Experian Marketing Services will be presenting marketing solutions and techniques to attendees at several sessions along with some of our leading client brands. Here’s a rundown:

• What Do Users Want From Mobile Commerce Sites?With the increasing penetration of smart phones providing the ability to grab consumers on the go, getting your mobile commerce site right can pay huge dividends. A panel of leading brands including HauteLook, Econsultancy and Experian Marketing Services will discuss an array of successful m-commerce strategies, tactics and best practices.
  Alok Kapur, vice president, Global Head of Mobile, Experian Marketing Services
  Monday, October 15, 11:15 am
• Supercharging Your Energy – How Duke Energy Changed How We View PowerLearn how Duke Energy put the customer at the center of their strategy and created programs to help them spend less on energy. Specific examples will be shared to illustrate how Duke Energy and Experian Marketing Services partnered to drive customer value, loyalty and customer satisfaction, leading to a growth in overall company revenues while encouraging people to spend less on energy.
  Rick Erwin, President, Data and Analytics Division, Experian Marketing Services
  Joe Cunningham, Manager, Market and Customer Insights, Duke Energy
  Tuesday, October 16, 2:00 pm
• Segmentation as a Strategy – Internally and Externally, a Zappos Case StudyZappos, known for its customer service obsession, relies on customer segmentation data which is used in all areas of the company, including operations, product management, merchandising and marketing. This case study will illustrate how strategies are developed, and how the entire company aligns to achieve actions and results.
  Rick Erwin, President, Data and Analytics Division, Experian Marketing Services
  Amara Silao, Senior Director, Retail Operations and Product Management, Zappos
  Dinesh Gaur, Analytics Manager, Zappos
  Chris Peake, Director, Product Management Customer Experience & Data, Zappos
  Lisa Archambault, Display Marketing Manager, Zappos
  Wednesday, October 17, 10:00 am
• Database Marketing Certification – Attaining Marketing Database ROI
  This session brings together data and technology experts to describe how best-in-class solutions within an integrated data management platform support data flow and customer intelligence delivery for more effective customer engagement across all channels.
  Marcus Tewksbury, Experian Marketing Services
  Paul Manderville, Experian Marketing Services’ Conversen
  Wednesday, October 17, 1:00 pm

If you’re at the show and would like to learn more, please stop by Experian’s Booth 815 or visit the DMA event agenda.

As markets and consumer behavior evolve, the most successful businesses are those that constantly look to improve their strategies and processes to better meet changing demands. This especially holds true in today’s digital age where consumers are adopting new communication channels and devices at an unprecedented rate.

As marketers, it is our duty to help our companies evolve and adapt communications to enable improved customer engagement, purchasing behavior and loyalty. According to a recent Forrester Consulting study entitled: “The Multichannel Maturity Mandate,”

“The approach that marketers have adopted to manage and optimize customer engagement across the burgeoning landscape of customer touchpoints is generally referred to as multichannel marketing.” ¹

The study reports key findings and statistics reflecting 226 surveyed marketing professionals that represent various companies across a range of verticals. As a culmination of the research, Forrester analysts discovered that the majority of marketers consider multi-channel marketing an industry norm that, if executed effectively, garners considerable gains and, if not, devastating losses. Conversely, an ample portion of the survey participants also indicated that although they perceive multi-channel marketing as a definite opportunity for improvement, a full transition is not an immediate business priority.

In fact, many marketers view a transition into a fully integrated multi-channel marketing strategy as a daunting task that may even appear to be unattainable. Forrester categorizes companies into four levels of “multichannel maturity.” Experian Marketing Services has developed a similar identification model called “The Marketing Sophistication Curve℠.”

