What separates big data from Big Data is that the latter has—as Gartner has noted—volume, velocity, and variety.
Gartner's Gareth Herschel talks predictive analytics, social data, and tips for getting ahead of the analytics game.
FreshDirect's Michael Kildale talks direct mail, demographics, and data analytics.
The New England Patriots is committed to aggressive and innovative data analytics to bolster the connection between the Patriots and its fans.
Three areas of customer analytics that have the biggest impact on marketing results.
It's a federal regulation that affects companies like Nimbus Games, a mobile game publisher for children primarily between the ages of four to nine.
Privacy experts tackle the leading privacy issues surrounding on- and offline customer data.
Month 1: New company, new industry, new challenge, new job; so now what? Mitel's new CMO shares his experiences in part one of a 12-part series.
Fast food restaurants often market the dining experience as much as the food itself. Take Taco Bell, for example.
Using data to align marketers' perceptions with the actual customer experience.
Marketers using customer data to improve performance must balance customers' expectation of privacy with their preference for relevant communications.
Epsilon knows the advantages—and risks—of collecting consumer data.
A healthy relationship with customer data, which requires compromise, does more than bring marketers peace of mind—it produces results.
As one of the world's largest conglomerates, it would be easy to assume that 3M is full of data silos and communications blind alleys—not the case.
Big Data may be top-of-mind, but there are other important data issues that marketers must stay focused on.
A segment of one. It's "the Holy Grail" or marketing and IBM's Mike Rhodin says technology is going to get us there.
Real-time data is what marketers want; old-time analytics is what they've got.
Two of the largest U.S. retail banks, Chase and Citibank, have attempted to retain customers and acquire new ones by rebuilding trust and boosting brand loyalty through cohesive marketing across their respective websites, in-store creative, direct mail, email, loyalty marketing, and social media channels.
In this new world of empowered and engaged consumers, a lead is only a lead if you have connected what is relevant to the customer.
Stop gambling with next year's marketing budget and play your cards right with Content, Cadence, and Closure.
Amid declining print magazine sales, some publishing companies are turning to database and CRM solutions to drive subscriptions.
Nonprofit organizations are increasingly taking a page from the for-profit playbook by using marketing co-ops to build their direct mail lists.
Numerous restaurant chains have launched or expanded their loyalty programs in recent months to drill deeper into customer data.
Retailers delve deep into their quantitative and qualitative consumer data to position brands and create rich customer experiences and personalized communications.
With the increasing amount of customer data available to marketers these days, information gathering can be overwhelming.
Brands take active steps to protect sensitive customer data, prevent data breaches, gain consumer trust and streamline their collection processes and email messaging.
Brands must draw on a deluge of mobile-driven customer information in order to engage customers and encourage repeat business.
Erica DePalma, VP of digital marketing at Media Horizons, a marketing services company, discusses her new role and the potential impact of SOPA and PIPA legislation.
Forrester Research senior analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo discusses the company's Jan. 18 data privacy survey and why an increasing number of Americans are abandoning digital transactions.
Direct Marketing News is seeking submissions for the 2012 Essential Guide to Database Marketing, which will be published April 1.
Donna Hamilton, VP of audience targeting at Alliant, a marketing data company, discusses the company's recent Lotame integration and the future of digital targeting.
Even though holiday sales numbers grab the headlines, many marketers see the shopping season as just the beginning of their relationship with a customer. Using the influx of first-time buyers as an opportunity to expand their databases and better understand consumer behavior, marketers are finding that effective CRM strategies can make it feel like Christmas all year long.
Anna Talerico, EVP and cofounder of Ion Interactive, a marketing services company, discusses how to effectively measure social interactions and Web traffic data.
John Dawes, VP of products and strategy at Tealeaf, a customer experience management (CEM) company, discusses the ways your website might actually be limiting transactions.
Diane Berry, SVP of Coveo, a customer intelligence company, discusses how brands can align customer service, sales and marketing and how best to drive customer loyalty.
Barry Parshall, SVP of product management at Web analytics company iJento discusses channel integration and the benefits of online catalogs.
