What are direct marketing and interactive marketing? 579
How much?
the price of each item;
gross order value;
less out-of-stocks;
less returns.
When?
when last instruction/order received;
when last instruction/order fulfilled.
Why?
response/non-response to last promotion;
identifying code of promotion causing
response.
Not every system will contain transactional
data because they won’t always be available.
For example, Lever Brothers would not have
full transaction data for every Persil buyer, but
would have promotional responses recorded on
their database.
Business-to-business customer marketing
data are often more extensive and complex. A
company may have a number of identities
(branches, departments, divisions) and a good
many individual buyers or decision makers. A
business customer may also use multichannels
to secure supplies of different items. Purchases
are increasingly likely to be automated, using
EDI, Internet exchanges or an extranet.
Real time data
Websites and contact centres can, with the
right software, respond to purchase data in real
time. When a customer puts a Manchester
United Annual in the shopping basket this may
trigger the offer of a David Beckham
biography.
Opportunistic marketing of this sort will
be used in combination with offers or other
special treatment that are driven by previously
captured data.Advantages of the database
A database exploiting transactional informa-
tion tells the marketer everything about cus-
tomers’ purchases updated with each new
response (and non-response).
For example, the transactional database: includes all customers, not just a sample or
cross-section;
gives customer value data: Recency, Frequency,
Monetary value (RFM) of purchases
culminating in the lifetime value (LTV) of each
customer;
tells us about new customers: what they
responded to and, perhaps, which creative
treatment appealed to them;
tells us about lost, lapsed and inactive
customers;
tells us about who buys which products and/or
responds to which types of incentive or
message;
gives continuous information which is
automatically updated with each new
transaction;
reports upon, and analyses, marketing
campaigns and tactics;
facilitates controlled tests of alternatives, e.g.
product and price comparisons;
provides back data (historical data) which help
the process of predicting the future behaviour
of each and every customer.Correctly used, a transactional customer data-
base gives a running commentary on the
marketer’s ability to serve the needs of custom-
ers, highlighting opportunities to increase
efficiency.
At one time car rental advertising was
almost untargeted. But the direct marketer
differentiates between customers and non-cus-
tomers, then between casual customers and
regular customers, and finally between regular
customers and frequent customers. The example
of the American car rental market shows why.
The top 25 per cent of customers are those
who rent a car more than once. But within this