Forrester’s Levels of Multichannel Maturity                        Experian’s levels of Marketing Sophistication

Channel Entropy                                                                             Channel execution

Channel Independence                                                                  Channel optimization

Multichannel Integration                                                              Multi-channel marketing

Multichannel Engagement                                                            Cross-channel optimization

The Marketing Sophistication Curve serves as a starting point for organizations to first determine where they stand in today’s complex marketing ecosystem in order to glean insights and recommendations on how to best progress toward true “cross-channel optimization” – the equivalent to what Forrester describes as “Multichannel Engagement.”

With Forrester reporting that 40% of marketers indicate that they are in transition, The Marketing Sophistication Curve, paired with the industry guidance, becomes especially useful to organizations that realize the need to advance their multi-channel marketing efforts, but are unsure where exactly they stand and where to enhance their capabilities.

Although many multi-channel marketers may be just pushing off of the starting line, they should not feel as though they are running the race alone. It is a long journey to the finish line of cross-channel optimization – full of hurdles and pain points that everyone in the industry is tackling at their own pace.

“Even the most mature practitioners struggle to support integrated customer interactions across multiple channels. Our research indicates that there is a real opportunity to take multichannel marketing to the next level.”

 The fact is that marketers can never stop looking for ways to enhance and improve their strategies. Those that do will be faced with declining ROI, and diminishing revenues. Circling back to my opening proclamation about the importance of innovation, after only a few years of modernizing and manufacturing the automobile in the form of a Model T Ford, Henry Ford realized the true danger of complacency. This revelation in the face of declining demand eventually spurred Ford’s initiative to design new customized models available in a variety of different colors.

Businesses need to stay relevant to their core customer base. It is an absolute requirement for success. This entails a constant thirst for improved processes, strategies and ultimately for progression.

¹ “The Multichannel Maturity Mandate,” a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sitecore, May 2012

With the proliferation of the Internet and mobile technology, today’s consumer operates differently and expects more from their favorite brands. To adapt to that new American consumer, marketers are using highly targeted strategies to drive interest. These can be messages that are relevant to a few hundred consumers or detailed one-on-one communications that target individuals at the point of sale or online.

But some marketers struggle to execute these tactics effectively. Most segmentation is currently done prior to a campaign, meaning that marketers determine which message a consumer will receive before ever interacting with that individual. Unfortunately, with the rapid nature of purchasing decisions and buying transactions, businesses often miss opportunities because it takes too long to get the right message to the right consumer.

To keep up, marketers need to collect intelligence at the point of contact so they can understand each individual consumer’s habits and preferences during that connection. This intelligence can then feed modeling algorithms that enable automatic offers based on an individual’s preferences.

To develop a strategy around real-time marketing intelligence, marketers should take the following steps:

1. Clean existing data – at the root of any intelligence strategy is data. Information determines a company’s ability to reach target individuals – and understand who they are and what they’re interested in. Unfortunately, if the data that feeds intelligence efforts is inaccurate, marketers are simply unable to communicate with or understand consumers. Ensuring the validity of contact information, internal records and third-party data elements helps organizations target consumers and ensures that sophisticated analysis is as precise as possible.
2. Identify strategies – organizations should analyze their target markets and determine which communication channels could benefit from a more personalized customer experience. Marketers should decide how they want to change each communication to help drive the desired action from each consumer. Consider personalizing website displays based on geographic regions, customizing an introductory message or revamping loyalty campaigns based on purchase history and consumer interests.
3. Real-time intelligence – marketers should build models to help predict the best offers for each target audience. These models can be designed to take into account demographic and behavioral information, as well as purchase history and internal data. Marketers can feed these models with intelligence gained at the point of contact to prompt consumers in real time with specific, relevant offers.

As marketers continue to enhance and refine targeting efforts, it’s important to gain customer insight. Those who leverage these advanced technologies and strategies will create stronger customer engagement.

Segmenting customers and taking measurable action in real time are advanced techniques that appeal to many marketers today. Achieving this level of interaction allows organizations to optimize marketing efforts and provide the right offer at the right time to the right consumer.

