Database Marketing Fundamentals For B2B Marketers

June 27th, 2008

Dave Frankland Vice President, Research Director

With contributors:

Laura Ramos , Suresh Vittal , Jennifer Joseph

Summary

Well-executed database marketing increases customer engagement, better aligns marketing activity with sales results, and improves marketing efficiency. However, business-to-business (B2B) marketers must overcome four unique challenges to maximize database marketing success: 1) long, complex sales cycles; 2) multiple stakeholder data that changes frequently; 3) complex relationships between buyers and the companies where they work; and 4) a lack of marketing-specific technology investment. To overcome these challenges, top B2B marketers build database marketing programs that include three key elements: customer profiles built with sales input, a marketing-only database created to track prospects and supplemented with outside data, and constant attention to data cleanliness.

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