The NCDM Database Excellence Award Winners

An important part of their strategy included identifying the approach that would drive the greatest incremental lift over a no mail population established as a control. A modeled approach was developed to drive those incremental results.

The key to success in the program was their ability to organize and compile our customer data, leverage the data to drive message and timing of direct mail, refining our approach along the way.

Award: Bronze

Marketer: Charter Communications

Vendor: Allant Group

Charter Communications offers cable services to 5.7 million customers across 29 states. And it relies on targeted direct communications rather than mass media.

But the company realized two years ago that its technical and data infrastructure was incapable of supporting its marketing. So it decided to consolidate its direct marketing operation and set a 24-week deadline for doing it.

The goal was to generate a new set of testing and models designed to boost its response rates, while reducing its expenses. The system would have to incorporate extremely granular data and provide predictive analytics accessible to both the marketing team and C-level executives.

The company has realized double-digit percentage gains in its prospecting response rates. Additionally, it has reduced costs by 17% for the 100-million-plus direct mail pieces it sends each year.

B-TO-B MARKETING

Award: Gold

Marketer: Michelin North America

Vendor: Datacore Marketing

Michelin North America is a classic business-to-business-to-customer marketer — that is, it relies on intermediaries to sell its products to the consumer. And that takes a special kind of marketing savvy.

Michelin stimulates — and tracks sales--through its Alliance Associate Dealer incentive program (AAD). This relies on the eStatement, an online application developed by Datacore Marketing.

The eStatement is updated daily, and provides both month-to-date and year-to-date account information — on everything from purchases to rewards. It is customized for each dealer based on purchase commitments.

Another application enables distributors, dealers and Michelin to execute legal contracts online. The parties can review terms and approve them with electronic signatures.

Roughly 70% of Michelin's dealers buy from the company, the rest from distributors.

AAD is fueled by Michelin's marketing database, also developed by Datacore.

Michelin uses the database to help dealers understand which programs they are eligible for — i.e., rebates, loyalty marketing and co-op funds.

It also tells how much money they earn from a given program; and when they will receive payment. In turn, Michelin can quickly access information regarding which dealers are using each program and how the programs are performing.

Michelin launched AAD via a series of local dealer events, and supports it through public relations campaigns that generate coverage in trade publications such as Modern Tire Dealer. It also sends e-mail updates to its dealer and distributor customer base.

The program has moved Michelin from needing to rely on distributor reports on dealer activity. It provides much more transparency for the firm, and allows the manufacturer to oversee benefit distribution to dealers.

Sales data is not yet available, but dealers have been signing up for AAD at a rate of more than 100 per month in 2008, up from 50 per month in 2007. Web site traffic has grown from an average of 100 dealers logging in every month to 10,000 doing so. And for the first time, Michelin is able to set benchmarks in products sold by the distributors to the dealer channel.

Award: Bronze

Marketer: Alvion

Vendor: Sybase

Alvion Technologies is an online list rental fulfillment provider. The company was recently acquired by Acxiom, which wanted to establish a system that would allow clients to search for prospects based on geography, demographics and other attributes.

But time was of the essence — the firm had to move from query to closed sale within minutes.

The challenge lay in generating a program that would support massive data files and provide analytics and query results without generating overhead expenses.

To accomplish this, Alvion and Sybase used a loading script that selects the fields, elements and attributes necessary to address queries. Customer requests are run on sets of data that contain only information necessary to satisfy each query.

This design has significantly reduced processing time. The process uses Sybase IQ software, which contains compression algorithms that reduce storage demands.

The benefits have been multifold. Query-to-delivery time has dropped to an average of six minutes. This is significant in a market where speed is considered a competitive advantage.

In addition, the system can accommodate four times its current usage level, with room to grow beyond that. And data-load times were cut by 50%.

The NCDM Database Excellence Awards call for entries begins in September. Check for details later this year at www.ncdmevents.com.