By Bart Foreman, CEO Group3 Marketing www.group3marketing.com. Insights from a recent keynote presentation.

1. Figure out who we are going to touch – and the database information needed. In asking how many in the audience have a working database of customers, the number of hands was pitifully low. This initial challenge continues to challenge marketers.
2. Decide how to touch customers. There are many channels. I challenged the audience that e-mail is not a BLAST. In fact, I said I hate the word “blast.” It demeans the process because every message is the same, but your audience isn’t the same and should not be lumped into one big, homogeneous blob. I spent some time discussing the changing dynamics of e-mail messaging and how it is becoming more important to create short, concise messages and not follow the traditional styles of previous writings.
3. Be relevant and timely. Before Northwest Airlines went into bankruptcy, its World Perks program continually peppered me with golfing vacation packages and destinations. This is wonderful for many people but I don’t play golf. Give me a tennis package and I’ll get excited. How can they know? Simple. Ask me through an electronic survey and then use what I tell you to target relevant offers and messages to me. That’s what dynamic, interactive databases are designed to do. And if your IT people grumble, remind them that the purpose of the database is to drive business practices, not technical efficiencies.
4. Be personal. Database-driven, marketing-focused initiatives are not advertisements. Recognize the customers you are contacting based on your dynamic knowledge of them.

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