The diminishing effectiveness of ongoing conference marketing activities lead a well known IT conference producer to adopt an analytics-lead approach to data segmentation and sourcing. Conversion rates rose whilst costs and opt-outs fell, ensuring the ongoing value of the marketing database.

1. Data | Operations | Insight
Case study: Contact strategy
boosts response and limits opt-out
The diminishing effectiveness of ongoing conference marketing
activities lead a well known IT conference producer to adopt an
analytics-lead approach to data segmentation and sourcing.
Conversion rates rose whilst costs and opt-outs fell, ensuring the
ongoing value of the marketing database.
Profile: Business-to-business IT conferences organiser with a portfolio
of nearly 20 two and three day events in Europe.
Objective: improve response rates to audience acquisition direct
marketing activity (print direct mail and email) and reduce opt-out and
“The disengagement from marketing activity.
diminishing Situation: The diminishing effectiveness of direct marketing activity
was impacting the ability to grow conference attendance and support a
effectiveness of programme of new conference launches. Despite the specialist nature
of each conference, a range of topics are covered which appeal to
direct marketing different IT and business roles. This diversity meant that different
aspects of the conferences needed to be highlighted with each group.
activity was
impacting the What happened: Working with the conference marketing and
programme (event content) managers, a clear understanding of
ability to grow delegate profiles was developed. This was based on the “tracks” or
content themes of each conference, together with job roles, titles,
conference seniority, business issues, stated preferences and past behaviour of
potential delegates.
attendance”
Utilising a combination of this information, consumption and usage of
other research products and information collected during marketing
interactions, a propensity model was created. This guided the
development of suitable segmentations for each conference together
with selection criteria for external data acquisition and the existing
marketing database.
Adopting a statistically lead approach ensured the necessary rigour of
both the segmentation itself and also the identification of external data.
This enabled data acquisition to move beyond simple job title and
industry selections to geography, growth profile and other parameters.
In addition, estimates of likelihood to convert for the different segments
greatly refined the allocation of marketing budget and event capacity
planning.
Additionally, a strategy, linked to opt-out requests, was implemented to
encourage prospects to provide more information about their
preferences, allowing prospects to manage their own communication
solutions@percassity.com percassity.com +44 (0)20 7193 7682

2. Case study: Contact strategy Percassity Marketing Data Solutions
experience, rather than opting-out completely. This included the option
to receive no further information about a particular conference, whilst
continuing to receive information on future and alternative
events.
Percassity Marketing Data
“Operational” implementation of the segmentation was Solutions
crucial, with each conference campaign consisting of as
many as ten touches over a 3-5 month period. Utilising Percassity Marketing Data Solutions is a
cohort management functionality within the campaign marketing data strategy and marketing
system, individuals were assigned to segments, providing operations consultancy. Adopting advisory
the ability to readily extract lists with the necessary and implementation roles, Percassity
segment flags for campaign execution. addresses challenges such as identifying
the right prospects, labour intensive
The segmentations were then used to drive the content of campaign execution, sales disengagement
marketing communications, with customised content and and measuring marketing results.
touch tempo appropriate to each group. This meant that an The company’s skills span marketing data
individual having previously indicated that customer management, marketing automation, lead
relationship management was a business priority, or having management, analytics and contact strategy
purchased research on data quality, would be selected for development.
the associated conferences. Furthermore, the profile of
each individual was then used to highlight specific content. Whether meeting a specific consultancy
This could mean strategic considerations being highlighted requirement or fulfilling an ongoing role,
to a CIO whilst a business analyst would be directed to we're equally comfortable augmenting your
more practical implementation content. existing database marketing or marketing
operations team as acting in an outsourced
Sales activity was also driven by the segmentations; high capacity where this resource does not
value prospects were invited to one-on-one sessions, VIP already exist.
events or passed to sales teams. Finally, earlier behaviour, With nearly
such as having previously attended the same event, a four decades
similar event or never having attended an event was taken decades of
into account. experience at
some of the
Outcome: Marketing communications became significantly world's
more targeted to individual recipients. Response and leading
conversion rates improved, data acquisition and marketing agencies and bluechip organisations,
communications costs declined, and opt-out rates were Percassity founders Simon Daniels and
slashed. Incorporating declared interests, related product Charles Eaton-Hennah know the
consumption and past behaviour, it was possible for challenges faced by marketing teams.
messaging to be more relevant to recipients, a key driver of
response. www.percassity.com
Intrinsic to the success of this approach was coupling the
programme activity with the necessary operational capability to execute
and track multi-segment activity, particularly with regards to email © 2010 Percassity Marketing
marketing activity Data Solutions Ltd.
Data | Operations | Insight
Percassity Marketing Data Solutions Ltd, Suite 27 | 61 Praed Street | London | W2 1NS | United Kingdom
solutions@percassity.com percassity.com +44 (0)20 7193 7682