The NCDM Database Excellence Award Winners

The Leaderboard was launched with an introductory Flash presentation and a benchmark satisfaction survey. The tagline for the effort: “Best Practices for Best Results.”

As part of this, Merchants Bonding sends a personalized e-mail newsletter called the Forecast. Underwriters are able to create custom hard-copy versions in magazine format. And there are many special mailings.

The firm also set production goals for all customers using the Leaderboard. Thanks to regular predictive analytic reviews, it can identify agents who are up and coming or fading.

Agents are also segmented by loyalty, transactions, future potential, geography, rate of change and roughly 15 other predictive variables.

Some underwriters were reluctant to support the marketing effort. But they apparently warmed up to it.

The best testimonials for the active three-year program came from the agents themselves.

“An innovative idea,” said one. “The consistent contact reminds me to think of Merchants and that is helpful since you don't have a physical office here.”

Another wrote, “It projected the message of your desire to be your agents' partner. I would not normally spend that much time on a general message. Thanks for your support.”

Award: Bronze

Marketer: Alltel Wireless

Vendor: Acxiom

Alltel Wireless would seem to be at a disadvantage. Far from being the top wireless carrier in the United States, it's No. 5.

But that's not shabby, given that it holds the top slot in some places, and that it has 13 million customers in 35 states. And its My Circle product, featuring free unlimited calling to any 10 numbers, is a brand differentiator, it claims.

So why did Alltel hire Acxiom? Because it needed a “robust, centralized, data-focused marketing solution.” That meant automated customer communications and advanced analytics.

This was a serious undertaking, for the firm counts on “successful marketing strategies to maintain and improve its market position,” it says.

The obstacles to this agenda? That Alltel had siloed customer data sources and limited prospecting information. In addition, it lacked an automated customer lifestyle management system.

But that has changed. Alltel now has faster predictive modeling, thanks to best-of-breed campaign management tools and an Oracle database customized by Acxiom.

In addition, it has combined Acxiom's data with its own to do better behavioral targeting.

Alltel's direct marketing team now conducts more than 300 initiatives per year, using direct mail, e-mail, outbound voice and text messaging. Many of these campaigns are automated.

The firm now sends 285% customer communications than it did before, based on a deeper understanding of what subscribers need, and at different times in the life cycle.

Meanwhile, its take rate for My Circle campaigns to existing customers now tops 6%.

TECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS

Award: Gold

Marketer: Nissan North America

Vendor: The Marketing Store

Nissan North America had a classic challenge. How could it help its dealers sell parts and services in a competitive market?

The answer was a customer data mining tool that would enable these sellers to create lists, and then conduct e-mail, mail, text and phone campaigns.

Of course, there was more to it than that. The tool had to facilitate profiling, analysis and modeling, among other things. It had to serve the front office. And it had to generate quick reports.

Above all, it had to identify owners of new and used Nissan/Infiniti vehicles.

Nissan worked with its loyalty marketing vendor The Marketing Store to handle this complex project.

First, Nissan had to demonstrate strong sense of buy-in from the top down. And it had to persuade the dealers to participate.

Then there were the technical issues. The firm had to pull — and standardize — data from multiple sources. And it had to construct a database to house all of it.

The technical work proceeded. So did the marketing to the end users.

The company created a promotional video that it showed to dealers at an annual Road Show. It also sent teaser e-mails, conducted Webinars and developed training guides. And it made follow-up phone calls.

The tool was deployed in February 2007. And it quickly generated results. Over 98% of the end-users used the tool at least once in the first eight months, with an average of 5.9 quick reports run per dealership per month.