It is perhaps, a frightening thought that numbers and secrets hidden in columns and data set extractions is the key to the future. Yet, I am pretty sure that some of the data models that we work with, will tell you more about what people want to buy and when the want to buy, than these people actually know themselves or what they express. Our data models can, for example, can predict what a person will buy next time in the web, if the persons last purchase was a TV, or if its possible to persuade a specific person to purchase one more lot in Klasselotteriet …

Customers will tell everything themselves …
The key to this prediction model is of course that the customers will tell you more and more about themselves through their behavior. We integrate their behavior in various systems, and therefore we have insight to how customers behave on the Internet, whether they open our mail or not, what they click on, etc.

The amount of data we deliver as consumers are increasing exponentially these years. In a few years we all have about 100 different devices that provide data about what we do – and it is exactly these data we can use to target our communication. Not only in relation to what people are interested in, but also in terms of timing: when are they interested?

We measure Life Time Value – now…
At the same time using this approach to customer buying behavior and patterns of action means that we can with big accuracy measure the effect of all our marketing together. For our customer Klasselotteriet we are currently doing a project where we measure the customer’s Lifetime Value (LTV) monthly. By doing this, we can compare the positive or negative change in the LTV compared to the interaction the customer has had with Klasselotteriet: Has the customer won, received any reminders, been online, received letters/emails etc.? What did the activity cost? This meaning, is the ROI compared to LTV positive or negative?

These opportunities that are now available to us are very exciting. And these opportunities mean that marketing in the future is going to act much more about very exact knowledge, rather than on subjective interpretations from focus groups and evaluations of varying quality. That in itself will make sure that marketers get more time to express themselves, where the decisions on how the company’s large budgets will be allocated.