David Danziger

"Offline" data is increasingly being described as commoditized or even heading toward irrelevance in the tsunami of online and behavioral data. This article takes an opposing view, positing that traditional descriptive data will become even more valuable as it provides scale, context, and cross-channel coherence for online and behavioral data.

Overwhelming percentages of Americans say online privacy is a top concern, yet many of the top downloaded mobile apps have no privacy policy at all. So does having a privacy policy matter? You bet it does!

While many customer databases were created for particular, limited purposes, in the today's multi-channel, multiple customer touchpoint world, the customer database can be transformed into a rich goldmine.

Daily deals are hot right now. But they could be even better. By enabling targeting capabilities so that merchants can reach the "right" prospects, daily deal providers could increase the value for themselves, for merchants, and for consumers.

Using data for targeting requires descretion as well as intelligence. Too hot or too cold...too big or too small... the wrong approaches to data can be costly. Applying the Goldilocks rules can help.

The Lone Ranger always wore a mask, but still, we knew many things about him. Online audiences are very much the same - we don't need to know (and don't want to know) their identities. We just need to know enough to optimize the experience for them.

Marketers always need to think about the segments that have the greatest need for their products. Targeting effectively depends on data and analytics, a concept that Kramer and Frank Costanza could have used when they wanted to market the "Bro", an upper body support garment for men.

In many marketing efforts, execution is often where the plans fall apart and the real victories and defeats emerge.

Admittedly, rocker Todd Rundgren could be considered an unlikely muse for someone who writes about marketing. But his signature song "Hello, It's Me" is clearly about a complicated relationship, and that is familiar territory for marketers, particularly with the recent emergence of audience management. Getting the right message to the right person in the right way in the right time (and doing it consistently), is a challenge worthy of song—and article.

Targeted marketing has evolved, so successful marketers are using techniques to answer who, what, when, where, why, and how about customers and prospects.

Knowing a little bit about a person's relatives can reveal a lot about whether he/she would be a fabulous or a rotten target for your next marketing campaign. In fact, understanding family ties might fundamentally change the way you view a prospect.

Still doing budget planning from a top-down approach? Determining which channels work best overall and throwing more money into those channels? How about a bottom-up approach that takes customer value and channel preferences into account simultaneously? It's a smarter way to slice the budget pie!

Many companies recognize that they have potentially powerful data assets to help with their own acquisition and retention efforts. But they don’t know where to begin when it comes to monetizing those data assets in new and different ways. Do you know how to put your lazy assets to work?

Marketers are hot for social networking data, because as consumers, our financial behavior, purchase desires, and approaches to life are influenced by our friends. But our friends are only part of the puzzle: our original social network was our family, and knowing a little about someone's family can tell a marketer a lot about the individual.

Everybody talks about using multiple channels to reach consumers. Unfortunately, discussing it and doing it – successfully, anyway – are two very different things. Here's a look at the fiction, the reality and the undeniable future of multichannel marketing.

A straightforward summary of why data mining is important. When the article was written in 1998, the concept of data mining required justification! Sometimes it still does.

Why limit the ability to discern useful information from data to the statistically gifted few? With newer, user-friendly software, even business users can utilize powerful data mining tools to deliver impressive results.