Discovering the Requirements – How do I know if I am delivering the right solution?

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In the first posting we established the need for having clear business goals and objectives, when looking to deliver a Customer Marketing solution. This initial step will now be expanded on to look at how you approach the definition and identification of clear goals. This posting is the second instalment of the Discovering the Requirements series.  If you are joining the discussion now, you may want to start by reading the first posting.

Before delving into the detail of a solution a clear understanding of what the business and hence marketing team are trying to deliver will help ensure the solution expectations are understood, with clear measurable goals defined.

This should begin with looking at the business goals, which often relate to return on investment, such as:

  • To increase the sales revenue by 10% in the next financial year.
  • To grow the number of active customers by 5% year on year.
  • To grow our UK sales by 10% and European sales by 20% in the next financial year.
  • Increase brand awareness amongst our key target customer age group 50+.

Alongside these goals there will often be operational, social and management goals, which may impact the objectives of a Customer Marketing solution. The key is to identify those goals with clear and measurable targets, which are directly related to the use of a Customer Marketing solution.

This raises the interesting point of what is the purpose of a Customer Marketing solution? A Customer Marketing solution enables you to:

  • Understand and identify your customers;
  • Know how and when they have transacted and interacted with your business, providing a clear view of which products and how much a customer has spent with your business;
  • Identify and drive a customer’s journey to deliver a positive and optimum relationship with you;
  • Enabling the performance of marketing activities to be measured, evaluated and refined;
  • Optimising the marketing processes to provide consistent, automated and timely interactions with your customers.

So using these, you can identify the business goals which can form the basis of your marketing objectives.

Please join me next week when I will address the definition of the key deliverables for you Customer Marketing solution. (Week 3: How do I define what the solution should deliver?)

If you have any further questions or would like support / guidance in discovering or defining your Database Marketing solution, please contact me through the BlacklerRoberts Ltd “Contact Us” page and I will be happy to discuss your needs. You can also follow @BlacklerRoberts on twitter for further insights.

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