All Things Data

Campaign Lists vs. Building Databases

Many companies seek out the advice of consultants, brokers, and data list companies to provide them with data for marketing campaigns.  However, both the providers of the lists and those that are seeking prospect lists are missing out on the strategic value that external marketing data can provide as part of a customer data integration application to build a single customer view. 

External marketing campaign lists can be purchased with company, contact, and demographic information that can be used for analysis and database building purposes.  When you are speaking about b-to-b prospect lists, examples of demographic information include employee size, company revenue, and industry.  All kinds of general information and information that is specific to an industry, such as when a Worker’s Comp file is up for renewal, are also available.  All of this information can add value to your single view of the customer.

Here are 4 ways that you can benefit from utilizing customer data integration and external marketing data in order to profile your current customer and prospect base as part of a single customer view:

1.  Save money and be more effective by developing more targeted prospects lists for your next campaign. 

2.  Up-sell, cross-sell, and service customers with external information on your customers and prospects

3.  Identify potential business for on-going marketing and not just one-time campaigns

4.  Allocate company resources better by understanding the combinations of your customers’ demographics, products and services purchased, revenues produced, and other variables

Customer Data Integration Experts to Speak at Insurance Direct Marketing Forum Session

I wanted to take this opportunity to announce that Bob Bloom, President of Business Development Solutions, and our client, Tim Casey from Conner Strong, will jointly present a case study on utilizing customer data integration to develop a single customer view for sales and marketing analysis and action.

The session is part of The 6th Annual Insurance Direct Marketing Forum in Philadelphia on September 15, 2008.  

So if you are going to be attending the conference, please drop by and say hi to Bob.

To view the press release:  http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/08/prweb1212374.htm

Customer Data Integration, Outlook® and Lotus Notes®, and Building a New Database

Previously, I wrote about integrating your communication systems, such Outlook and Lotus Notes, with your CRM, accounting, and other databases in order to develop a single customer view using customer data integration (“CDI”).

However, in many organizations, even if some individuals or departments have a customer relationship management system or contact management database, not everyone is on the same centralized system.  Therefore, in these organizations, Outlook or Lotus Notes are the true central repository of the company’s customers and prospect information.  At some point, the organization may realize that these communication systems have limitations when it comes to sales, marketing, and customer service objectives and therefore would want to adopt a centralize customer relationship management system for their customers and prospects.

A CDI system can use the information that is in Outlook or Lotus Notes in order to help build a new database.  The customer data integration matching and linking process can identify all of the companies, contacts, and addresses that are part of the same or related organization.  The CDI match can identify the overlap and duplicate records among the many Outlook and Lotus Notes users in your organization.  Further, the customer data integration solution can help you identify and organize the data into corporate hierarchies.  The match results then can be used to populate and organize the new customer relationship management solution.

Once the new CRM system is built, you can continue to use your customer data integration software application to integrate the CRM database with Outlook or Lotus Notes, accounting and other financial systems, marketing databases, and other separate data silos in order to develop a single customer view.  This single view of the customer can be utilized to improve sales, marketing, and customer service.  IT can also use the customer data integration match results to manage duplicates, organize corporate hierarchies, transfer records between systems, and other data management and data quality issues on an on-going basis.

Customer Data Integration and B-to-B Multi-Channel Marketing

In today’s world, business to business marketers need to provide their customers and prospects multiple channels so that their customers can communicate with your organization in the manner that meets the customer’s needs.  Depending on the type of business, a customer can buy or interact with your organization on-line, by email, by mail, by phone, through a reseller, at a trade show, or some other method.

A single view of the customer is necessary so that you have a complete understanding of the history with that customer.  Customer service can be improved by understanding the full relationship with that customer.  A single customer view enables sales to up-sell and cross-sell utilizing the knowledge of all of the transactions, communications, and other relevant information with the customer.  Marketing can analyze the complete business intelligence with a customer and be able to generate reports and campaigns by associating all of the interactions from the multiple channels that the customer chose.

However, the challenge is that the same or related customer information may be entered in different ways at these various venues.  This makes it difficult to have a single view of the customer.  For example, if you are a b-to-b multi-channel marketer, person “A” may contact your organization through your website.  Person “B” may contact their value added reseller who forwards the request on to your company via email.  The first person may submit the information with the full company name spelled out.  The second one may abbreviate the company.  The combinations of the company name, addresses, contact names, and the methods that are used to contact your organization are endless.

Customer data integration (“CDI”) can match and link the various interactions with your organization from the multiple channels that client has used.  The CDI solution can match the various companies, locations, and contacts that are related in order to develop a single customer view.  With a complete single view of the customer, sales, marketing, and customer service can be improved by utilizing all of the business intelligence for that customer or prospect.

Customer Data Integration and Correlating Related Records

A well known business adage is that your best prospect is your current customer.  In today’s tough business environment, the first place to look for new business is up-sell opportunities with your existing customer base.  As a related concept, the next best place to look for new business is cross-sell opportunities with a prospect that is related to your current customers.

Related organizations can be found both within your existing database and external marketing files.  Customer data integration (“CDI”) can be utilized to correlate related records to develop the single view of your customer that includes both the organization that you are dealing with and those that are related.

