What are the steps of Database Marketing?
In the previous articles, I have described the field of database marketing and why it is one of the most useful and efficient ways of communicating with your customers. Database marketing most of the time falls under CRM marketing but it can be used in other stages and tools of marketing. In this article, I am going to list the steps that are needed in order to successfully implement a database marketing program in your company.
Plan Ahead
Like many other fields in marketing, planning is a crucial first step in database marketing. You need to carefully define your objectives. Are you going to use database marketing to increase your retention, will it help you acquire new customers? Do you want to increase your brand’s share of pocket among your customers? These are some of the important questions that need to be answered in the planning stage. Aside from these question you need to draw an ideal future of your database marketing solution. I mean you need to define what is the best thing that can happen to you after you have successfully implemented your database marketing program and then move backward and do a little bit of reverse planning
Define your Data Requirements
You need to gather some data on your customers to be able to compose highly targeted and customized communications with them. While a lack of data may hurt your business, abundant data may cause distraction and hinder sound decision making. So try to make a list of the data points that will help you better know your customers and make a decision based on their behavior in the system.
Gather Data
The data points you have defined in step 3 need to be stored in a reliable database. All your decision making will be based on the data that gets stored in this database. So it is very important that you make sure your system is running well and check if there is an issue.
Communicate with Customers
This is the fun part of a database marketing program. You need to create a communication flowchart for your customers. This can be done by using Microsoft Visio or other BPMN soft wares. In the flowchart, you need to clearly define the conditions that need to be met for a message to be sent to a user. For example, in your flowchart, you define that whenever a user makes a first purchase on your website, send her a message, and give her a gift in the form of a discount voucher. The better you define your communication flowchart, the more results you will get from your database marketing program.
Measure, Monitor, and Revise
One of the most important steps in this framework is the measurement stage. Through integration with analytics programs such as Google Analytics, you will be able to see which messages were more fruitful. Make sure you know how to set UTM links and track the results on the analytics platform. Based on the data and your monitoring process, you may need to remove some steps, add some new ones, or make some changes to your flowchart.
To Sum Up
To successfully implement a database marketing program, you need to follow 5 steps which range from planning to set up your database. Creating a communication flowchart and measuring results.
