In an effort to further integrate its services, direct marketing agency Grizzard, Atlanta, recently added a new analytics group.
The new group will be headed by Bill Franks, formerly director of market analysis at Ceres Integrated Solutions, Raleigh, NC, and will bring in house many capabilities that the agency had previously outsourced. While the group will add enhanced trend analysis, segmentation and data-mining capabilities to the agency, one of its primary benefits is expected to be its close working relationships with other agency departments.
“We will meet on a regular basis with account teams to learn what they're working on and what the client needs so that we can analyze client needs on a regular basis,” Franks said. “We can show account teams ways to help leverage the information in client databases and they can alert us to opportunities.”
The analytics group already has been alerted by account teams about seasonality and other factors outside of standard RFM measures that affect a client's business. On another project, the group has found success looking at recent contributions rather than largest gifts or total lifetime gifts.
“Sometimes it's nothing revolutionary, it's just a way of looking at data differently from how the client has traditionally been looking at it,” Franks said.
The group, which has a full-time staff of four but borrows the resources and manpower of Grizzard's account teams and information technology department, expects its capabilities to be used with the extensive list of nonprofits that Grizzard works with as well as a variety of corporate clients.
“At the base of every business, there is a some sort of transaction,” Franks said. “And at the base of every business, there is a customer — and there will always be a certain amount of factors associated with the customer and the transaction to look at.”
