Forget neural networks — the best thing that’s ever happened to direct marketers is the Web.
Insane? Not to Arthur Hughes, vice president for business development at CSC Advanced Database Solutions in Schaumburg, IL. A company can either use its database to drive online promotions or use the Web to enhance its database.
Take automaker Isuzu, which recently created a microsite for use by its truck dealers. The dealers went on the site to order postcards for mailing to prospects.
Isuzu had developed 24 different cards, each one containing a case study of truck use by a different segment. The firm drew prospects’ names from its database.
What’s a microsite? It’s a “throwaway” site that’s used for one or two days as part of a single promotion, according to Hughes.
“Let’s say you send a message, and you want people to get hold of you,” he said. “You set up the site for one or two days, for a particular message.”
Hughes added that “it costs millions to create a Web page, but only $5,000 for a microsite.”
But that’s not the only benefit. Microsites are an invaluable source of fresh data, and are used for driving e-mail campaigns, Hughes said.
Who does all the work? “The customers,” he explained. “People are willing to do the typing themselves. And you get immediate response.”
This marriage of online media and the database would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, Hughes said.
As recently as 1996, data gathered by phone, fax or mail had to be entered by a person sitting at a keyboard, he noted. Databases were built on mainframes, and they could be accessed only by special software. Marketers got hard-copy reports, and it took weeks to get them.
And now?
“All modern databases are accessed through the Web,” Hughes said. “There’s no reason to lease lines, and you don’t need any software on your PC other than a browser.”
Marketers can access names via the Web and print them out on a PC printer. They can produce reports online. But maybe the best thing is that it no longer takes five weeks for a company to update its database, as it once did Western Union.
“Data is updated all day,” Hughes said. “It isn’t just fast, it’s instant.”
Despite all that, Hughes clings to one eternal truth. “The most important part of RFM is still R for Recency,” he said. “The best time to sell a man a second suit is while he’s still in the store.”
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