Increasing the proportion of marketing spend that provides business value is a goal of every demand generation organization. However, identifying which activities are effective and which are ineffective is often difficult. Business intelligence can help companies transform raw data into business information that enables them to

 

• Segment prospects into groups with common characteristics so they can create better targeted campaigns 
• Create profiles of customers that own different products and determine how customer characteristics influence purchasing behavior
• Match segmented prospect groups against customer profiles to create more compelling value propositions
• Determine what offers to run through different marketing channels (direct mail, print ad, web, etc) to most effectively reach customers segments

The benefits that companies can realize from using BI include;

 

• Increased campaign response and conversion rates
• Shorter sales cycles and lower customer acquisition costs 
• Higher average selling price and increased profitability

 

Real World Value

StubHub Inc. provides an online marketplace where fans buy and sell tickets to sporting, concert, theater, and other live entertainment events. They wanted to improve customer segmentation and visibility into purchasing behavior so they could optimize marketing spends. Using SAP BusinessObjects software they were able to identify key customer segments and analyze the effectiveness of each marketing channel. In the first year of operation StubHub realized a return on investment of nearly 3,000%, which included a 33% reduction in cost per order and a 31% reduction in dropped order rate.

 

http://download.sap.com/usa/industries/retail/customers/all/download.epd?context=FF3A2C02FCE8BE5EC0E1F89C17B282BECC5DE884AB10F3D409AF0351A89360737E592B254830BBF72F6D5412E0CFC4BB63ACD4D51F90827F