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Philosophies In Developing Successful Database Marketing Communications

Experience has shown nearly all successful database marketing communications programs have certain things in common. Swanson Russell stresses these eight things when developing database marketing communications for our clients.

1. Combine audience, offer and message.
   The message (creative) often receives the majority of attention. People will often focus on the copy and graphics, and ignore the audience and offer aspects of the communications. We find that the proper selection of the exact audience and the type/structuring of the offer to the audience have as much or more to do with the success of a database marketing communications effort than does the message. Therefore, we give proper attention to all three elements. Ultimately, we want to direct the proper offer and message to each member of the audience.
2. Pack communications with useful information.
   If you want people to buy your product, you need to communicate the information they want or need before making a purchase. Including lots of useful information in communications may not win you many awards for creativity, but it will help sell your product.
3. Promise a benefit.
   This is an obvious point, but is often overlooked. The best database marketing communications feature clear benefits for the audience. The benefits should be featured early and often in the communications.
4. Obtain a response.
   We believe it is important in a majority, but not all, communications to attempt to obtain a response from customers and prospects. The response may be in a variety of forms, from returning a response card to sending in a questionnaire to actually making a purchase. Responses provide a measure of the effectiveness of your communications. Responses enable you to test alternative approaches to determine which are most effective. Finally, responses give you needed feedback from customers and prospects so that you may do a better job of marketing.
5. Flexibility and speed.
   The speed of activity in the marketplace has increased dramatically in the last few years. There is no doubt the pace will pick up in the future. Marketers must respond more quickly to problems and opportunities in the marketplace. Unfortunately, much advertising, particularly in printed magazines, requires long lead times. If a competitor makes a move, it can take several months before you are able to develop an advertisement, have it produced, meet the magazine’s closing date for materials, and finally have it appear in the magazine where it will be seen by customers and prospects. By this time, the problem may have severely damaged your company or the opportunity may have vanished. Further, once the advertisement has been developed there is little opportunity to make adjustments before it appears in print. With database marketing communications, we attempt to overcome these limitations. We can get a message out to customers and prospects within a week or two of discovering a problem or opportunity in the marketplace. With electronic technology, this lead time can be reduced to a few days and eventually hours. Talk about responsiveness! Even when the communications process is longer, we still try to make database marketing communications as flexible as possible so that changes can be made up until the last minute.
6. Involve the audience in the communications.
   The more you can get the audience involved in your communications, the greater your chance of having them make the desired response. Involvement may be as simple as getting the audience engrossed in your copy or reviewing your brochure. But involvement may also be completing a survey, taking a quiz, peeling off a sticker or playing a game. Many mailings contain involvement devices. Sometimes they appear to be silly or frivolous. So why are they used? Because they have been tested against mailings without such devices. Most of the time, mailings with involvement devices generate more response than those without them.
7. Build a relationship with the customer.
   One of the keys to business success in the 1990s and beyond is relationship building. By this we refer to a company building and maintaining a lasting, mutually rewarding relationship with customers. Database marketing communications, with its emphasis on consumer dialogue rather than company monologue, is ideally suited to building and strengthening relationships. When you establish relationships with your customers, you progress from wondering what will they think about “issue X” or “product Y” to being able to ask them about it directly.
8. Test! Test! Test!
   Database marketing communications, with its emphasis on responses and consumer feedback, enables you to test alternative communications approaches or other marketing tactics. The traditional advertising approach for evaluating communications efforts is very subjective. It usually revolves around the opinions of assorted advertising agency and company executives. If these people like what they see, the communications are deemed to be effective. Usually, the one approach liked best by these people is used. On the other hand, with database marketing communications the preferred procedure is to develop two or more communications pieces which are tested among a sample of the audience. Responses are tabulated to determine the more successful approach. The best approach is then used among the entire audience. With database marketing, the audience “judges” the effectiveness of the communications by its response to the alternative approaches.