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1. How-To Guide
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Data Enhancement
By David Raab, Raab Associates
June 2014
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Marketing has changed radically in the past two decades. Instead of
blasting messages to anonymous consumers of mass media, marketers
increasingly manage direct interactions with known individuals. This
change presents a huge opportunity to improve the effectiveness of
marketing messages by tailoring each message to the person who will
receive it. But it also means that marketers who fail to accurately target
their communications increasingly risk being ignored by consumers
who only react to relevant content. Simply put, individualized customer
treatments are quickly changing from competitive advantage to baseline
requirement. Marketers no longer have a choice about whether to do
them, although they still control how well they are done.
The foundation of effective targeting is customer data. Data drives the
rules that determine who gets what treatment at what time. Other
resources are also needed, including analytics to understand the data
and execution systems capable of managing the interactions. But
without adequate data, these other resources are like an actor without a
script: they may look great but don’t know what to say.
Most customer data is generated within the company itself, including
contact information, response history, purchases, and customer service
interactions. However, other important information exists outside the
company. This includes personal or business details that the customer
has not provided directly, as well as behaviors such as social media
comments or visits to other companies’ Web sites. This information
provides insights used to target communications based on each
customer’s long-term needs and immediate interests. External data is

2. How-To Guide
© 2014 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
most helpful for prospects and new customers, who have generated
little or no data within company systems.
This guide describes the kinds of external data that are available to
marketers, how they can acquire this data, and how they can put it best
use. It will help you to improve the effectiveness of your marketing
programs by expanding the base of information available for
segmentation, targeting, and analysis.
Let’s get started.
ABOUT THE RESEARCH ANALYST
With an MBA from Harvard, David is an expert in both B2B &
B2C marketing strategy & technology. He has advised The Gap,
JC Penney, Lowe's, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Williams-Sonoma,
Scholastic, Unisys, Sprint and Verizon Wireless.
He also publishes the Raab Guide to Demand Generation Systems
and the Marketing Performance Measurement Tool-Kit.
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