First, it is imperative to determine what lies in the “social silo” that will impact other channels. For example, data-driven profiles, plus segmentation and models of highly engaged high value Facebook fans, can be used in all channels. We know that all fans are not high value, but high value customers are often fans — and socially active. So it’s important to be able to leverage social intelligence in customer marketing strategy and plans, thereby making the intelligence actionable for improved program results.

So what’s the best way to do this?

Let’s look at a Facebook roadmap for social intelligence:

Leverage Open Graph in Facebook with offers to encourage fans and customers to connect, not just to increase the number of fans, but to gather opt-in data. Make a compelling offer in customer emails, on your website or on your Facebook page. (Make sure the privacy policy and the permissions you display cover as much data as possible.)

Once you collect this valuable information don’t just file it somewhere. Treat it as a valuable feed of customer information. Using email or other collected data, link the Facebook information to your customer, compiled demographics, attitudinal, and behavioral data.

• Flag this insight within your customer database so that you have a more complete view of your customers.
• Understand which social connectors are prospects, leads or existing customers.

Create profiles and add to models and segmentation frameworks.

This roadmap allows you to use social intelligence anywhere in your marketing programs across all channels for activities like:

• Developing marketing tactics for prospects, leads and customers.
• Targeting high-value social customers with tailored offers and messaging.
• Creating campaigns in the social space targeted to higher value fans.
• Adjusting campaign messaging in all channels.

Since social activity is very dynamic, you’ll want to manage the Open Graph opportunity on an ongoing basis, rotating offers and placement. And remember you can offer a discount, for example, but a sweepstakes or other offer aligned with your brand can also be extremely effective. The data you gather gives you a dynamic portrait of your most engaged customers. You can use it for more refined and effective marketing investments. You might also want to leverage a marketing services partner with linkage, quality data and analytic expertise to get started.

The payoff…

For the social team:

• A clear, data-driven picture of your brand’s most engaged fans, leading to smarter social display ads and campaigns.
• A way to communicate clearly to marketing colleagues about the social customer ¾ beyond likes, posts and sentiments.

For the CMO:

• An understanding of the types of customers invested in social media helps calibrate marketing spend.
• A sound way to evaluate social media investment.
• A more complete picture of customer behavior.

For other marketing teams:

• A valuable customer attribute that can be used to help refine segmentation and targeting strategies.
• Clear understanding of how to target customer segments and which channels are likely to be most effective.

Knocking down the “social silo” is necessary to gather compelling data that’s useful in every marketing channel AND to be able to improve the customer experience. Building social intelligence is a key activity to keep in step with today’s dynamic customer, and to make sure your marketing is relevant and timely.

This is a common scenario for retailers because they do not have a 360° view of their customers across all digital channels, and therefore, are lacking an understanding of their customers’ behaviors. If the retailer was able to identify who my friend was across all channels and recognize that he had already made the appliance purchase, wouldn’t it have made more sense to send him an offer for something else — or at the very least, not show him a discounted price on the item he’d just purchased? What if that retailer was able to connect his purchase (he gave them his name, terrestrial address and email address when he bought the appliance) to their customer database and make the distinction before the discounted email went out?  An email thanking him for his purchase would have made much more sense, and he might have appreciated an offer for an accessory that he hadn’t initially purchased.

Marketers today face unprecedented challenges when it comes to creating and maintaining a holistic view of their customers across their marketing ecosystem. It seems that customer interaction points, particularly in the digital world, continue to multiply on a daily basis. Add in the pressure of customers expecting highly relevant communications when and where they want them, and the business goals of increasing the lifetime value (LTV), and it equates to an increasingly difficult environment in which marketers must work. Finding, consolidating and analyzing data to achieve optimal customer interaction has never been further from us — and yet has never been so close.

