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Making sense of information. That's what our BIS (Business Intelligence Services) are all about. Taking masses of data - web clicks, customer transactions, promotional returns, whatever, and turning it into relevant information that can be leveraged for business gain. That's the intelligence part - relating the raw data to real business outcomes - streamlining processes, engaging better with customers, retaining more customers, etc. Understanding data often means getting to grips with statistics. Hands up those who list Statistics as their favourite subject? Not many hands going up! The fact is, statistical analysis, data mining, information modelling, whatever flavour it comes in, can be fascinating and lead to deep understanding of customers which can be directly exploited for business gain. We're happy to shield you from as much or as little of the nasty statistics as you want, but we are experts at turning data into actionable intelligence.

A data strategy is simply a formalised approach to the acquisition, development, storage and distribution of data. The data strategy governs what is captured, how it is used and how it is transformed into information - a key corporate resource. The data strategy is the starting point of unlocking value in your databases. No point buying an expensive business intelligence toolkit if there are holes in the underlying data. Garbage in, garbage out is absolutely true, however, what can happen is errors and mistakes in data can be amplified through data analysis tools, leading to suspect decision making. Let us help you structure a plan for delivering high quality information to assist decision making.

Data can come from many sources. For many brands, customer transactions form the core data source for existing customers, for example, for a hotel, records of customer bookings, check-in records and food and beverage purchases during a stay will likely form the starting point for a data resource about customers. Mostly customers look internally first for data, and that is as it should be. There are other sources, however, such as external data lists that can be used to augment the information stored about customers, for example profiling systems. Other data is available in abstract form, e.g. market research data which may be very valuable in preparing the organisation for customer trends, but is likley not related to individual customers.

With a growing base of data, there may be preparation that is required before it can be used. This can be as simple as re-formatting data from one source so that it matches the format of another source, or it could be a matter of major restructuring, codifying, appending, aggregating, etc. Through all of this, we can help to structure and organise data and prepare it to the highes standards.

Profiling customers is all about capturing meaningful data about interests and activities. It is important to keep in mind the word: "meaningful". The context of your interaction with customers will define what is meaningful. The value in profiling is to help you present relevent information and offers to discrete customers and improve engagement, and thus profits.

Profiling can be a purely internal activity, adding tags to your dataset to highlight interests, needs, etc. about customers or prospects. Alternatively, it can also involve external datasets which add tags to your customer records, from data gathered externally. For example, you may have basic name, address, telephone (NAT) data about customers, but this can be augmented by matching your customer file to external lists. This might be done for compliance, say matching to the TPS or Telephone Preference Service or it might be done for marketing intelligence say to a list of health club members, so that you may tag your customers as "health conscious". It should be noted that there are thousands of external lists that can be used, with varying levels of value. Read more about our profiling services.

Segmentation is a simple idea that can add huge value to your marketing activities. In essence segmentation means identifying customers with similar interests and treating them as a sub-group for targeting offers. Simple segmentation might be done on one data element to categorise customer spend levels into bands, such as less than £25, £25 to £50, £50 to £100, £100 to £250 and over £250. This way you can see which customers are spending most and perhaps target retention spend towards higher spending customers. This is a very simple example and most segmentation schemes go far beyond this. We usually help customers to place their customers into a number of clusters using a technique called cluster analysis which takes many dimensions of data (different independent variables) and finds patterns or associations in the data. This process helps to

Want to improve your marketing effectiveness? A propensity model could be the right tool for you. It is in effect a ranked prospect model, where the spectrum of customers or prospects (either all or a segment) are ordered on one or more dimensions of significant date. This means generating a list of prospects who are likely to be most likely to accept a particular offer. As a for instance, imagine, as a mobile phone company, being able to send details of an upgrade offer only to those customers who are likely to be interested in it? No overspill, very efficient, profitable. This is what propensity models can do with more accuracy than other techniques but they have to be carefully designed. Read more about how we help clients to build such models.

Marketing operates with a constraint of limited budgets. Often it would be nice to spend the same amount on each customer, however, that approach ignores individual customers' values to the brand. Some customers will leave no matter how much you spend to retain them. Your mix of products and services simply does not work for them. So, if the budget is limited, how do you best allocate it? At SBS Direct we have been providing solutions to this problem for many years. A ranking model is a mechanism to order customers or prospects according to value on a particular dimension. That sounds more complex than it is. Take this example, say prospects that enquire about your services come in four different shades of red - pink, magenta, crimson and vermillion. Pink prospects take 10 units of effort to recruit, whereas magenta take 20 units, increasing further to 30 and 40 for crimson and vermillion respectively. Pink prospects generate £100 per annuum of revenue, whereas magenta customers generate £120 per annum. This rises to £180 and £220 for crimson and vermillion customers. With a breakeven point at £110 per annum to service customers, it becomes obvious that pink and magenta customers are barely profitable, whereas crimson and vermillion customers are highly profitable. Despite their higher acquisition costs, all other things being equal, the prospect ranking model would allow a higher acquisition spend on crimson and vermillion prospects. This is a simple illustration of the concept. Please read further information about our ranking model methodology and how it could release more value into your customer or prospect management.

Since we all have different needs and we all value different offers and propositions differently, it makes sense to tailor information to particular customer interests. At a simple level, if you know a mobile phone contract customer has just signed an 18 month agreement, don't make them an upgrade offer! That's common sense, however, as the variables in customer management get more complex and the number of customer interaction transactions starts to build up, the task gets hugely more complex. Trying to customise communications and customer experiences across a range of different channels adds a level of complexity that can be beyond most brands. However, at SBS Direct we have the experience and skills to take out the complexity and move to a system of customer communications that is tailored to customers at a very granualar level but doesn't tie you in knots. Plus, our approach releases valuable information in an easily digestible format, allowing you to get on with managing your brand, whilst providing customers with a tailored experience. Our experience in customisation is detailed further, showing how to profit from customisation.