Sky provides television and home communications services to 10.8 million customers across the UK and Ireland. This two year strategic commitment means that Comet Global Consulting will continue to support Sky in all its inbound and outbound communications – helping to grow relationships with its customers. 

This new agreement builds on the previous one and will see Comet extend its work to deliver bespoke J2EE based customer management services, using the Agile methodology. Comet will also continue to provide system testing, business intelligence, project management, decision management and ongoing consultancy skills to support the delivery of this world leading customer relationship management platform to Sky.

Iain Levein, Director of Comet Global Consulting, sais: “We continue to deliver huge value to Sky which is proven by the further extension to this contract. Comet has been working successfully with Sky on customer relationship projects since 2006. We are investing heavily in our near-shore centre of excellence in Barcelona and our agile capabilities that support the on-going success of this project.”

Scott Mackay, Customer Business Systems Director at Sky, commented: “Sky is committed to delivering the best customer service, to achieve this we need the best platform which is where the expertise and skills within Comet are invaluable. For this to work we require flexibility, technical expertise, excellent customer solutions knowledge and great communication, Comet continue to deliver on all these fronts. In particular, their expertise in both on-site and near-shore agile development has enabled us to continually surpass our delivery and quality targets. As a result, we are pleased to extend our relationship into 2015.”

With late payment figures for Q1 of this year showing all but the smallest UK businesses (those with fewer than two mployees) seeing a decline in their payment performance, this easy to navigate portal brings together Experian’s credit risk and marketing services, enabling businesses to protect themselves from the risks of not getting paid.

With the pressures on busy small and medium sized firms, the new portal is mobile compatible, helping them to access vital business information and offers email alerts on selected businesses to provide up to date information on the go.  This service enables firms to grow through simple but effective risk management and marketing and ensure they are in the best position to secure credit for their own business.

Businesses can also identify new customers and opportunities as Business Express brings together a comprehensive range of services to help firms to build, manage and cleanse their database as well as buy fresh marketing data online. 

Experian’s enhanced Commercial Delphi Express will also be available through business and consumer credit reports, specifically designed for SMEs, including access to vital late payment and insolvency information.  In addition, the new quick search facility for businesses and company directors will enable firms to profile prospective clients or suppliers and review their credit score to make informed decisions with confidence.

The new portal combines Experian’s extensive data insight and businesses understanding as a ‘one stop shop’ for businesses to manage their day to day activity, plan for the future and grow.   The Ledger Manager service is compatible with sales ledger software such as SAGE 50 and Instant and will adopt further account packages over the next two months.   Live chat support and ‘three ring answer’ call centre service during standard business hours is also available for Business Express customers.

Max Firth, Managing Director of Experian’s Business Information Services, said: “This new portal is specifically designed to make doing business easier for busy firms.  With cash flow, late payments and the desire to grow at the heart of SME concerns, Business Express combines Experian’s comprehensive data, monitoring and analytics services and delivers that insight directly to your business through our new, easy to manage portal enabling businesses of all sizes to profile their market quickly and with confidence.

“Our new search facility and mobile compatibility make it easy to access information on the move and our email alerts mean that vital information is flagged up urgently, so you can move your business forward knowing you have the most up to date information to hand.”

With over 15 years' of insurance industry experience across all marketing disciplines,Hanso is responsible for brand, customer proposition, customer acquisition, ecommerce, knowledge management, and product management. Mark is leading the marketing team through a period of substantial transformation in order to fundamentally change how both brands attract and serve customers within a multi-brand, multi-channel environment.

Under Mark’s leadership, two distinct brand propositions are being developed to reposition the RIAS and Castle Cover brands, ensuring that they appeal and attract different customers within a growing over 50s insurance market, meeting different needs across channels, service, products and pricing.

In addition, Mark has begun to build an effective customer insight capability, delivering actionable customer analysis to influence planning and embed data-driven campaigns throughout the customer journey.

With previously roles at AXA Life, Lloyds TSB Insurance and Zurich Insurance Group, Mark has a significant track record in delivering results and rapid market transformation, including change management and performance improvement. Mark joins the Executive Management Team, reporting to Managing Director of RIAS and Castle Cover Peter Corfield.

