Exam 22: Managing Personal Communications: Direct and Database Marketing and Personal Selling

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In general, companies can use their databases in five ways:
1. To identify prospects - Many companies generate sales leads by advertising their product or service and including a response feature, such as a link to a home page, a business reply card, or a toll-free phone number, and building a database from customer responses. The company sorts through the database to identify the best prospects, then contacts them by mail, e-mail, or phone to try to convert them into customers.
2. To decide which customers should receive a particular offer - Companies interested in selling, up-selling, and cross-selling set up criteria describing the ideal target customer for a particular offer. Then they search their customer databases for those who most closely resemble the ideal. By noting response rates, a company can improve its targeting precision. Following a sale, it can set up an automatic sequence of activities: One week later e-mail a thank-you note; five weeks later e-mail a new offer; 10 weeks later (if the customer has not responded) e-mail an offer of a special discount.
3. To deepen customer loyalty - Companies can build interest and enthusiasm by remembering customer preferences and sending appropriate gifts, discount coupons, and interesting reading material.
4. To reactivate customer purchases - Automatic mailing programs (automatic marketing) can send out birthday or anniversary cards, holiday shopping reminders, or off-season promotions. The database can help the company make attractive or timely offers.
5. To avoid serious customer mistakes - A major bank confessed to a number of mistakes it had made by not using its customer database well. In one case, the bank charged a customer a penalty for late payment on his mortgage, failing to note he headed a company that was a major depositor in this bank. The customer quit the bank. In a second case, two different staff members of the bank phoned the same mortgage customer offering a home equity loan at different prices. Neither knew the other had made the call. In a third case, the bank gave a premium customer only standard service in another country.