Using the matching techniques from a customer data integration solution along with any linkage that exists in your internal database systems and external sources, a single customer view can be developed so that you can see all of the individuals, locations, divisions, departments, and parent/subsidiary organizations that are related to your current customers and contacts.  Once identified, you can ask your contacts at customer “A” for referrals at related company “B”.  With this reference, you now have credibility as you approach the new opportunity.

External Business, Institutional, and Specialized Marketing Data, Customer Data Integration, and a Single Customer View

Many organizations are using external business, institutional, and specialized marketing data to enhance their single customer view.  However, there are many different data providers and the question is which one to choose.

If an organization has a relatively broad market, the answer may be that no single data vendor can meet all of the objectives.  For example, an organization may sell to a variety of for profit organizations, non-profit organizations, and government markets.  It might take at least 3 different data source providers to develop a single customer view that includes external marketing data for each of these different markets.  Further, even within each of these general markets, there may be sub-markets that require different external sources.  Public universities and federal government agencies both broadly fit under the category of government institutions and yet the best lists for these groups may come from completely different companies.

In addition to choosing external data based on the market, additional in-depth information might be needed to be included in a single view of your customers to help up-sell and cross-sell existing customers or prospect to potential customers.  A general compiled business list may be a good start to find basic information about a customer or prospect such as the name of an organization, the location, a general description of the business, the CEO, and other basic information.  However, if other senior level personnel in the business or more detailed information about that organization are needed, additional lists may be required to build the database.  There may be specific key indicators of an opportunity that are contained in Public Record files such as UCC filings, ERISA, or Workers’ Compensation information or there may be certain business intelligence that has been researched, such as what type or how much equipment an organization owns, by a different list provider.

The challenge in utilizing all of this external marketing data is keeping it properly organized.  Further, there most likely will be overlap and duplication between some of the external files.  A Customer Data Integration (“CDI”) application can keep this information together and correlated.  A CDI application can enable the best business intelligence from each file without the perils overlap and duplication.  By appending Common IDs to records that are part of the same organization or are related to an organization, these multiple files can be correlated to records in order to build the appropriate single view of each customer and prospect.

Sales can have a single customer view that is based on both internal and external data in order to help cross-sell and up-sell customers and prospects.  Marketing can analyze data based on a combination of internal data from disparate data sources and external business intelligence.  Further, the perils over counting the same organization as more than one “opportunity” during data analysis can be reduced since the multiple representations of the same organization will have the same Common ID as part of the Customer Data Integration process and therefore will only be counted as one.   

Customer Data Integration and Articulating Business Valuation

When a company is thinking about instituting customer data integration (“CDI”) to develop a single customer view, usually the organization is trying to better utilize their data to increase sales, decrease costs, and better serve customers.  However, in addition to helping improve the day to day operations, customer data integration can also help articulate the value of an organization to outside parties.

Many organizations sell to different individuals, locations, departments, divisions, and subsidiaries within the same organization.  There may also be indirect sales through distributors, consortia, and other third-parties.  This combination may make it extremely difficult for a company to track how much business they are doing with any particular organization.

When a company is looking for investors or needs to value its business for some other purpose, one critical factor in evaluating an organization’s worth is understanding how much business that they are currently doing and how much potential business is out there.

Customer data integration can help develop the single view of the customer needed to calculate account penetration and market penetration.  With a single customer view, all of the sales to the same organization, whether they are made directly to various units of an organization or indirectly through third-parties can now be properly identified.  Once identified, an accurate calculation as to how much business you are doing with that organization can be made.  Further, using comparisons with other similar organizations in your database, you can calculate the potential opportunity for that account.  By adding all of the potential with each account, you can calculate the market potential that you have within your current customer base.  Combine your customer base market potential with an external database that contains the entire market and the full market potential can now be articulated.

Customer Data Integration and Communication Systems

Although a company may have adopted a CRM or other similar system, many representatives use their organization’s communications system, such as Outlook® or Lotus Notes® as their main system to manage their contacts.  This is especially true for those individuals who spend a lot of time out of the office and are primarily updating their contact information in their hand held devices while they are on the road.  These reps often do not update the company’s centralized contact management system when they are back in the office.

While these communication systems are great for keeping track of calendars and sending and receiving email, not having all of the organization’s contact information centrally coordinated can be problematic for a company even if the reps feel that this is fine for their own purposes.

A single view of the customer that is developed by a customer data integration (“CDI”) match is needed in order to maximize that account’s potential.  There may be other individuals, divisions, departments, subsidiaries that can be marketed as part of up-sell and cross-sell campaigns.  Sales managers can better assist the selling effort if they have a single customer view.

Customer data integration can help identify the forest through the trees.  Instead of just seeing your own contacts, CDI enables all the locations and contacts that are part of the same organization along with the authorized information about these relationships to be viewed.   Further, this single customer view is on-going and continually updated and not just a moment in time snapshot.

When the communication system is integrated with the other data assets such as CRM, accounting, and external marketing files through customer data integration, then even the representatives themselves can be more effective in their own planning by knowing the full extent of the organization’s relationship with an account and viewing the related information that is stored in other data sources.