Corporate training company VitalSmarts uses its "Awareness Team" to spread the word about the brand's professional training products through social media, and the company also relies heavily on word-of-mouth referrals it obtains through free distribution of some of its best-selling books at trade shows and executive briefings.
BMW may sell hundreds of thousands of cars each year, but for its latest model, the all-electric commuter car ActiveE, it's looking for just 700 passionate consumers.
EnergyCAP needed to find a way to tie prospects to their online behavior.
Randy Smith, president of analytics company ClearSaleing, discusses the GSI Commerce and eBay acquisitions and what his company can do to help clients drive customer loyalty.
Hospitality and travel company Carlson relaunched its Goldpoints Plus hotel loyalty program on March 31. The revamped Club Carlson loyalty program featured free in-room Wi-Fi, no blackout dates, rollover nights and complimentary room upgrades, among other benefits.
Competition among loyalty programs is more intense than ever, but are consumers cooling to them?
The premise of customer database segmentation is that marketing and consumers are not one-size-fits-all. Traditionally, marketers segmented huge databases of customers by geography and purchase history.
John Lee, director of digital marketing and analytics at digital agency Flightpath, discusses the best ways to marry print and digital marketing and how email can hurt customer relationships.
John Squire, chief strategy officer with marketing technology company IBM Coremetrics, discusses IBM's recent Commerce-as-a-Service and Social Media Marketing product launches. IBM was ranked atop Forrester Research's Oct. 6 web analytics Wave.
When Netflix announced new pricing plans in July, driving thousands of angry customers to complain or leave the service entirely, its competitors smelled blood in the water. Rivals such as Blockbuster and Redbox sought to take advantage of Netflix's CRM faux pas by reaching out to the company's disgruntled customers.
Ragini Bhalla, director of marketing and communications at digital agency Fantasy Interactive, discusses her new role and how building loyalty online differs from offline channels.
Jeff Hassemer, VP of product strategy at Experian Marketing Services, discusses his company's upcoming digital catalog app and how brands can leverage marketing technology to build customer loyalty.
Paula Fedoris, chief analytics officer at Draftfcb, discusses her new role, and the role analytics plays in building customer loyalty.
Jeff Paradise, SVP of FYI Direct, a direct-to-consumer credit and identity protection services company, discusses the brand's loyalty initiatives and the decision to tap CrossBow Group for an upcoming digital acquisition initiative.
There was a time when customer loyalty programs doled out rewards in the form of goodies stocked in a faraway warehouse. However, companies are increasingly moving the tracking and redemption of points — as well as the actual rewards themselves — online, with chains including CVS, Rite Aid and Dunkin' Donuts making the leap.
Marc Caltabiano, VP of marketing and products at Cartera Commerce, a marketing technology company that enables online shopping programs, discusses customer loyalty and how technology has helped revolutionize rewards programs.
Joe Saracino, CMO of Hill Holliday subsidiary Erwin-Penland, an interactive, direct mail and advertising agency, discusses his new position and the transition from client-side to agency-side marketer.
Andrew Marcus, CEO of Media One, a direct marketing company with a focus on email and postal lists, discusses campaign marketing and why he thinks lists prices won't return to 2007 levels.
As live chat has improved due to advancing technology and a better understanding of how and when consumers want text-based contact, its role for online companies has expanded beyond simple customer service to include lead generation and customer-relationship management.
Stewart Pearson, chief client officer at Wunderman, discusses the benefits of social CRM and how loyalty programs can turn one-off customers into brand advocates.
Jason Mittelstaedt, CMO of RightNow, a customer experience management (CEM) technology company, explains the distinction between CRM and CEM and why social media may never be a platform for direct marketing.
Jim Healy, principal of Healy List Marketing, discusses his favorite retro direct marketing machine and how trekking the base camp of Mount Everest is similar to marketing.
When Clairmail, a San Rafael, Calif.-based mobile banking technology provider, was founded in 2004, the company had two sales people who prospected using only the contacts in their Rolodex. To grow, and to "be more professional" in its targeting, the company decided to buy lists and shop for bulk data, says Sean Mulvihill, director of marketing operations at Clairmail.
