Database Marketing

Database (DBM for short) is a collection of records or entities.

DBM is an interactive approach to marketing communication, which uses addressable communications media (mail, email, telephone, fax, etc.) to reach your target audience, stimulate demand, staying close by recording and keeping an electronic database memory of customer, prospect and all communication and commercial contacts, to help improve all future contacts.

The characteristics of fully fledged database marketing are ....

1. Each customer and prospect is identified as a record on the marketing database; markets and market segments are groups of individual customers.

2. Each customer and prospect record contains not only identification and access information but also a range of marketing information. It also includes information about past transactions and about campaign communications.

3. This information is accessible before, during and after the process of each interaction with the customer/prospect, to enable "you" to decide how to respond to the customer/prospect's needs.

4. The database is used to record customer/prospects responses to campaigns.

5. The information is available to marketing policy makers to enable them to decide such things as which target markets/segments are appropriate for each product/service etc.

6. Selling many products to each customer, the database is used to ensure that the approach to the customer is co-ordinated; and a consistent approach developed.

7. The database eventually replaces market research. Marketing campaigns are devised such that the response of customers to the campaign provides information, which the company is looking for.