your customers have already provided it.
You might be managing your communication permissions at an individual level, and have two email addresses with two different permissions for the same person; but the latest permission is the only one you can store, since it overrides all previous permissions.
Be careful that you don’t trap yourself into a single channel permission statement; make sure your data protection statement allows you to contact prospective or existing customers via any channel you may want to use in the future, so you can reach the right people in the right way.
For more information, visit www.blueberrywave.co.uk
The Blueberry Wave is an award-winning data agency specialising in data strategy, planning, research, insight, and database design and management.
Based in the Cotswolds, The Blueberry Wave have been helping big brands change the way they engage with their customers for over a decade. By simplifying the complex world of big data, The Blueberry Wave enable their clients to generate effective customer growth and increase profitability.
PAMELA BATH
Pamela knows direct marketing from both client and agency perspectives. Formerly as Managing Director of Draft Worldwide and of Scotts of Stow Mail Order, seven years running the largest consumer lifestyle companies gives her a thorough knowledge of the best use of data to interpret customer behaviours.
A Director of Database Marketing CACI and Sales and Marketing Director NDL Claritas gave her the opportunity to develop data driven marketing strategies that are measurable and achievable.Dog lover with a penchant for country living. Enjoys a generous glass of wine and good food. Loves a challenge and she usually gets one.
Please contact Lara Page at Voiceboxx on 0121 314 2898 or email lara.page@voiceboxx.co.uk