Why build a marketing database?

19.10.08 11:11 PM By S.Swaminathan

In an interesting post Jay Budford writes:

At the DMA Conference in Las Vegas this week, I heard a common question.  "Why set up a Marketing Database?  We have a CRM platform." 

Then I begin to ask the questions.  How long does it take to get data from IT to complete the data processing for your marketing campaigns?  How difficult is it to utilize business intelligence to develop campaign triggers or report on marketing results? Where does the marketing information reside in your CRM platform?  I often hear "by the time our business intelligence group receives data and completes data analysis the relevance of the marketing opportunity discovered by our market research has passed!"  The reason this is happening is simple;  you have data management occuring at the enterprise level in order to run the back-end of the business, not specifically marketing data that captures the essence of the customer interaction required for integrated marketing activities. We service several Fortune 500 clients, those with a true marketing database are able to successfully execute campaign management, triggered marketing and deliver great marketing ROI.  Those of our clients that rely on enterprise level information management are only able to manage campaigns as "one-offs,"  the results often a fraction of those with a true marketing database.  It is a simple question with a simpler answer, in order to optimize marketing ROI you must have a database built for that purpose.

My View
: I can't agree more with Jay. Many of the clients we work with have similar issues and have found solutions similar to what Jay has written about. If companies want to really do customer-focussed marketing right from prospecting to acquisition to retention to growth, you need a marketing database.

Else,  they will pay only lip service to such an intention and will never really execute them at all.


S.Swaminathan

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