Sometimes it seems the more data we have, the less information we use. At least, that’s the impression one might get when seeing how many “targeted” marketing campaigns seem to miss the mark these days. Perhaps the most common reason for the poor aim? Failing to use available data to properly segment marketing messages.
Whatever the medium -- e-mail, direct mail, even register receipt messages -- if the message isn’t right for the specific customer, the message has missed the target. Let’s take a look at a few 2008 marketing campaigns have really missed the target.
The first example is a major airline’s “double elite qualifying miles” promotion, delivered via e-mail. This would seem pretty simple, especially for this airline; it’s the one who invented the frequent flier program back in 1981. Here’s the drill:
- Segment program members by status level.
- Invite members to register for the promotion.
- Track members’ activity during the promotion period, award the double points earned and promote qualified members to the next status level.
Sounds easy, right? But the problem in this case is back at Step One, segmenting the member base.
Most direct marketers learned back in the days of postal mail to suppress customers whose status or activity makes them ineligible for a given offer, or makes the offer irrelevant to the customer, But that basic DM lesson was forgotten by the airline in this promotion; they included lifetime elite members – arguably the airline’s most valuable customers – in this
e-mail. – So lifetime Gold members received an e-mail inviting them to “qualify” for a status they already hold. This leads the member to think, “Don’t they even know who has accumulated over 1 million miles in their program to qualify for the lifetime level?”
Had the segmentation have been done correctly, the airline could have created appropriate ways to acknowledge, thank and reward lifetime elite members for their obvious loyalty to the carrier. Instead of creating the impression that the airline doesn’t really know its customers, the company could have shown these loyalists how much they appreciate their business.
Example number two is in the retail arena. Like most retailers today, this merchant has an
e-mail base comprised of diverse consumers: some are customers (occasional or frequent, high- or low-value); while many others might simply have signed up online to receive news and offers. Once again, segmenting this audience sounds like anything but rocket science, since the marketer has all the transactional and signup data for everyone on the list.
Yet in this case, that data is not used to create appropriate messaging. The retailer sends offers to everyone on their list, addressing all consumers as, “Preferred Customers.” Many consumers on the list are not customers at all; they simply signed up online to receive e-mail. Again, the message this sends is, “We don’t even know who our customers are.”
This is an error, to be fair, which is made more often than not by marketers today. As we often say, “it is no harder to do the right thing than the wrong thing.” Since the retailer has the data, it should be simple to create customer/non-customer segmentation – let alone segmenting customers by volume, R/F/M or some other performance measure.
And if the data is difficult to access because of a siloed structure or other issues, then “getting it right” is a simple creative task: develop copy that is more neutral, and simply address everyone as “friends” or subscribers.
Our third egregious example of getting it wrong is yet another case of simply not paying attention to the customer data. In this case, a retailer sent a targeted offer on dog food to a cat owner. Once again, the “targeted” customer is left scratching her head and asking, “Don’t they even look at the data they collect at the register?”
Finally, we often see marketers who send offer after offer to consumers who never respond or even open their e-mail. The failure here is to use data that shows the customer is inactive, and target messaging to find out why, and to activate the customer. Clearly, whatever the company has been sending has failed to motivate the consumer to action. Why? What might they offer that could convert the lookie-loo to a buyer? A good approach might be to segment these members out of the regular offer stream and send a “jump start” promotion to drive the customer to action. Such offers can be rich enough to motivate, while “fenced” by a short LTO date.
All these examples share a common failure: not using available data to segment the audience and craft offers and communications based on that segmentation. Even though data warehouses and CRM systems have become more common and less expensive, scores of marketers fail to use the information at hand to deliver relevant information and valuable offers to their customers.
The technologies exist, and many marketers have them available; this is not a failure of technology, but a failure of marketing vision. Segmentation is a strategy mastered by direct mailers decades ago. Isn’t it time more electronic marketers used this knowledge to deliver on-target messages?
By Jeff Barnhart for Metzner Schneider Associates.
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Copyright 2010 Metzner Schneider
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