News
 How
a Relational Database Helps Marketers
By Arthur Middleton Hughes
To do database marketing properly, you want to
collect data on your customers, and use that data to
measure their lifetime value and to communicate with
them. Heres how to use a relational database to
your advantage.
The messages can be personalized because you have
stored information properly so that the database can
enable you to have meaningful dialog with hundreds
of thousands of customers, just as the old time
corner grocers had with their individual customers.
Database marketing today is based on relational
databases maintained on servers (or in the case of
very small databases, on PCs.). Databases used to be
stored on mainframes, but these are not acceptable
for modern conditions. To get started designing a
relational database, most companies use a needs
assessment, which is a two day exercise interviewing
all concerned: marketers, sales, management, IT, and
vendors. The goal is to determine what the marketing
program will be for the next year, and the data
available and necessary to support that program.
After the two days, the database design team spends
the next 28 days creating the database structure.
A relational database consists of fields, tables,
and records. A field is the smallest structure (the
atom) of the relational database. Examples are: A
last name, a date, a dollar amount, a product
number. There may be a hundred fields in a database.
Properly designed fields have only one value: Wrong:
Arthur Hughes. Right: two fields 1) First Name 2)
Last Name. They should not contain data that changes
or calculated values: Wrong: Age. Right: Date of
Birth.
Fields are grouped into tables. A table is the chief
structure in a relational database. A table always
represents a single specific subject which can be
either an object or an event. Object example:
Customers. Event Example: Orders.
Keys are special fields. Every table contains a
primary key field and may have one or more foreign
key fields. A primary key field for the customers
table would be the Customer Number. A foreign key
field for the same table would be an Order Number
field (which is the primary key in the orders
table). The other fields in the customer table would
be data fields, such as name, street, city, state,
zip, etc.
Records are the structures in a table that represent
unique instances of the subject of the table. An
example is Arthur Hughes, one of the records in the
customers table. A purchase that Arthur Hughes made
on August 12th could be an example of a record in
the orders table. Relationships are connections
established between pairs of tables.
Why is all this technical detail important to
database marketers? Because, in most cases today,
their databases are not designed properly. They are
old fashioned mainframe flat files. The update
process is very slow. Adding or changing data in a
flat file is a difficult process. What are the
advantages of a relational format to a marketer? A
modern relational database:
Is easily to update either in real time, or in
monthly batches
Permits ad hoc drill down queries and reports
Allows you to store an unlimited amount of data
about any customer
Permits you to add fields without redoing the
whole database
Makes it easy to modify the data and to retrieve
information
Makes it easy to develop and carry out
personalized customer communications
Permits the inclusion of business rules in the
database design
---Source:
Arthur Middleton Hughes is vice president/solutions
architect at KnowledgeBase Marketing. His website is
dbmarketing.com. Contact Arthur at Arthur.hughes@kbm1.com
or at (954) 767-4558.
|
|
|
Melissa Data
|
 |
| Enhance your
website, software or database with
easy-to-integrate data quality programming tools
and web services. |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Save money on postage using leading
mail preparation software and other
direct marketing products. |
|
|
|
|
 |
Update & standardize addresses and
find out more about contacts in your
database.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Find new customers perfect for your
business with our online and
specialty mailing lists.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Locate the business information you
need such as ZIP Codes, address
verification, maps.
|
|
|
|
|
Facebook
Twitter
