Bridging the Gap between Information and Marketing
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Nov, 2004 - Business Today

The key to retaining customers is knowing their spending behaviour and better targeting marketing efforts on both potential and loyal customers. It also helps to reward customers who are loyal to a brand or company.

These and more are what Advanced Information Marketing Sdn Bhd (AIM) advocates, and the services it offers go along those lines.

Said AIM Chief Executive Officer Nyang Koon Seng: "Most companies know the importance of data from customers. So first, we help them to collect the data, usually in a span of six to 12 months and find out who are the companies' first tier (or top 20) customers. They are the ones who contribute 70% to 75% of the companies' sales.

"After analysing the data further, we blast these potentials with direct marketing and cross-selling efforts. We offer them other things based on the information we get from their transactions and transform them into simple marketing information.

Companies can use this to better target marketing information. This is where companies can add value for their customers and merchants."

INFORMATION PROVIDER

AIM positions itself as an information provider and not as an information technology player. In fact, going a step further, AIM has a mission statement that states it would like to bridge the gap between the information that it gathers and how best to use it, or between the IT personnel and the marketers. "We often find that the IT people and the marketing people have a gap among them. Technology is going very fast, marketers are often in a dilemma not knowing how best to use technology in marketing,'' said Nyang.

Basically, AIM is a business information provider. The company was registered in Malaysia in April 2004. It immediately applied for MSC status to give itself a competitive edge.

The company traces its roots to Singapore where it was estab lished in 1999. It licensed a software from Canada to manage cus tomer loyalty programmes. This software programme is also used by other loyalty programme providers in Malaysia.

Customer loyalty programmes came into relevance after the eco nomic downturn and currency crisis in 1997 and the dotcom bubble burst in 1999. Organisations began to realise the importance of obtain ing customer information.

"In simple terms, you can call it loyalty programmes that give customers points for shopping at a particular outlet. They can then redeem products with those accu mulated points.

"It is that simple. You can give them some incentives and they will do some transaction. We send them the catalogue and they can redeem these points with products," he said.

However, he added that behind such programmes are scores of technical aspects, which explain why most organisations award points to customers and then reward them.

"The reason is simply to collect information. When you collect such information, you understand who your customers are in terms of demographics - age, address, email, birthday and even hobbies. You are collecting information of an individual's lifestyle," said Nyang.

At the same time such programmes also enable organisations to collect a user's or customer's transaction behaviour such as how much one spends, where one spends his or her money, how often one spends the money and also what one buys.

Once this information is collected in a data mine, it is then analysed to determine the organisation's best customers and how best to retain them. From the information gathered, AIM would group the cus tomers into four categories:

1. Best customers.
2. Potential to be best customers.
3. Loyal customers.
4. Customers who have lapsed but could be lured back.

In the event these customers leave the organisation for a competitor, the customer analysis would enable organisations to formulate plans that could lure the customers back. For this purpose, data mining is very important, he added.