The data driven marketing concept is no longer a myth or impossible to put into practice. The fact is that excuses like resource constraints, budgets, and lack of data are just that – weak excuses. There are ways to quickly and effectively harness customer and prospect information you most likely already have on hand. Here are five ways to get this done in rapid fashion.

Step 1 – Make a list. If you are a multi channel marketer there is no doubt a lot of customer data floating around in silo databases (like Email, POS, and Web Analytics). It continues to amaze me how many marketers don’t know where their customer data is being stored and how to get to it. Do some digging and make a list. Dust off your old copy of your preferred flow charting software to document the current state of your data flows. This “state-of-the-state” view will allow you to identify integration points moving forward.

Step 2 – Build an alliance with your IT folks and marketing technology vendors. Marketing and technology now go hand in hand, with many organizations and marketing parties logging into multiple interfaces daily to execute campaigns and track results (Email, Web Analytics, E-commerce, etc). Technology vendor account managers are incentivized to grow your business, so leverage them in this manner as much as possible. Run ideas by them, ask for advice, understand the pricing associated with integrations, and inquire about what their other customers are doing. Internally, your IT folks should also be your partners in crime, and misjudged to be your enemy; they will no doubt play an integral role in the data and technology integration process. Together, you will identify opportunities, prioritize, and build out a strategic roadmap with common goals in mind.

Step three – Identify relevant customer data points. Look for standard customer data points, such as customer ID’s, purchase history, and order value within your available sources that will allow you to build rich customer profiles for target marketing. Doing so will also mean that your IT team will give you less push back if you only need to ask for basic customer information. The goal here is to find the data points that will allow you to target customers with content and offers that are relevant to them as an individual based on the preference and purchase information you have on them.

Step four – Pilot with email. Email marketing continues to drive the most return on investment versus any other marketing channel in the online marketing portfolio. Such campaigns provide an incredibly flexible medium to leverage for data driven campaigns. Nearly all the best of breed service providers include API (Application Programming Interface) solutions for data/technology integrations and dynamic content engines that will allow you to populate emails with targeted content and offers. Pick a population of your customer and prospect databases to do a split test. Target your test group with a data driven campaign and the rest with your standard messaging.

Step five – Implement a test and learn methodology. Set some realistic goals as you pilot your initial data- driven campaigns. A couple of small wins will give you the insight you need to expand your strategy to include additional integrations (web analytics, e-commerce, social media, SMS, etc). Over time this incremental approach will allow you to become a rock star one-to-one marketer.

The common theme to all these steps is in their common-sense simplicity. If marketers can take a few moments to put these steps in motion, their productivity and ROI could skyrocket. It’s really more of a question as to whether an organization can afford NOT to leverage their existing customer data to realize higher conversion rate and sales. Otherwise, companies will leave money on the table without even knowing it.

What I find interesting is that the ability to block ads and tracking code has been around for years… if you use Mozilla’s Firefox . A handy little plug-in called AdBlock Plus can block all types of ads: banner, flash or text. The plug-in prevents the content from downloading, and therefore from rendering on your screen, speeding up your browsing experience considerably.

As many know, there’s a whole industry based on tracking your actions on the internet. Google Analytics , Ominture’s SiteCatalyst and others make their money playing Big Brother. Most use a "tracking pixel" embedded on the site you visit that relays your browsing habits back to their servers for statistical analysis. If these pixels are blocked by the browser, these companies have no way of knowing how many visits a site receives, how long users typically stay or how much they purchase. The new Internet Explorer might not be the only browser to worry about. Google’s new Chrome browser also allows users to create plug-ins similar to those for Firefox. It might not be long before a Chrome version of AdBlock Plus appears.

Web analytics will have to adapt or die out like the dinosaurs.

Beginning with the end goal in mind; that is, having the most optimal performing Web site, Site Catalyst offers customization. Site Catalyst offers an implementation that goes beyond the capabilities of HBX. An easy explanation that I usually tell people; HBX offers a list of options that allows your company to track certain information, whereas, Site Catalyst gives you the opportunity to tell the tool what information is important allowing you to configure the analytics tool to recognize your business goals and requirements. For example, with proper analytics planning and implementation, an analysis provided by Site Catalyst that is not capable of being executed in HBX could identify an opportunity that saves your company $XX amount of dollars. Yes, HBX has the capability of providing the same result, however, the capacity of analysis and detail that Site Catalyst provides goes further beyond.

Another customized feature that is provided by Site Catalyst includes the reports within the user interface that includes my very own metrics, or, your very own metrics, if you shall wish. Yup, that’s right! I no longer have to do math. I can create metrics, let’s say conversion rate (orders/visits) and bounce rate (single access visits/entry visits). Now let’s say, I want to know the conversion and bounce rates for all of my landing pages. I find the entry page report, I assign my new metrics, and I add it to my Landing Page Dashboard and voila! There is my report whenever I need it, without having the need to re-create it every time and actually do the math (although excel usually does that for me ). This type of customization in the user interface is available infinitely depending on the goals of your business.

I have a list that is growing in reasons on why to migrate to Site Catalyst, but my explanations will begin to get too technical so maybe I will elaborate later. At this point here are a few additional reasons:

• Mobile analytics
• Integrating data and analysis with additional Omniture products

• Test & Target
• Search Center
• Call Analytics
• Genesis

At the beginning, I mentioned that customization was keeping the end goal in mind. As any business professional or stakeholder in a company, that end goal is striving for the best possible performance, even when your business goals have already been surpassed. How do YOU measure those business goals?

Bottom Line! The Omniture acquisition of Visual Sciences has offered Red Door Interactive and all of Visual Science’s clients an opportunity to upgrade and improve current analysis and reporting.