ANALYTICS | Direct Marketing Guide 2012
Using customer loyalty data
to reward with relevance
Kathy Grigg, dunnhumbyUSA
People respond to what is relevant to their needs, desires and motivations.
With the help of customer loy-
alty data, companies are learning
about the behaviors of their
customers and acting on that
knowledge to identify their best
and highest-potential customers
and personalize their communi-
cations. They are beginning to
understand how communicating
with (not at) their customers in
meaningful ways can encour-
age the customer to consistently
choose their brand and ensure
long-term growth and success.
Where personalization was
once defined as a greeting which
used the customer’s name,
personalized communications
reflects a deep understanding,
appreciation and respect for
the customer. By putting the
customer at the center of their
marketing strategy, companies
can ensure that the right content
goes to the right customers
through the right channels at the
right time. And companies can
also measure the effects of those
communications to understand
how to continue to be relevant.
Effectively engaging custom-
ers through direct marketing
channels hinges on several key
principles:
n Start with the customer
data. By using connected data
to define a single view of a com-
pany’s best customers, organiza-
tions can understand customer
behavior across online, in-store
and direct mail. People respond
differently to the same marketing
activations and it is important to
recognize how customers have
responded in the past to inform
the next communication.
n Recognize and reward
your best customers. The
primary purpose of personal-
ized communication must be
to reward customers by giving
them a little bit more of what
they want and need. If the offer
doesn’t do that, then you see
lower redemption rates and
lower sales uplift, reducing your
return on investment. It also
weakens your customer’s prefer-
ence for your brand if they feel
like you don’t understand or
respect them.
n Remain communication
channel agnostic. Keeping
a customer-centric lens on mea-
surement tools and tactics will
further cement the alignment
between data, decision-making,
and successful results. Let the
customer and the data decide
the best communication vehicle.
The more effective the chan-
nel, the more it should be used.
Tailoring channel usage based
on the behavior of a customer
is another method to deliver
relevance and reward your best
customers. The best channels to
use are the ones that deliver the
greatest effectiveness.
Kathy Grigg is VP of
client solutions at
dunnhumbyUSA. Reach
her at kathleen.grigg@
dunnhumby.com
The who, where, how and
why of lead nurturing
Elle Woulfe, Eloqua
Lead nurturing is about cultivating leads that aren’t ready to buy and
keeping prospects engaged by
providing relevant content. This
answers what lead nurturing is,
but raises questions about who
these prospects are that you’ll
be nurturing, where they’ll be in
the buying process, how you’ll
facilitate the buyers’ journey,
and why you’ll embark on this
dynamic process.
n Who: Create and define
buyer personas. Like any
targeted outreach, lead nurtur-
ing communications reflects the
needs and interests of individual
prospects. For example, different
roles will have different motiva-
tions. Technical buyers require
different content than execu-
tive buyers who could be more
receptive to specific communica-
tion channels. Knowing who
your buyer is allows you the
ability to maximize conversion
by ensuring your messages are
always relevant.
n Where: Map your content to
the buying stages. Sending the
right piece of content at the right
stage in the purchase process
can be the stimulus for a buyer
to move closer to closing. To
develop the relationship, you
need to understand the interests
of buyers wherever they are in
the purchasing process. A webi-
nar or whitepaper might work
well at the top of the funnel but
as a prospect progresses toward
serious consideration, content
designed to aid the purchasing
process, like ROI calculators
and pricing guides, should come
into play.
n How: Frame your buyer’s
journey. Before you can employ
technology to automate nurtur-
ing processes, you need to know
how prospects are entering and
moving through your funnel.
Framing out your lead nurturing
program — by whiteboarding,
diagramming, sketching and
revising — helps you create an
organized flow that guides pros-
pects to the eventual sale before
you start building the logic in a
marketing automation system.
Think through all the excep-
tions, feeders and ways the data
will need to flow into and out of
the system and how you’ll want
to keep sales informed of pros-
pects’ progress in the program.
n Why: Establish clear and
measurable program objectives.
For successful lead nurturing
programs you need to know
why you’re nurturing to begin
with. Having clear goals and
benchmarks to measure against
allows marketing to stay focused
on the objectives and makes it
easy to improve the program.
If your goal is to accelerate
your sales pipeline, you’ll need
to have the ability to measure
the average time from initial
interest to close, and adapt your
program accordingly.
Elle Woulfe is senior mar-
keting programs manager
at Eloqua. Reach her at elle.
woulfe@eloqua.com.