Toyota Motor Corp. and Salesforce.com are partnering to bring CRM to a new frontier: the dashboards of consumers' automobiles. The companies said in late May that they will launch "Toyota Friend," a private social network using Salesforce Chatter, its social marketing tool, in Japan with electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles next year.
When Station Casinos, a gaming company based in Summerlin, Nev., implemented Teradata's Active Enterprise Data Warehouse, Relationship Manager and Warehouse Miner tools in 2008, the company wanted to use real-time data to better market to potential return customers.
Clare Hart, CEO of Omaha, Neb.-based Infogroup, a data services provider, discusses the company's on-going rebranding initiative and whether the 2010 resignation of founder and former CEO Vinod Gupta still affects the business. Hart previously served as president of the enterprise media group at Dow Jones & Co. and president and CEO of business information company Factiva.
When Julianne Hanes Jordan was brought on as director of marketing at AAA Western New York, she was discouraged by the results of the company's direct mail campaigns. AAA was conducting member acquisition mailings that she felt were not acquiring enough members - not to mention that the members who did join were churning after the first year.
Liz Deutch, EVP and global director of customer engagement at Draftfcb, discusses her new position at the agency and the difference between customer engagement and CRM with Direct Marketing News. Deutch's career has spanned more than two decades, including roles with Ogilvy & Mather Direct, Ammirati and Puris, Enfatico and Young & Rubicam Brands (Y&R Brands).
Brands that retarget consumers after a sweepstakes campaign must work hard to remember a guiding principle of CRM: don't annoy the consumer.
It's rare that a b-to-b company sees fewer email bouncebacks and higher conversion rates without implementing a new product and/or service provider. But that's exactly what happened when Eloqua, a Vienna, VA.-based revenue performance management technology provider, decided to supplement its old marketing models with a newer, more original technique.
Tamara Gruzbarg, senior director of customer analytics and research at private sale site Gilt Groupe, classifies the company's data analytics environment as "disparate" prior to February 2010. She says the company's various data sources were located in "different places and formats" and that "no single tool could access all of them."
Arthur Sweetser, the CMO of 89 Degrees, an integrated marketing agency with a focus on data and analytics, discusses the definition of cloud marketing and why he thinks data collection is more important than good creative.
Marketers' lead generation tactics have grown more sophisticated. They are spending more time nurturing and scoring leads in favor of quality, a move away from the days of buying up big lists and collecting business cards.
Windsor Health Plan recognized it had a short window to legally attract new members to its Medicare Advantage health plan during the three-month fall marketing period last year, so the company applied predictive response modeling to quickly find its best prospects.
Marketers employ a broad spectrum of behavioral tracking techniques to differentiate good leads from bad leads, effective campaigns from ineffective campaigns and to establish the best way to respond in either circumstance. Analyzing email click-through, email open rates, time on site and page views are among the many different statistics accessible today to qualify leads.
Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center (GHS) launched a multichannel colorectal cancer screening campaign in conjunction with national colorectal cancer awareness month this past March. Jackson Marketing Group developed and executed the hospital system's vision.
Online travel agency Expedia said in late March that its relaunched rewards program was a game changer for travel consumers because it allowed them to earn points on hotels, flights, packages and activities regardless of which hotel or airline they used.
Merkle hired Steve LaValle as EVP of client and advisory services on April 26. In this role he'll lead the client services teams, account managers and consulting professionals across all industries served by Merkle.
Meredith Integrated Marketing promoted David Brown to EVP and GM on April 18. In his new role he'll oversee Meredith Integrated Marketing's content and CRM business, including supervision of Directive, Meredith's database analytics agency.
David Hohman, SVP and New York analytics practice lead at marketing agency MRM Worldwide, discusses the recent McCann/MRM US Army account win and the future of social CRM.
Marketers are tapping into Facebook-like collaboration tools to improve their lead generation, CRM and internal communications performance. Salesforce.com, Yammer and Constant Contact are among the service providers operating Web-based collaboration tools, and SAP plans to join them soon.
