In 2011, marketers have many new channels in which to sell their wares, engage consumers and convey their brand messages. And with these new channels come a plethora of new platforms and data sources.
At the same time, there are also consumer preferences and behavior to understand and keep track of, as well as consumers’ expectation that everything happens in real time.
A marketing infrastructure that reflects this new reality must be more complex than the traditional database connected to campaign management and reporting tools. Of course, it will still need to spawn special-purpose data marts to support campaigns and engage consumers at all touchpoints, as well as do modeling, clustering and other advanced analytics to drive the messaging and segmentation.
What are the core demands on a database solution in today’s marketing environment?
The infrastructure has to be updated rapidly. In many cases, the norm should be daily refreshing of the core data sources, and real-time updates from multiple touch points. Once it is updated, it has to publish information to, and accept information from, many more platforms and sources of data than ever before, including operational (non-marketing) information.
The technology must support decisioning. It must provide guidance to marketers on what to present or how to respond to consumers when they interact via all available touch points, and websites, landing pages, email responses, a call to a call center, or a post to a blog or a social media site. And this will all have to be done based on complex business rules, and implemented immediately.
Content management is crucial. In creating the response, the system should also manage the creative assets (copy, images, scripting, audio and video) used to dynamically assemble messaging in real time. Furthermore, the knowledge of any consumer interaction should be made available to all parts of the enterprise the second it happens.
Dashboards guide the way. From a non-marketing standpoint, the solution should include dashboards that reveal key performance indicators for non-marketing and executive personnel. It should also provide campaign results reporting, and it should incorporate data from non-marketing departments and business units such as information from financial, service and operational sources.
Consistency is key. Since the consumer perceives the organization holistically, the same infrastructure should drive messaging on behalf of those non-marketing business units, including the use of business rules to set priorities when two or more parts of the enterprise want the consumer’s attention simultaneously.
Think global. Finally, the database and the tools that it employs should deal with the nuances of global marketing when necessary, insuring regulatory compliance and proper data handling everywhere. This is not a trivial task.
The tools to enable to full-scale digital and offline marketing though multiple touchpoints are available now. Creating the right infrastructure and integrating it with those specialized tools can deliver a consumer perception that all parts of the enterprise know who they are and how they want to be communicated with, and allow the company to engage with consumers in a timely and relevant way.
Richard N. Tooker is vice president and solutions architect for KBM Group.
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