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Zendor Provides Top Tips on How to Make the Most of Data Collected Over Christmas

Press Release

By: Zendor
13 January 2006

Christmas 2005 has been widely regarded as the most successful festive period for distance shopping to date, with the IMRG stating that 22 million people bought products online, spending £5 billion. With the Christmas season now over, the massive increase in online shoppers has left retailers with a wealth of consumer data which, if used effectively, can help segment databases and target customers for future sales. For those retailers who find themselves creaking under the weight of this new data, Zendor is on hand to offer advice on how to make full use of it now that Christmas has passed.

• Profile the customer -
Your customer database will hold vast amounts of data on each customer such as demographics, spend levels, age and purchasing behaviour. Getting to grips with this information will allow you to communicate in a more focused and effective way and, ultimately, reduce your chances of wasting time and resources targeting individuals who are unlikely to respond to future offers.
• Highlight the ‘Gifters’ -
There are many consumers who will only buy from a retailer at specific times of the year. A good example of this is someone who purchases a children’s toy for a relative at Christmas but does not have any children of their own to buy for. By identifying these ‘gifters’, you can highlight them in your database to approach next season and also send out test-mailings which may prompt a further purchase at other times of the year (by identifying key dates in their diary).
• Avoid the ‘blanket’ approach -
Contacting customers ‘en masse’ with generic emails may seem the most cost-effective option, especially for those retailers new to distance shopping, but in fact it does very little to enhance customer relationships in the long run. Communicating with the customer on a ‘one on one’ level creates an understanding of that consumer and allows you to recognise which offers they are likely to respond to.
• Interpret the data -
This will give meaning to the information held in your database and will allow you to analyse the most profitable customers and those who are more likely to respond to any marketing communications.
• Use modelling and segmentation to make informed decisions -
By statistically modelling customers, you can group and rank them into segments based on current and future expected worth.
• Build a contact strategy ready to target customers in the New Year -
Contacting customers with a targeted approach will often result in improved retention and lead to higher spend levels. Using a contact strategy will enable you to contact a customer at the most effective time and through the most appropriate channel, ensuring that investment is not wasted.
• Make use of the customer data to support other operations -
Customer data can be used in various ways, not just for direct marketing. For example, understanding your customers can help you to formulate further strategies moving forward into 2006, by identifying important aspects such as which products are essential for the coming year.
• Think about outsourcing -
This may be the best option for a retailer who lacks the in-house knowledge and expertise to analyse their customer data. Outsourcing to an expert who has thorough knowledge of database analysis, as well as distance shopping, will often yield a better return on investment than a do-it-yourself approach.

2005 will have been the first big Christmas for many online retailers and, therefore, their first opportunity to collect customer data on a large scale. Those retailers who have been busy gathering this data over the festive period need to realise that the job is just beginning. By making full use of the data gathered over the past few months, retailers can ensure that they do not miss any opportunities during the next year and when planning for Christmas 2006.

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