This is the first issue of an e-letter for direct and database marketing practitioners. We will concentrate on topics that help you do your job better and make money for your company. In this issue, we will discuss Best Practices Marketing Database Content. Let's begin with a definition:
Database content is the "stuff" "the data "that resides in a database. Examples include orders, items, post-demand transactions such as returns, and promotion history. It is independent of technological considerations such as whether the underlying database engine is "say "SQL Server or Oracle, or whether the business intelligence/campaign management software is Alterian or Unica.
However, too often this impressive technology is constructed upon the rotten foundation of inferior database content. With inferior content, the most advanced business intelligence and campaign management tools in the world will not get your company where it needs to go. This is because a marketing database is only as valuable as its underlying content.
Creating and maintaining Best Practices Marketing Database Content is hard, ugly work. There is nothing glamorous about spending hundreds of hours sifting through every data source you can get your hands on, in order to organize, fix and enhance it. Or, to implement and religiously adhere to quality-assurance procedures during all database update cycles.
Nevertheless, the payoffs are profound. We will talk about these in future e-letters. In the meantime, the following will link you to an informative article, "The First Five Commandments of Database Content Management." The extent to which your marketing database violates any of these five Commandments is the extent to which your firm's revenues and profits are being artificially limited.
