Don’t Ditch Your Data — Fix It!

Think you don't own enough data to do personalized marketing? That might not be the case. Often

The first step is to figure out exactly where you are and what you need to do. This often involves contacting a data specialist who can analyze your data. While this sounds daunting, it’s really no different than taking your car to a repair shop. The mechanic hooks up the car to a machine that spits out a report telling you where the problems are. Data specialists do much the same thing.

One data specialist gives the example of a data profile it created for a Canadian retailer. The retailer had plenty of data and wanted to use it for 1:1 print marketing, so the data specialist ran a data audit. One of the most glaring challenges that immediately came to light was that the retailer had addresses for only 50% of its customers. It did, however, have phone numbers. The data specialist contacted a list house that maps phone numbers to names and addresses provided the retailer with the missing information.

In another example, the data specialist found that each one of the retailer’s stores was gathering customer data in isolation. Each retail customer might have two, three, even five different customer IDs, one for each store in which they shopped. Once again, telephone numbers came to the rescue. The data specialist used each shopper’s telephone number as a common point of contact to consolidate each shopper’s data from each store into a single marketing database.

Seemingly overwhelming problems often have simple solutions. A basic diagnostic test is often half the battle. So if you think your data needs a check-up, don’t panic. Let us coordinate the project so that you get just the solution you need.

marketers do own enough data, but that data is not centralized or is incomplete or inaccurate. If you fall into the latter category, the answer isn’t ditching your dreams of personalization. It’s fixing the problems in your data.

 ~ Kelly Mank, President of Time4Printing, Kelly@Time4Printing.com
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Tap the Subconscious, Win the Sale!

Want to create direct mail that motivates to action? Take some tips from the advertising industry.

These tips are based on human psychology that smart advertisers know.

1. Don’t miss out! People like to be part of something new. If something exciting is going on, they don’t want to be left behind. “Join the millions of Americans who have discovered...”
2. Offer exclusivity. Consumers want their lives to be glamorous. They want to feel that they deserve something special. “Not everyone gets this deal, so apply today!” Exclusivity and insider status appeal to readers’ sense of pride and entitlement and can be powerful motivators.
3. Create value by association. Advertisers will often associate a product or service with something universally accepted as noble or being of great value. Jeep recently tapped this approach with its Super Bowl ads tying Jeep to the gritty images of the faces of America’s soldiers.
4. Appeal to charity or environmental causes. “Help us take care of America’s lost and abandoned pets. With every purchase, we will donate . . .” Who could say “no” to one of these sad-faced, abandoned creatures? No one, of course.
5. Give proof positive. Every marketer makes claims about their products, but when you back them up with statistics, those claims carry more punch. A mattress company might appeal to data from studies on sleep, for example (“Did you know that people who sleep soundly are 10% more productive at work?”) or a men’s suit company might talk about the percentage of executives who form opinions of job candidates within the first two seconds.

Consumers are motivated by a wide variety of factors, and many of them are subconscious. Tap into different motivators in your messaging and see which ones are most effective with your target audience.

 ~ Kelly Mank, President of Time4Printing, Kelly@Time4Printing.com
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LindedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/KellyMank
Twitter -  www.twitter.com/Time4Printing

Find Where Data Is Hiding

Think you don’t have enough data to drive personalized print marketing programs? To boost your
targeting and personalization efforts, maybe you need to invest in data gathering or purchasing third-party list. Or maybe — just maybe — you have more data than you think.

Let’s look at some of the many types of data that can get overlooked.
•    Transactional data. This includes both brick-and-mortar and from the online store.
•    Submissions through web contact forms.
•    Customer care (found in your CRM system)
•    Business reply cards. Too often, your BRCs are left at the fulfillment house and the valuable information that can be obtained from them is left unused.
•    SMS/cell phone marketing contacts. If you have a standalone system, get that information out of your text marketing solution and back into your CRM.
•    Responses to e-mail campaigns. Like text messaging, these data need to get back into your marketing database so what you learn through email contacts can be integrated into your direct mail and other channels, too.
•    Trade shows/events. Get those “card swipe” responses back into your system after post-show follow-up!
•    Customer and prospect surveys.

Aggregating the data from these disparate sources will give you a more well-rounded picture of your customers and target audience. This data can be cleaned up, de-duped, and filled in if necessary so that you can use it to create more relevant communications and drive sales.

If you need help locating or integrating data from all of these disparate sources, give us a call. We can help!

 ~ Kelly Mank, President of Time4Printing, Kelly@Time4Printing.com
Google+ - Time4Printing
LindedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/KellyMank
Twitter -  www.twitter.com/Time4Printing