How Data-mining Can Help Drive Personalized E-mail

• Demographic, firmagraphic and geographic patterns. Segments may be defined based on life stages, socio-economics, climate, culture or other characteristics beyond purchase behavior.

• Motivation to buy. This also can be a powerful area of differentiation for personalization. For example, consider the difference in motivation to buy PCs within different types of households (e.g., on-campus college students, young professionals, families with children, empty-nesters). Most databases don’t capture customers’ reasons for purchase, so the motivation to buy must be inferred once the segments are defined.