The emergence of mobile technology is changing the way we communicate. The majority of households in the developed world have mobile phones. People use them to make calls, send text messages and access the Internet.

Companies are taking advantage of this expanding medium to reach current and potential consumers. In marketing, the possibilities of this mobile channel include research, advertising and delivery of offers. For optimal results, leading organizations focus on what message to send to a particular person as well as exactly when, where and how to send it.

A flexible, active data warehouse that serves as a data repository can help achieve these goals. With easy and quick access to pertinent data, an organization can be assured that its next wireless communication with a customer will be timely and relevant.

Leveraging new channels
Backed by an active data warehouse, businesses can accumulate a wealth of customer data by phone number: preferred channel of communication, recent purchases and experiences on all channels, lifetime value, interaction trends, etc. The resulting detailed profiles enable smarter marketing so companies can reasonably target individual consumers.

Direct marketing, such as personalized coupon delivery, is a dynamic opportunity for the mobile channel/data warehouse solution. A grocery store with an active data warehouse can tailor its offers to individuals' preferences and buying patterns and send pertinent coupons directly to the individuals' mobile phones. So rather than sending out traditional coupon fliers en masse that may go unused by a block of shoppers, the store focuses on customers who are likely to make use of the offers. This technique can be applied to a range of consumer activities, from sporting events to travel.

Furthermore, because companies can track all marketing deliveries made to a customer's mobile phone and the subsequent number of redeemed offers, explicit monitoring and auditing of the campaign becomes easy. As a result, costs drop for campaign development and management, and tracking customer responses to everything from offers to surveys becomes faster and more accurate.

The mobile-communication approach is also useful for proactive customer relationship management. Active data warehousing and mobile channels enable organizations to make a positive experience out of a potentially negative one—by warning airline passengers of delays, for example.

Establishing a communications framework that is driven by a data warehouse makes it simple for companies to experiment with mobile marketing and adapt their strategies based on the consumers' reactions and use of the new medium. With a data warehouse, administration costs and turnaround speed can improve. This makes communication, like surveys, practical and pertinent for the consumer and organization alike, both logistically and financially. And, because the foundation is the same data warehouse that supports other channels, the result is a seamless experience.

Do it right
Above all, communications over digital channels must be relevant and comply with regulations, and customers must be willing to accept advertisements on their mobile phones. To be effective, these messages must be timely, germane, concise, personalized and relatively infrequent. Successful organizations understand this and, therefore, refine the methodology with input from test groups to determine what works and provide opt-in choices for interested consumers.

Ultimately, it boils down to data. Businesses must build their data warehouses with all kinds of data, not only call center information or sales history, which can be limiting. By gathering details such as an individual's preferred shopping medium, method of payment, number of returns and so on, businesses can gain a broader view of each patron.

It is critical to keep messages consistent with activity for every customer on other marketing channels, such as direct mail, as well as keep in line with the enterprise's overall marketing strategy and tone of communication. By functioning as the collective memory of the business, a data warehouse provides understanding of all available data, thus turning mounds of data into rich and granular detail to enhance the consumer experience.

Anytime an organization runs a campaign, it can learn and improve, particularly when accessing digital channels. The ideal data warehouse models the business in a detailed, flexible way; then, as the consumers and market forces change, the data model and the data itself can evolve with them. For instance, to truly support the new channels, companies require active data warehousing capabilities. People are busy, they are mobile and they want information now. To accommodate them, the data repository must trickle-feed data instead of utilizing weekly batch loads.

Success in the long term
Understanding how individuals interact with the organization and how to enhance the customers' experience over time will enable successful wireless marketing. Active data warehousing, combined with emerging digital channels, allows businesses to put the focus on the consumer while providing the necessary flexibility and completeness of information. Armed with an active data warehouse, enterprises can leverage the new channels to achieve faster, smarter marketing and messaging. T

Teradata makes the call enlarge > Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse provides a flexible, active, integrated data foundation. > Teradata Relationship Manager generates targeted messages, and stores consumer response and communication history. > Teradata Interaction Advisor allows customer relationship management agents to access the institutional memory to perform real-time decision making at the point of contact. > Teradata Marketing Resource Management enables easy management of the marketing process. —S.G.

Sam Gragg is vice president of marketing at Teradata.

Teradata Magazine-December 2008