Your typical direct marketing campaign would involve sending out some kind of marketing communication to a group of current or potential customers, or both.

But did you know that the success of your marketing campaign relies heavily on the quality of the data contained in your company’s database?

The amount and type of customer information, as well as the way in which you can manipulate the database information and link it to your sales, all influences the end effectiveness of your campaign.

To ensure that the quality of your company’s database is boosting your chances of success, not jeopardising it, use the following four strategies:

1. Collect detailed customer information using your website

   Your website is an ideal location to collect information your customer's likes, dislikes, product preferences and preferred method of receiving marketing information. Using an incentive (such as a future discount) or competition prize, you can increase your response rate to build a valuable complete picture of your target market.

2. Use suitable CRM software to manage your customer information

   If you are currently using Microsoft Excel or Access to manage your customer database, you are not leveraging your collected customer information as much as you could be. The best marketers use specifically designed Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to effectively record and manage each and every interaction they have with their target. This allows you to link each sales transaction to a customer record, and understand the most and least successful marketing campaigns. The result is that you become more aware of the communications to which your customer segments responds.

3. Update your customer database regularly

   Maintaining the accuracy of your customer data is crucial to ensuring the success of your direct marketing campaign. There should be at least one person in your company who has responsibility for making sure your database is up-to-date. Ideally, this updating process should be automated so that every few months your customers will receive an email asking them to confirm their contact details or personal information on your database is still current. Once you can be certain your customer information is correct, you can automate an even greater number of repetitive tasks such as invoicing or service reminders. All this means a more professional corporate image and significant cost savings for your business.

4. Link your database into your business processes

   You can even better target the different segments in your market through logically linking your customer database to as many of your business processes as possible. For example, if your business employs project-tracking, distribution, PDA or mobile phone technology as part of its every-day processes, you should be linking the information generated from these systems back into your database. Unused customer information equals wasted customers insights.

Once you have analysed the characteristics of each segment, you can identify the profitability of each customer group and then tailor your direct marketing campaigns accordingly. It is a vicious cycle – once you can more clearly understand your customer needs, you can better meet them. And once you better meet their needs, you retain their business, while generating even more.

For further information on how your business can employ online technology to improve the quality of your customer database, contact Fred Schebesta at fred.schebesta@freestylemedia.com.au