Database Marketing

What is database marketing?

The list, the creative and the proposal are the three important aspects of database marketing. In order to succeed, a campaign must first reach an audience who are likely to be receptive to purchasing your products or services. The selection of an audience in the form of a list is by far the most important aspects of a database marketing campaign. Eliminating lists with traits that are most obviously dissimilar to the traits of your best customers before commencing a campaign can often prove to be the difference in whether your next database marketing succeeds or fails.

Whatever the marketing budget, good quality database marketing is achieved by applying the most important measure of all…common sense. It can be sometimes difficult to get hold of lists that target the right decision maker but using telemarketing to build your own list might be a useful exercise before beginning database marketing. One effective form of database marketing that has become popular in recent years is email marketing. Sending emails can not only generate extremely high level response levels, but do so far more cheaply than any other form of database marketing. Emails are quick and easy to open, but it is worth considering that as a prospecting tool, you do risk being associated with ‘spam’ and under new legislation you could run the risk of the breaking the law if you do not have explicit permission from individuals to email them as part of a database marketing campaign. Never-the-less, creatively, simple graphical emails are likely to give you a better response than text only ones and can be a cost effective form of communication for database marketing, not just to new prospects but to existing customers.

Database marketing is very measurable, but it is not an exact science. The purpose of testing is to see which component parts might work better through change. Indeed, the most successful people in database marketing never stop testing. They are always striving to improve their results and know that what works today will not work forever. One of the biggest advantages of database marketing is that most of the channels can be tested before committing to a full campaign. Every test creates a body of knowledge that builds over time to make your database marketing more and more successful.

Business to business database marketing does not just require financial resources but human resources too. Staff are needed to implement, manage and monitor database marketing campaigns, develop and maintain the databases and of course handle the additional business generated. That said, proper planning will give you some an idea of the extra resources that might be needed for a database marketing campaign and when, and at what level, the extra expertise is required. Most potential suppliers will give you advice and help, to decide what to do.