THE

MARKETING
DATABASE
Database marketing

Database marketing is a systematic approach to the

gathering, consolidation and processing of consumer data.
Database marketing is also a form of direct marketing and
may be called customer relationship management. Data of
both customers and potential customers are collected and
are maintained in a company's database.
How does database
marketing work?
Database marketing starts by collecting data from various
sources. Names, addresses, emails, phone numbers,
purchase history and other data can be tracked
Larger organizations might house that database in a data
warehouse. A data warehouse will receive different data
sets from separate departments that have any relevant
information regarding customers or potential customers.
Database marketing
benefits
Database marketing can provide benefits to marketers,
advertisers and consumers by:
 Finding the best channel to contact customers.
 Identifying customer groups, such as loyal customers,
first-time customers or potential customers.
 Organizes prospects on demographics and other
potential demographics, such as potential interests.
 Prioritizes valuable accounts.
 Personalizes marketing messages toward individual
prospects.
 Potential to increase customer retention.
 Data collected can be used for future promotional
campaigns.
 Saves expenses on sending campaigns to unlikely
customers.
Database marketing
challenges
Despite the benefits an organization can see from
database marketing, there can also be a few challenges as
well. For example:

 The collected data can become outdated. If someone

changes jobs, for example, their job title and business
email may change. Their address may even change if
they had to move for the new position. Data should be
kept up-to-date as much as possible.
 The data originally collected will also be incorrect if the
individual inputs incorrect information. Using drop-down
menus and checkboxes on forms can help acquire more
accurate information. However, with limited options, this
too may limit accuracy.
 The cost of managing a database server could be high if
there's no way to get value from the information being
collected.
 Accidently marketing to the wrong contacts, or grouping
contacts together incorrectly, will drive customers away.
Types of database
marketing
Database marketing can take place in two forms, consumer
database marketing and business database marketing. The
difference between the two is the target audience.
Consumer database
marketing
Is used by businesses that sell directly to a consumer,
or B2C organizations. Data collected in consumer
database marketing includes names, email addresses,
phone numbers, addresses, genders and locations. To
gain this information, an organization may implement
giveaways, contests, account registrations or offers for free
shipping. Once that information is stored, it can be used by
sending personalized mail or emails to consumers.
Business database
marketing
Is used by organizations that sell directly to other
businesses, or B2B organizations. The data collected in
business database marketing includes information such as
company revenue, names, e-mails, phone numbers, job
titles, website cookies and purchase history. B2B
organizations would want to collect such data through
LinkedIn, event registrations, whitepaper downloads,
industry reports, demos, free trial offers, or webinars. Once
this data is collected and stored, an organization can start
marketing through benefit-focused emails or targeted social
media ads.
Account-based marketing
Will help in maintaining a small, detailed business
database.
A database used for business database marketing may be
smaller than a B2C database. Organizations that employ
business database marketing may only focus on large
target accounts, so there's no need for a large database to
store large amounts of customer info.
Database marketing tips
and strategies
 There are numerous tips and strategies regarding
database marketing. For example, some basic tips
include:
 Know the audience being marketed to. If an
organization lacks detailed customer profiles, they may
not have as much informed insight into who their
prospect customers are.
 Know the data that will be the most useful to collect. It
may be information like demographics, activity or
transaction history.
 Respect a customer's privacy. Personal information
found on social media may be easy to find, and having
an abundance of identifying information could be useful,
but potential customers will not like having so much
personal data about them being kept -- especially
without their knowledge.
 Work with other internal teams. Sales, support and
marketing teams will all have information about
 customers to collect because they often work directly
with customers.
 Use marketing software. Software tools should help
make it possible to see different data points at once,
view customer type or organize data by service and
product categories.
 Keep data as up-to-date as possible. Information can
deteriorate pretty quickly as people move, change jobs
and email addresses, or make other life changes. It is
important to value information that is likely not to
change often over information that will.
 Implement strategies such as multichannel
marketing or predective analytics.
Real-life examples
A couple examples of database marketing could be an e-
commerce app that uses data about transaction history to
better and quickly assess a customer service call or a food
delivery app using transaction data to find which times a
customer is most likely to order from them. However, some
real-life examples of database marketing can be found in
Facebook, Amazon and Netflix.
Facebook
Facebook will segment user data by name, email, phone
number, and gender, date of birth, location, and interests.
This allows Facebook to create personalized experiences
for their users and information for marketers.
Amazon
Amazon will collect data such as what users have viewed,
purchased or put in a wish list. Amazon will then cross-
reference this with what other users have bought and use
the resulting data to try and sell new items to the potential
buyer. This process creates a recommendations engine,
which is based on consumer behavior.
Netflix
Netflix will track data about what shows and movies a user
views, then cross-references that data with what similar
users have viewed to provide recommendations.