With a plethora of tools available, marketers can reach their customers through emails, online profiles, loyalty programs, social network profiles and more. What hasn’t been readily available is the ability to link these digital profiles together, reducing duplication in marketing databases, giving marketers a clear understanding of active and inactive customers, plus who is buying from them, where they are shopping and how they want to be interacted with.

On the surface, this kind of customer information integration seems like a fairly simple task. Underneath however, there are several nuances within customer identity resolution that make this a profoundly difficult task. This isn’t about appending data; it’s about using the data a company already has, housed in multiple databases, and linking it all together through sophisticated matching algorithms that leverage a rich repository of referential data.

To make an integrated marketing strategy work, you need to be able to:

1. Validate contact data in real time, as it is entered online, in-store and over the phone

2. Create linkage of disparate identities and data sets, using merely a single piece of personally identifiable information for any customer

3. Enhance your data with a 360-degree view of your customers

4. Cleanse your data to remove duplicates or inaccurate information

5. Profile your best customers and understand how they want to be reached: mobile, email, catalog, social and more

6. Identify more customers like your best customers

Organizations can build this infrastructure in-house, however the process necessitates a large investment in technology and resources. In addition, the ability to resolve identities would be limited to the pieces of information collected by the organization. By working with an experienced partner who can resolve your customer and prospect identities across mediums, marketers create consistent and coordinated messaging strategies, understand the optimal path to purchase activities, maximize return on marketing investment and create memorable experiences for their customers.

Customers are the lifeblood of any business, yet businesses lose anywhere from 10-30% of them per year.

Today’s “always on” shopper makes decisions in every channel – direct, online and in-store. In looking for better ways to sell more products to current and new customers, marketers seek out ways to expand their prospect universe to improve customer acquisition levels. Why? Customers are the lifeblood of any business, yet businesses lose anywhere from 10-30% of them per year. This makes new customer acquisition extremely important to both protect and grow business year over year.

The acquisition challenge is that traditional prospect universe expansion is becoming increasingly difficult. Many marketers have exhausted list and co-op rental names, and optimization strategies. They’ve been using the same predictive prospecting models against compiled prospect data or co-ops for a long time. But these tools, which are based on traditional demographics, are increasingly leading to a decline in good prospect identification and acquisition. We know that in prospecting, there is no customer behavioral data to drive higher performing analytics – no plastic surgery or proverbial fountain of youth.

In today’s multi-channel shopping world, the fresh face of online behavior can’t be overlooked. While direct marketers in self-preservation mode have leveraged traditional acquisition models for years, the reality is that if they do not consider fresh new data and modeling solutions, they will be looking for their next, new job.

So, what can marketers do to overcome prospect universe expansion hurdles with online insight to increase acquisition and ROI?

Meet direct marketing’s fresh new face: online behavioral data and modeling.

Online behavioral data addresses a key challenge of traditional direct marketers: profitable prospect universe expansion. By incorporating online behavioral data (website traffic and behavior, search, demographics, lifestyle data) into offline marketing strategies, marketers can:

• Identify previously untapped prospect universes
• Suppress likely non-responders
• Enhance offline prospecting

Where else do consumers so actively demonstrate their purchase interest and behavior? Where else do we go when we want to learn about something? Anything? We go online. But most direct marketers have not enhanced their offline marketing efforts with online data, missing the opportunity to incorporate online behavior into targeting efforts.

With this fresh new data source, direct marketers are able to:

• Better understand customer behavior across channels
• Refresh their current models
• Develop better models, built from true, multi-channel data

Ultimately, direct marketers will be able to identify new pockets of high-value prospects that traditional response models miss, resulting in an increase in revenues and profit.

Fashion models and trends change, and sometimes that’s for the best, otherwise we might still be wearing parachute pants and slap bracelets. Luckily, you now know what the new face of marketing is and can begin integrating online behavior into your existing customer data today to leverage new marketing opportunities. Discover the new fresh face of direct marketing; learn more about online behavioral profiling and modeling.

What is the best course of action for the highest ROI?

