How valuable is your customer data?

[Posted by Dave Frankland]

I was asked a very interesting question by a client recently about how firms value their marketing database and the consumer data stored in it. I’ve asked a lot of marketers during engagements and we surveyed our Direct Marketing Council – we found that while some marketers point to incremental value that they help generate, they do not necessarily have a value on the database itself.

So are any of you out there assigning a monetary value to your database?  Is anyone accounting for it on your balance sheet? Or is it simply seen as a cost center/cost of doing business?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.