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03.02.10 Making Dynamic Messaging Over Multiple Channels Easier  By David Raab Summary: Conversen makes it easy to generate dynamic messages across multiple channels. It's more a supplement than a replacement for conventional campaign management but should save a lot of work for marketers and their agencies. One of the fundamental challenges in database marketing is that a seriously sophisticated campaign may send different messages to hundreds or even thousands of customer segments. The traditional approach has been to define these segments during the selection process, creating a tree with one end-point for each segment, and then to assign the appropriate message to each end-point. The problem is that this requires creating hundreds of versions of the messages and making sure that each is matched to the correct end-point. This is both labor-intensive and error-prone. An alternative is to create "dynamic content" the messages that select the appropriate contents for each individual. In essence, this is moving some of the segmentation logic from the selection process to inside the message. Even though this ultimately produces the same number of variations, it lets marketers create fewer messages and segments, reducing manual effort. Let's take a concrete example. Suppose you're sending offers for winter vacation travel. People in New York will be sent offers for Florida and people in Los Angeles will get offers for Mexico. In addition, people in high-income zip codes will be offered a deluxe package while those in middle-income zip codes get an economy offer. A segmentation-based approach would use three segmentation rules (New York or Los Angeles; if New York, high or middle income; if Los Angeles, high or middle income) to create four segments, each tied to a separate message. A dynamic content approach would require just two decisions (New York or Los Angeles, high or middle income) that are each tied to a specific content block. 
It's still possible to make a mistake: you could accidentally link the Mexico offer to New York. But each assignment is made only once so it's easier to be sure it's correct. Note that the advantage of dynamic content increases as you add complexity: a three city-pair, three level program would require four segmentation rules (one for city, three for city/level combination) and nine unique messages, while dynamic content still needs only two rules (one for city, one for level) and six message blocks (three destination cities, three luxury levels). Continue reading this article. About the Author: David M. Raab is a Principal at Raab Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in marketing technology and analysis. He advises major consumer and business marketers on marketing processes, technology and service vendors. Mr. Raab is author of the Raab Guide to Demand Generation Systems and Marketing Performance Measurement Toolkit. He has written hundreds of articles on marketing technology for industry publications including DM Review, DM News, Relationship Marketing Report, Bank Marketing, Target Marketing, The Journal of Database Marketing, and elsewhere. Mr. Raab established the technology consulting practice at Raab Associates in 1987. He holds a bachelor's degree from Columbia University and MBA from the Harvard Business School. Check out his blog at http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com/. |
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