Yves Lejeune, IT Manager at Computer Profile, gives us the advantages of a correctly utilised database and defines terms like scoring, typology, profiling, … Read more about it here.

A database is not merely a compilation of structured, ordered information: it’s the heart of an information system with the coherent elements all in one place, enabling you to do much more than simply add in this information.

Like “emergent behaviours” from distributed systems, where the overall behaviour of a group is not predefined at the level of each individual, a correctly utilised database can offer you much more than the mere “factual” information it contains: true intelligence to guide you day to day, particularly during difficult economic times such as we are experiencing at present.

For example, you can use these data for targeted marketing to your prospects, and to determine which of them have profiles most closely resembling those of your existing clients. This is called Scoring, the basic principle of which is to attribute a note to each element of your database, then to compare how closely it matches a model sample predefined by you as your ideal target.

You can also decide to improve your offer by adapting it to your different client profiles, or more fundamentally with a view to retaining your best clients. This is a multidimensional analysis of the Segmentation or Typology type which, when applied to your database, will allow you to accurately identify your core target groups and to bundle them together according to match criteria.

Another vital issue to which an in-depth analysis of your database can respond is to identify where your potential clients are, where and how your offer should appear (and consequently be adapted), and of course where the competition is. This falls within the domain of Geomarketing, which allows you to superimpose what you know about your prospects and your offer upon the reality of the market, which has already been mapped out. What’s more, this knowledge enables you to refine its influence by area, taking account of the variable socioeconomic criteria, to ultimately simulate different potential introduction scenarios.

Finally, to gain an even more precise overview of your clients, and to find out why some behave differently within a single segment (why they buy more, less or differently), you can use your database to carry out a profile study: this is known as Profiling. Thus, after determining a model group for each of your segments, you can easily compare them against “average” profiles of prospects and/or clients, in order to extract types of behaviour and adapt your offer as a result.

I could write so much more about the unsuspected riches you can get from a database. However, I will have achieved my humble aim if these few lines have inspired you to make more of your database, to make you suddenly see it in a new light – as much more than the simple, slightly monolithic, data “container” that many people believe it to be.

In short, getting the best out of a database is a bit like extracting the essence of an aroma, or gathering together the juices from different plots of a vineyard to end up with the first wine of a grand cru…

Posted by Yves Lejeune- Source : www.computerprofile.com

Database Geomarketing, Profiling, Scoring, Typologie