How to Develop Relative Data

In marketing or advertising, I am a firm believer that Data is King! Without it, you won't know who you need to market to or what that message needs to convey. I have worked with many companies that either have no data or the data they have is so outdated it no longer has any relevance. The majority of clients these days seem to have the mentality of
wanting to pawn off whatever they can on whomever they can. That concept is fine with
me . . . as long as they are willing to pay for it. One of these areas is data
management. To the average John Q. Client, data management looks, feels, and sounds
extremely complicated. In reality, it is complicated only if you don't have database
knowledge and experience. Very few people enjoy crunching numbers and measuring metrics for
anything. It takes a dedicated specialist to do it properly, and if done improperly, can have traumatic effects. A client that has no data is a lot easier to work with than a client that
has bad data. Customers with flawed data can, however, allow you to become the
teacher/consultant, if you can properly show them how to obtain quality data and use it
effectively. One client that I worked with had a lot of data on existing members for their fitness facilities but no data on the visitors to various locations. By helping build a capture device and a follow-up method, they are now accomplishing a 24% response rate on direct mail on weekly business. Which constitutes to almost 1 new member out of every 4 potential member
visits to one of their facilities, after a postcard mailing acknowledging the visit. Now
that we have the data, we are streamlining the process to target these people with other marketing campaigns. The capture mechanism is key in this case. It is a form filled out by
a staff member to collect specific data on each visitor. A unique situation requires a unique approach. The capture piece can come in many forms, from landing pages, surveys, forms completed online or via return postcard, and telemarketing. It can be really easy to capture data; however, it's what you do with that data that really matters. A person may know their business but the data will direct them how to market it.