Marketing Analytics - Direct/Relationship Marketing

Direct or relationship marketing uses direct response to begin a dialogue and hopefully acquire, convert, and or retain customers. Those individuals that "opt-in" are said to have raised their hands.

Relationship marketing analytics focuses on these hand raisers and dives into everything about them:

• who are they?
• how do they look like?
• where did they come from?
• what are they saying/communicating?
• what are their likes/dislikes?
• what motivates them?

You name it. Some people say its like trying to decipher a picture, but i think it's more complicated than that - since nothing stays the same, it's actually like deciphering a moving picture or a movie.

a marketer's best friend - marketing analytics

are your marketing initiatives actually working?

what is the meaning of "working"?

how do your customers look like and behave?

are you meeting or exceeding your acquisition, conversion, and or loyalty objectives?

what success metrics can help you present your case in that big presentation to senior management?

these and other business questions are not answered by a software package - you need a marketer's best friend - an expert in marketing analytics.

Now more than ever, it is critical for marketers to know where they stand. Agencies, vendors, and others are there to help but what happens with all the marketing data that is continually generated?

A marketing analytics expert is someone who is intimate with both the marketing data and the marketing objectives. This is the focal point that makes the link.

This expert translates the data to actionable insights and doesn't stop there. Strong skills in collaboration and communication are necessary for success.

The expert collaborates with the rest of the team in various areas, provides visually appealing but easy to understand material for use in presentations, and continually acts as a thought leader for the marketing organization.

There are a few kinds of specialties within the marketing analytics field. i will speak in detail about them and what value they bring to you in the next post.

why you need a Marketing Database Manager / Consultant

In the last post, I talked about the importance of a marketing database for your organization if you want to benefit from the advantages of direct marketing, direct response marketing, relationship marketing, integrated marketing or whatever you want to call it (pick any term and mix'em up salad style...i just stick with pRM because the patient or consumer is who the target is- oh, almost forgot another term - target marketing).

Anyway, the marketing service providers out there do a good job of hosting and delivering campaign management, email, and other operational services to marketing organizations. They work with pharmaceutical DTC marketers to attain customer segmentation and develop marketing data process business rules.

There is a gap here though. Marketers have very little time to work with the vendor and often don't understand how or what processes need to be implemented. Marketers just want thing to work. So what happens?

Marketers bring in others in their team to direct the vendor. These may be their creative agencies or internal areas such as IT. The problem with that is that they also have little time and they have their hands full already.

What is needed is a Marketing Database Manager /Consultant - this is the role that

• directs and manages the vendor
• serves as sort of the project manager when it comes to translating the marketing needs to processes such as campaigns, segmentation, and customer fulfillment
• understands and is a marketing expert in the integration of different response channels including marketing data from telemarketing, data entry, and web vendors and platforms
• understands and prepares data for marketing analytics experts

The key here is to see that this role is an expert in this field...he or she is not a generalist. When you need plumbing work, you dont call a general contractor, you call a plumber. Marketers who expect their IT folks to understand marketing campaigns and segmentation are kidding themselves and hurting their chances of success. IT folks are very important to an organization and they have play a key role here - they can work with this role in the backend to make sure things do work after all.

it takes a marketing database

in order to have an effective and established pRM platform, pharmaceutical consumer marketers first needs a database. A marketing database - not a sales database - not a financial or accounting database - a marketing database. You need a place where you can get the 360 degree around you customer:

• how many times have you contacted that individual
• how many times has he/she responded
• what were the questions/answers from that individual
• how often
• how recent

these and so much more...there are many things you can learn about your customer - you just need a place to hold it all in.

The best analogy for this is that of a local corner store owner back in the good ol' days...the store owner knew each of his customer's likes, preferences, and dislikes. His marketing database was in his head. In the pharmaceutical area, people are still just people and they have their preferences as well (consumers and health care professionals - yes doctors are people too).

There are marketing database providers out there. Which is the best one? It depends on what you're looking for. They all are comparable just make sure you deal with a vendor with pharmaceutical experience with consumer/patient marketing. I have worked with many if not most and for the most part they do a good job.

Here's a recommendation though: have an internal and or external expert manage them. Whoever it is, the expert must have expertise within this niche. This expert must represent you and manage the vendor according to marketing objectives. I'll talk more about the Marketing Database Manager role in the next post.

control part 2 - interesting...

where was I - ah...the control...when you or your team set up a control, you can also call it a focal point. Funnel all relevant details that need to be evaluated through it.

Too much politics involved?

That's the beauty of the control...it knows no politics, no gut feelings - just the facts ma'am.

Let the data-driven insights move the decision making. The control is the center of all data, reporting, etc. Now remember, I'm not talking about a tool here - i'm talking about a person or a group. Who cares what tools or technology this control uses. Sorry IT folks, the control is not an IT person or people - the control belongs to marketing - the experts within.

Come to think of it, it's about time people understand that websites are not about technology - they are marketing tools that need to be controlled by marketing through expert controls that are extension of the marketing team.

Wow- what a thought!

set up a control - to lessen the bias

As a marketer, you are bombarded with all kinds of stuff coming from all sides. Sometimes, as you know - it can get confusing.

Your creative agency is telling you something. Your interactive and your media buy agencies are saying something totally the opposite.

Other groups such as your database vendor are pitching the latest and slickest tools. You're IT folks want to keep things in house.

You've incorporated findings from your market research group into your marketing strategy but you don't know if it has been effective. What is good? Is your marketing doing good?

And besides...

Who do you trust?

Take a step back and setup a control.

A control in this case is an individual or group that is there to do only one thing: help you assess and diagnose your marketing business by providing you with continual unbiased data-driven insights.

Ideally, this control an indepent source that is:

• the right solution (has the expert skill sets within the niche)
• at the right place (stays close to the marketing area - literally and figuratively)
• at the right time (the earlier in the marketing plan - the better)

More on this on the next post...

be clear on your objectives

One of the most important -no make that the most important decision that a marketer or marketing organization makes is the brand's marketing goal or objective. You want to know where your brand needs to get to, so you have a chance of making it happen.

Traditionally, the brand marketing goal in pharma has been to build awareness and affect attitude. However, due to its many benefits, many brands have embraced direct marketing for which the goal is to acquire response, establish two way dialog, and affect behavior.

Brands with advanced needs such as those in more targeted markets dealing with more complex messaging or even big brands who want more personal (rather than mass) appeal elect Relationship Marketing (RM).

Relationship Marketing's goal is to customize the dialog depending on the specific need or behavior (segementation) in order to maximize lifetime value.

RM definitely is the right fit for pharma - and benefits all aspects of the marketing "p's"- patients, physicians, and payer. So pRM could actually work for any - interesting...

Anyway, make certain that your goal is crystal clear vertically (upper management may have other ideas) and horizontally so that all in the extended brand team buy in - it's critical.