The Transactional Co-Op: Targeting Valuable Customers at the Right Time

Modern marketers face many challenges, and one of the biggest right now is finding a way to best target high-value prospects at the right time. Cross-channel integration between traditional and digital marketing is a must to optimize spend and maximize communications with current and future customers alike. It's finding the best prospects from all channels and speaking to them with relevant marketing communications when they're ready to purchase that really impacts revenue.

Direct mail costs are rising. Postage costs, paper costs and printing prices are all going up, and prospecting databases aren't getting any cheaper either. Meanwhile, the focus is being turned toward online marketing. Online sales create more data from each digital channel than ever before — data that's constantly increasing. How can marketers make sense of it all to focus marketing initiatives on what's working best for the prospects that have the most effect on the bottom line?

The goal is to focus all marketing efforts so that they complement each other and drive action from high-value customers, integrating every marketing channel to target the right prospects while minimizing wasteful spend. This takes an efficient method for collecting data and measuring marketing's worth for key demographics. A transactional co-op environment is a great way to improve targeting and narrow focus to the best prospects, maximizing spend and increasing return on investment.

Closing the Gaps
The ability to measure marketing efforts has never been more important. Every organization is feeling the pressure to find hard numbers in marketing initiatives, from the top on down. At the same time, there's more data available than ever, creating data overload for many marketers.

However, a data surplus is also an incredible opportunity to find the right customer at the right time. Being able to make use of the numbers to boost ROI and increase conversions is a major factor for success in 2012. An unprecedented explosion of data drives responsibility on marketers to close the gap between sales and marketing, which means marketers must make data-driven decisions to increase the value of every marketing spend. Marketing departments simply can't be viewed as separate from sales departments to be successful. The two are intertwined, working toward the same goal of a higher conversion rate.

To effectively drive sales, marketers must keep their focus on revenue-driving prospects, which means letting data lead the way. Data is being collected more efficiently from more sources than ever before. A recent study by data management firm Krux Digital found the average website visit in December 2011 triggered 56 instances of data collection, up from only 10 in November 2010. Personalized URLs and cookies in emails also help track online behavior, aiding in retargeting — i.e., creating the opportunity to market to the right consumer with relevant information at the right time when that customer is interested in making a purchase.

The data influx also creates a unique opportunity to close the gap between online and offline initiatives. Time spent with digital marketing campaigns is up, but offline efforts like direct mail and telemarketing are still large contributors to sales. In fact, a recent Epsilon Targeting study of nearly 5,000 North Americans found that 50 percent actually prefer direct mail to email. The study suggests that brands should begin with trusted, traditional channels, subsequently "layering the message to re-enforce it through other channels." MarketingSherpa data reinforces this concept, finding that 79 percent of B-to-B companies still find direct mail effective.

The speed of data is increasing every day, creating opportunities as well as challenges. Marketers must find a great data partner to refine marketing efforts and integrate offline and online campaigns for maximum impact on high-quality prospects. When data is put to its ideal use, marketing channels work together creating a powerful blend of targeting, lead generation and sales.

The Benefits of an Optimized Transactional Co-Op Environment
Though not all data is created equal, transactional data helps get you to the right customer at the right time. Customer data is a powerful card for a marketer to hold. Finding out who customers are and what their preferences are gives a view into how to best market to them in the future. Transactional data also helps marketers find similar prospects and provides insightful buying behavior and purchase history, as well as an understanding into customer preferences.

By taking advantage of a transactional co-op database, marketers can get even deeper information on current and future customers, as well as future motivation. The transactional co-op environment brings in a larger pool of online and offline information, allowing marketers to look at larger spending trends, ultimately increasing the effectiveness of their current data. Transactional data is predictive in nature. Past purchase history gives marketers a clear window into what prospects will find relevant in the future, what motivates prospects to become customers and what leads customers to make future purchases.

An optimized transactional co-op solution also provides access to a developed prospecting environment. Information can be tailored to individual business needs while still maintaining the benefits of a full database. This also means there's a large number of variables to use for modeling. After all, the more data that goes into the model, the more powerful the model becomes in its focus and impact. A developed prospecting environment allows marketers to identify a larger number of sites as well, making use of contacts within sites.

Timing and personalization are crucial factors to maximize sales from the modern consumer. A powerful model can incorporate both of these, tailoring communications across multiple channels. An optimized transactional co-op environment allows for enhanced timing and personalization in email, direct mail and remarketing, all based on what led to purchases in the past.

One Solution, Multiple Problems Solved
Transactional co-ops solve efficiency problems on multiple levels, enhancing the entire marketing apparatus. Email can be used for grasping and testing as well as lead generation. A personalized URL inserted into each email allows for monitoring of digital behavior and patterns to optimize the email channel's timing and personalization efforts. Capturing cookies gives even further marketing opportunities through remarketing banner ads that run personalized marketing copy based on past browsing history. By creating more brand impressions and a call to action in further web interactions, remarketing finds prospects at a time when purchasing is top of mind.

Online data can also be used to retarget offline marketing efforts like direct mail. Transactional data and online behavioral patterns give marketers excellent opportunities to tailor direct mail to the best prospects via an integrated approach. This not only minimizes wasted direct mail spend for low-quality prospects, but also increases the effectiveness for high-value prospects.

Leverage the Power of Transactional Data
The sheer amount of data available to marketers today is staggering. It's more readily available every day. In fact, this data explosion is outpacing the time marketers have for giving it the necessary analysis it needs to be of real use.

However, increased data availability is a real opportunity to optimize marketing efforts if used properly. As marketers are increasingly held accountable for hard numbers and demonstrating ROI, transactional data offers a solution by closing the sales and marketing loop.

Though consumer time spent in digital channels is up, it's important to remember that many consumers still prefer traditional marketing. Finding the right mix of each channel helps you reach high-value prospects and customers where they prefer to be reached, bridging the gap between online and offline marketing.

With an optimized transactional co-op environment, marketing initiatives can be refined to target the best prospects both online and offline, blending lead generation with conversion and retention.

Joe Tropeano is the vice president, B2B Brokerage, Infogroup Targeting Solutions. Joe can be reached at joe.tropeano@infogroup.com.