The Pyramids Started With Just One Stone
The most discouraging day of my work life began on the first day at my first post-college job. They told me it would take me at least a year before I would be useful to them. That was extremely discouraging because I just spent 4 years in college making myself useful.
I imagine lots of folks feel the same way when they decide to start integrating data analytics in to their direct marketing. If you aren’t doing any data analytics as a part of your direct marketing it isn’t too late to start. Below are some good tips on getting started with your own big data initiatives.
- Create a data plan. What are your goals? What data have you already captured? What data do you want to capture? Now that you know what you want, how are you going to get it?
- Outline how you are going to use that data. Just having the data is not enough. You need to plan out ways to capitalize on it. Being able to group like people together for messaging will help you have less complicated campaigns. Make sure to not sacrifice your ROI by trying to make the campaign too simple. Some complexity is a good thing.
- Keeping old data is the biggest mistake. Outdated data is a real problem. Keep your data clean with all available tools. Some of these tools include NCOA (checking for new addresses when people move), deceased file processing (removing people when they die), surveys (keep your info current by asking them directly) and so on. You should look at your data as a constant work in progress and be cleaning and adding to it all the time.
- If your data is small, don’t worry about it. Plan ways to grow your data base and continue to improve it. The more you are able to capture with each campaign the better your direct mail is going to get. Everyone started off small at one point.
(via Target Marketing)
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