There are a number of services providers that have proprietary processes to correct approximately 20% to 50% of records that are not +4 coded or have a missing/invalid secondary (apartment) number. However, even after this hygiene processing, there will most likely still be 1% to 3% of records with deliverability issues. Now the questions become: Should all of these be mailed? Should none of these be mailed? What is the best course of action for the highest ROI?

Even though a record has deliverability issues, it doesn’t mean it won’t get delivered. Here are two examples:

Jane Jetson
124 Main St
Saint Cloud, MN  56301

Jane’s address is not +4 coded because 124 Main St is not a valid delivery point. However, 123 Main St. is valid and is, in fact, where Jane Jetson actually lives. Because of this, there is a strong likelihood this mail piece will be delivered.

Fred Flintstone
456 Oak River Run Apt C3
Saint Cloud MN  56301

Fred’s deliverability issue is an invalid apartment number.  Instead of C3 it is 3C. In this case, there is also a very strong likelihood this mail piece will be delivered.

The goal for marketers is to identify and drop records with deliverability issues performing below breakeven to ensure they only mail to the most effective set of records. Over the past year I’ve worked with a top 200, top 100 and a top 50 retailer whose breakeven deliverability analysis saved them each between $900,000 and $1.7M annually.

How would it affect your budget if you had similar results? If direct mail is a critical part of your marketing ecosystem today, read more about breakeven deliverability analysis.

The same concept also holds true for marketers. There are so many competing priorities that it can be difficult to determine what to do when, and to determine how to get the best return on the marketing investment. Marketers ask themselves what type of data to invest in, how to leverage social media channels, when to invest in new database technologies and infrastructures, how to use response attribution and analytics to be more customer centric, etc. CMOs are also challenging their teams to get it all done immediately. With all of that on your plate, how can any marketer be successful?

The answer is simple. Prioritize. Identify the low-hanging fruit so that you can start seeing benefits fast. Understand what to focus on now, what to focus on in the mid-term, what your long-term strategy is, and how to focus your efforts to get there. A well-planned roadmap provides alignment and focus in a challenging landscape and addresses the urgent and the important items for immediate action. This helps marketers align to their strategic objectives, maximize marketing spend and prove value to their CMO – and even better, to their customers. And sometimes it is hard to make the right short term choices and ensure they align with the long term vision.  This is where expert guidance can help.  So, just like on a vacation, you have to determine where you want to start. What activity do you want to do first? What are those activities that you absolutely have to do, and what activities can you put on the back burner until time or money permit? Finally, what are those filler activities that you could do if something takes less time than planned?

A road mapping exercise is a great way to identify the needs , priorities and wish lists of multiple stakeholders.

A road mapping exercise is a great way to identify the needs , priorities and wish lists of multiple stakeholders. When a reputable 3^rd party is brought in to help identify the components of the roadmap, marketers can be even more in tune with what other retailers are doing in the industry. Just think… why do many travelers turn to travel agencies for vacation planning? Because travel agencies know how to plan a vacation for all customer types… they have feedback from former travelers on what is fun and what isn’t, and can help you decide if you want an adventure vacation or to just relax on a beach.

If you are a marketer struggling to put the right roadmap in place, seek an industry “travel agent” who can help understand your goals and objectives, provide the response attribution and analytics, and develop a roadmap customized for your marketing “vacation.”

If you are interested, read how our customer intelligence platform can help provide the analytics you need to build the right roadmap.

A big opportunity for marketers in a digital world is to synchronize these moments. As we know, the digital era was ushered in by search engines, which created a new moment of truth and enabled advertisers to align to buyer interests via the new discipline of Search Engine Marketing.

Television advertising or a typical direct mail campaign is largely ”asynchronous” since these cannot be timed to appear precisely at the time of the viewer’s consideration and interest. A brand impression delivered when I’m not interested is largely ignored and represents wasted media budget.