IBM launched two cloud-based solutions on March 24 designed to help marketers gain real-time, actionable insight from data available across social media channels. The solutions, Coremetrics Social and Unica Pivotal Veracity Email Optimization Suite, seek to expand IBM's business analytics capabilities and enable IBM clients to create and understand social campaigns.
Martha Bush, SVP of strategy and marketing at Sigma Marketing Group, a direct and digital services firm, discusses the importance of platform integration and why enhanced customer data will hurt direct mail. Bush has worked in the direct marketing industry for nearly three decades, including more than 18 years at Sigma.
The city of Chicago began a mail preference service earlier this month that provides residents with the ability to opt out of receiving selected direct mail materials. The effort, created by nonprofit Catalog Choice, is designed primarily to enable Chicago to save money on sanitation and rid the city of tons of millions of pounds of paper waste.
Vinod Gupta, founder of Database101.com, a provider of consumer and business mailing lists, discusses his newest venture, as well as his past where SEC allegations forced him to leave the company he started with a $100 bank loan in 1972.
When Teradata, a data warehousing and analytics company, acquired marketing automation provider Aprimo, the line between data and marketing automation companies was further distorted.
Technology companies, including Microsoft, HP and IBM, have unveiled plans in recent weeks to launch or expand in-the-cloud CRM services, reflecting the growing demand from marketers for more collaborative and timely data about clients and prospects.
Mark Wright, president and CEO of Targetbase, a database marketing technology services company, discusses why it's important for marketers to be able to read customer sentiment on social networks. He also predicts that data collection abuse will ultimately force legislation.
Andrew Frawley, president of marketing technology at Epsilon, a marketing data and technology services company, discusses the future of database marketing and whether he thinks Congress will intervene on behavioral tracking.
The results of the Small Merchant Data Security Survey, sponsored by First Data and the National Retail Federation, might leave consumers feeling a bit naked in the wind.
Marketers are beginning to mine data from mobile transactions and brand interactions with the same interest they glean information from other more traditional media sources.
As director of demand generation at Bronto, it's Sally Lowery's job to show her bosses a tangible return on ad spend at the end of every quarter. After all, Bronto, an e-mail marketing services provider, knows a thing or two about marketing software.
Winterberry Group, an advertising and marketing consultancy, released a report on January 13 revealing US direct and digital ad spending had increased 2.7% to $154 billion in 2010.
Experian promoted Jeff Lundal to SVP and general manager of data management services at the marketing services provider December 23. In this interview with Direct Marketing News, he discusses the looming online privacy debate and explains his view on why it's imperative that marketers move away from batching and blasting and toward tweeting and status-updating.
Marketers' use of Facebook has exploded in recent months, and brands with niche audiences have begun to use the site's social media analytics to better understand their fans.
As the teen segment continues to grow, marketers are getting more creative in how they reach out to these plugged-in skeptical consumers.
Direct marketing plays a major role in the consumer outreach efforts of competitive brands Chili's and TGI Friday's.
Two years ago the nonprofit industry was in the midst of a crisis — charitable donations had plummeted from around 15% of revenue in Q4 2007 to 6.6% in Q3 2009.
Peg Kuman, CEO of Relevate, a company that provides data services to inform marketing decisions, recently discussed her company's acquisition of Phoenix Data Processing and the subsequent company rebranding with Direct Marketing News.
Lisa Arthur, the CMO of Aprimo, which offers marketing software to measure and implement campaigns, discusses integration and the best ways to track costs down to the individual lead.
Reliant Energy recently launched a new community site in order to enhance its relationship with its customers.
Marketers find new ways stand out by adding flexibility and better incentives
Your customers are your most valuable asset. It will always be important to secure new customers, but businesses also need to leverage relationships with existing customers for up-selling and cross-selling opportunities.
Loyalty programs can help businesses retain customers, but they can also be expensive. In order to justify the spend, marketers must constantly assess these programs.
What's in our mailbox this month: fitness postcards from Retro Fitness, American Woman Fitness Centers, Union's United Taekwondo Academy, and Bally Total Fitness. (We're totally pumped.)
Social data can improve a brand's bottom line and customer relationships. Just ask brands Infiniti and Diamond Nexus.
Here are three must-have data sets that every marketer should include in his or her email strategy.
