Getting Your Data Warehouse In Order

As a middle child, I never got to ride in the front seat. Because my brothers would fight constantly, the two of them could not ride in the back seat together. I was a peacekeeper. Instead of two brothers, publishers have two customers: advertisers and readers. Content is like the middle child between the two. Publishers connect someone who wants to sell a product to someone who might want to buy it by giving the potential buyer something that they need - content.In publishing, when we talk about data, these multiple stakeholders can get confusing. Who is the customer - the advertiser or the reader? They both are, of course, but they have different wants and needs (kind of like my brothers), and they need to be served in completely different ways. And what about the content that is stuck in the middle? Is that data? Where does it belong?Part of the solution is semantic, so it is important to define terms. For the most part, advertisers are paying the bills, so let's call them "customers." Readers (and increasingly, event attendees) are the "audience." Articles, artwork, photographs, presentations, Web forums, etc., are "content" (or digital assets).Using this vernacular, "customer" databases are customer relationship management systems (CRMSs), and "audience" databases are just that - audience databases. Content is also data, and it is stored in a digital asset management system (DAMS), of which a content management system (CMS) is one part.Regardless of what you call all of these databases, each one could be considered a data warehouse. A place in which to store all three of these databases together also is considered a data warehouse. Data WarehouseA data warehouse is like a real warehouse; it is a storage place with a system for loading, managing and retrieving stuff (data). But that is where the similarities end. There can be no walls in a data warehouse, and everything has to be in the same kind of box. Data must be stored in similar ways, because in order to create value, it needs to be able to relate back and forth.When constructed correctly, a data warehouse is a powerful business tool. It is a means to derive business intelligence from the aggregate of what we know about our customers, our content and our audience. And the more we know about them, the better we can drive our businesses by serving them. This vision of unified databases across all three stakeholders is admittedly difficult to achieve. In many cases, just unifying customer, audience or content data is difficult enough. But it's important to focus on the ultimate goal of a complete data warehouse, even though you may only get part of the way there. CRMSs are common to every business, and many businesses have a need to store digital assets, but audience databases are specific to media companies. CRMSs, DAMSs and audience databases are wildly different, but they seem to belong in the same data warehouse because of their ability to link customers and audience members. Let's look at each database individually.CRMSsThis article is about databases, but customer relationship management is much more than data. It is a process of managing all the information about - and interaction with - customers and prospects so that you can improve each relationship. CRM data supports that process, and sales and accounting staff are responsible for collecting and managing that data by tracking the specifics of each customer interaction.Common CRMSs are SalesForce.com, Oracle, Sage and about a million others (when you search on Google for CRMSs, the screen almost lights up with paid results). CRM data includes account name, addresses, buyer contacts, billing contacts, sales history, products, prices, credit history and notes about specific interactions such as e-mail, phone calls and meetings.A good CRMS helps salespeople and management. It helps salespeople to remember each specific sales pitch and details about customer needs. Users are able to set alarms so that they remember, for example, to call a prospect back next week. Management gets a real-time view of their business with the ability to forecast sales and track performance. Specific reports such as number of sales calls, new prospects and opportunities closed are easy to create. If a salesperson leaves the company, the company maintains the history of his or her customer interactions. Building good CRM data depends on disciplined data entry, as salespeople must continually update it for maximum utility - but when done well, a CRMS creates a more efficient and effective sales process and helps to grow business. DAMSs and CMSsA DAMS is a repository for a company's digital assets. These can include media assets such as articles, artwork and photographs as well as business documents like contracts, presentations and files. A CMS is a software package that sits on top of a DAMS and allows users to create, edit and publish content.A DAMS utilizes metadata "tags" that describe and categorize each asset. So a photograph of Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs could be tagged with descriptors like "Apple Computer," "CEO," "Steve Jobs," "Pixar" and "black turtleneck." This metadata links content that is similar and allows for more effective searching and segmentation. There is even software that "reads" an article and automatically creates the proper tags. DAMSs are cost-savers, as they allow more efficient reuse of photographs and artwork, as well as the ability to store advertising materials that are often used repeatedly.Much media space has been committed to CMSs and their ability to streamline content publishing across multiple channels. What is interesting is that so many media companies are relying on a patchwork of systems tied together with bridges to accomplish what a single solution has not yet been able to offer.Audience DatabaseAn audience database is an integrated database that unites the entire audience in a single place. This is easier said than done, as audience data is often spread out in many different places and is traditionally only collected at the brand level. Magazine-subscriber data resides in the fulfilment system by publication, event-attendee data in the registration system by event, Web-visitor data in a separate, online database, e-newsletter subscribers in yet another database, and so on. The first challenge is to bring them all together in a unified audience database. Challenges here include incompatibilities in the layout of the data, duplications and outdated database systems. Experts are needed to ensure proper integration.The audience database should include magazine and newsletter subscribers and Web registrants, as well as online and face-to-face event attendees. Three types of data need to populate these databases: transactional, demographic and behavioral. Transactional data are the products that the audience member interacts with. For example, John Smith is a magazine subscriber, an e-newsletter subscriber, and he attended four webcasts. Demographic data are the basics: name, title, company, address, industry, purchasing power, etc. Behavioral data consist of the click-trail of where a registered visitor goes on your Web sites. What articles are they reading? What ads are they clicking on? And what offers do they respond to? You will need to register and cookie your visitors to track this.Behavioral data feed intelligence about what an audience member is interested in. Each interaction with a specific piece of tagged content earns a point toward an affinity score. When a score reaches a certain level, triggers can create different actions. For example, let's say John Smith visited our site four times to read about the latest laptop technology, clicked on an Apple ad, and searched for "lightweight computers." He would have a high affinity score for laptops and would be served a Lenovo ad. In addition, he could be sent an e-mail offering the latest white paper from Panasonic in exchange for providing his contact information.The Ultimate Data WarehouseEach of these projects is worthwhile, but the ultimate media data warehouse would combine all three. This way, their relations can unearth business intelligence on every front. Companies can begin to see which customers are also audience members, and what content attracts those customers. In addition, when audience data can be related to customer data, it is easier to match audience members to customers as leads. If your data is in a lot of different places, you have an excellent opportunity to create efficiencies and drive business with a data warehouse. Bill Amstutz is the managing partner of Strategic Media Operations, a media consultancy based in New York City. You can reach him at WAmstutz@Mac.com.

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Getting Your Data Warehouse In Order

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