Of course, mass marketing and direct mail campaigns are often timed to sync with various seasons. For example, I’m much more likely to be choosing a hotel prior to school Spring Break. Additionally, marketers may place promotions directly in the path to purchase, such as a standing display in store to align with the time of purchase. However, today we need more granular, more sophisticated synchronization; we need real-time marketing.

As Google observed in a white paper called “The Zero Moment of Truth,” the digital path to purchase generates many new occasions for truly interactive marketing. Consumer decisions are made in a wide variety of ways and are influenced by a wide variety of factors.

Well-timed, relevant interactions feel much less like advertising and more like advice.

Well-timed, relevant interactions feel much less like advertising and more like advice. It doesn’t interrupt my enjoyment of content but rather becomes content I enjoy. What are some ways to synchronize with buyer intent? Here are two key techniques:

Real-time content – Though content management has been available for years, few web sites offer content that adapts in real time based on the visitor’s profile. Most visitors are anonymous, but cookies provide bits of information including which pages the visitor touched on the last visit, or a question they answered earlier. Using these clues to dynamically alter content is now much easier with interaction management tools.

For example, a hotel chain might place an article about best restaurants in Florida on an affiliated Florida destination site. Unlike a static ad, an article can be updated based on motivational factors such as weather, recent news or a widely publicized celebrity event. Simply changing the opening line of the story, changes the relevance of the content.

Intelligent interactions – Every search result, website click or email open is an opportunity to interact and not to simply “make offers.” Rather than delivering a single message to the target, campaigns can engage visitors in a sequence of interactions. For example, a landing page on a hotel chain’s site might start with an observation and a simple poll: “Over 50% of Florida vacationers come from the Eastern United States. Are you from a) Eastern US, b) Western US, c) somewhere in between, or d) none of the above. Submit to see today’s results.”

Based on the answer, the next web page in the sequence can change, involving the visitor in an interactive experience rather than a reading experience.

These simple techniques are not employed by marketers for two reasons. First, interaction management is sometimes perceived by marketers as very technical and complicated. Second, getting even small bits of useful customer-specific data is cumbersome. However, both of these barriers are quickly coming down. Interaction management is moving from the realm of technical wizardry to simplified and integrated tools for marketers. And the safe and proper use of customer data to better serve customers with relevant content is easier today.

So what are you waiting for? A pitch in time saves nine!

For more information about real-time marketing and campaign management, please visit our website.

One of the key factors that successful baseball teams leverage these days is data. Data about how every player performs in any situation is used to make key decisions such as which relief pitcher to bring in or which pitch to throw to a specific hitter in the given game situation.
This data has to be comprehensive and actionable. If the data is incomplete or not properly aggregated, the analysis will be flawed and subsequent decisions can lead to sub-optimal outcomes. This is similar to the issues marketers face when planning, executing and measuring their campaigns.
Instead of understanding which pitch or which pinch hitter will give a team the best chance of success, marketers need to know who to market to and in which channels to communicate with them. They also need to understand which marketing activities made up the path to purchase to be able to drive future campaign success. The key to getting these decisions right is to have an accurate 360-degree view of customers and prospects across all channels.

Having disjointed data can impact decisions across all aspects of campaign creation and measurement. Imagine a high-value catalog responder opting in to an email loyalty program on a website. Not linking that information to his or her previous transactions could lead to redundant communications across channels in a best case scenario and at worst, conflicting messages.

The good news is that there are solutions available today to assist marketers in resolving their customer identities across channels to enable complete, aggregated, actionable profiles. Using referential data, marketing service providers are able to create linkages between disparate customer data points and can fill missing channel identifiers.

Getting this data management activity right sets all of your marketing activities up for success and allows marketers to ensure that the hope and excitement at the start of each campaign results in championship outcomes.

For more information about cross-channel identity resolution, download our latest white paper, Crossing the great divide: Resolving customer identities across online and offline channels.