Intent-Based Marketing is the Next Frontier

As complex as database marketing may seem at times, it’s based on a rather simple concept: use data to predict a customer’s likelihood to do something (usually make a purchase). For decades now, transactional data has been the foundation on which virtually every direct marketing program has been built and optimized.

And for good reason: transactional data has the dual benefit of being easy to acquire – resulting from the normal course of the direct sales business – and generally being more predictive than, say, demographic data. Transactional data is a historical view, and we all know history tends to repeat itself.

The Internet has given rise to a new breed of predictive data: individual intent. Think about it; even a troglodyte of a husband can submit “flowres” (a single, misspelled word) to Google and be instantly connected with dozens of options for same-day flower delivery. Pretty powerful, predictive stuff! The challenge for direct marketers, and direct mailers in particular, has been harnessing this intent-based data to improve direct mail results.

Until now.

NaviStone™ is CohereOne’s answer to that challenge.  It enables you to integrate your customers’ web browsing data into your direct mail circulation strategy. Here are a few ways that NaviStone™ can revitalize your circulation planning process:

• Increase Sales. Identify lapsed customers that your current selection strategy is suppressing from mailings, but who are shopping on your website right now. Transactional data tells you how long it’s been since someone has bought from you, but it doesn’t tell you that they’re thinking of buying from you (or your competitor?) now.
• Save Money. Identify customers that your current selection strategy is including in mailings, but who don’t need to be mailed a catalog as often, or at all. Just as browsing data can indicate who is likely to buy, lack of browsing data can identify a customer who is not likely to respond to a mailing.
• Grow Your Buyer File; convert browsers into buyers. Most companies have very few options when it comes to converting window shopping web visitors into paying customers. And, most have low-conversion rates compared to a typical direct mail campaign targeted at the right kind of visitor. NaviStone™ qualifies your web traffic and provides you with a mailing address so you can increase your prospecting circulation efforts.

These are just a few opportunities that emerge when you integrate your customers’ browsing data into your direct mail circulation strategy with CohereOne NaviStone™. And we believe we’re just scratching the surface of the utility of this data.