Intelligent Direct Marketing with Effective Use of Data

I'll bet you're all familiar with those cute little robot vacuums -- the Roomba -- right? Well, not only are they cool machines, but iRobot is using all of the right direct marketing techniques to understand and build their customer relationships. By using RightNow Technologies, iRobot has managed to use data to "get into their customer's head."

RightNow's approach is very intelligent. The AdWeek article reports on their novel approach. "To stay in synch with individual customers, the company also tracks every interaction with each consumer, so past interactions can be used to improve subsequent interactions. That data is fed back into e-mail marketing campaigns that produce more consumer data and generate sales of the circular $300 vacuuming robots. In all, hundreds of thousands of customer interactions across multiple channels are tracked and managed each month, and the data is used to constantly refine its communications. To prospective iRobot consumers, it can seem that the company is reading their minds."

RightNow accomplishes this by tracking iRobot's self-service web site and its phone and email interactions with customers. This is effective customer data integration and management at its best. They then utilize all of this customer intelligence in their direct marketing campaigns.

In our opinion, utilizing data intelligence with analytical tools allows for the most efficient direct marketing campaigns. Not only are you effectively communicating with your customer base, you are consistently utilizing customer feedback to hone your campaigns for the greatest response and conversion rates. This leads to campaigns that become better over time and helps your company to become proactive in terms of product/service development. This approach assists in the creation of marketing campaigns that can be measured and reported on to the leadership team for the ever-important profitability metrics.

If your company has had success using intelligent direct marketing, let us know so that we can share your success in an upcoming post. We love acknowledging savvy direct marketers and reporting on DM successes. It makes us all better at what we do every day!