Peter Corfield, Managing Director, commented: “Mark has a fantastic track record in transformational marketing activity and I’m delighted he has joined our Executive Management Team.  We need to continue to grow our presence in the diverse over 50s market and already Mark and his team have made significant strides to change the way our brands work and look, ensuring what we offer is exactly what customers want from their insurance brands.”

The company sees the report as a first step for publishers to make the case for investing in the quality of their customer and related data, and to bring together a wealth of advice and best practice when considering data governance issues. The 50-page report covers all aspects of auditing, reporting and cleansing customer data, as well as documenting best practice in data standards and legislation.

The new data quality module will be fully integrated into MasterVision as an add-on option for MasterVision clients, and will provide comprehensive reporting for every data source a publisher integrates into their single customer view – highlighting a wide range of gaps, errors and inconsistencies. DataSalon will also work with clients to enhance and cleanse their data and track improvements over time.

“Data quality has become an important issue for us and our clients in recent years” commented Nick Andrews, Managing Director of DataSalon. “We already integrate and de-duplicate multiple sources of customer data on behalf of our clients, so extending that service to data quality analysis is a natural next step. We can work with clients to improve the quality of many different data sources in one central place, which is much more efficient than multiple clean-up projects for each separate system.”

22 May 2013: – D&B, the world's leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses, had made D&B360 available for Oracle CRM On Demand, Oracle's Siebel CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SAP CRM. Customers with these CRM platforms can now access D&B's data on more than 225 million global businesses and 100 million contacts, directly within the applications they use every day.

D&B360 gives marketing and sales teams accurate, timely, and relevant information they need to identify and capture new business opportunities from inside their CRM. It aggregates data from over 30,000 sources and updates it over 1.5 million times daily as well as providing access to the latest social media and news combined with data from the world’s largest commercial database.

The solution helps control and enhance data management and data enrichment capabilities, allowing sales operations and marketing professionals to increase sales and deepen customer engagement. The solution combines D&B's business information and corporate listings with social data from popular social platforms. The result is near real-time insight that improves the effectiveness of an organisation's sales and marketing teams.

Corinne Saunders, President of the Dun and Bradstreet Europe & Worldwide Network, said: “With the power of D&B360, for the first time our unique D&B DUNS number is being used to connect customer data within the CRM to external sources.  This allows customers to generate their own insights and maximise revenue by focusing on relationships with their most valuable prospects. D&B360 helps inform business decisions, increase efficiency and will ultimately drive growth by supporting better and more effective sales and marketing.”

Customer Benefits of D&B360

• Know customers better - D&B's business insight allows sales and marketing professionals to improve customer segmentation, understand customer ‘pain points’ and tailor the sales strategy for each pitch.
• Improved data quality - Sales operations are provided with automatic data updates and vital data cleansing services, eliminating duplication and redundant data to make records complete and accurate.
• Acquire new prospects - Salespeople can now build a list of prospects and identify and connect with key decision makers, leading to a stronger pipeline of leads. By leveraging a unique "look-a-like" function, salespeople can also identify potential prospects that are similar to an organisation's best customers.
• Sell deeper into organisations – D&B’s unique insight provides a better understanding of corporate listings and tierings to identify key decision makers in other departments to drive organic sales.
• Improve sales effectiveness - D&B's proprietary DUNSRight process prevents duplicate records, ensures data quality, fills in the gaps and improves data accuracy, allowing salespeople to focus on selling rather than verifying or searching for critical information.

Hopewiser: Innovators in Address Software

Few companies on earth can match the 30 years of experience in addressing software boasted by hopewiser – and all of that experience goes into its market-leading suite of solutions.

With over 30 years of addressing software expertise, Hopewiser is recognised as the most innovative and technically capable organisation within the addressing solutions market.

In 1982 we became the first Royal Mail Value Added Reseller in the UK to provide Addressing Software services based around the Royal Mail PAF (Postcode Address File).

We are based in Altrincham Cheshire and also have an office in Melbourne Australia. Our software has always been written in house and at present our technical team has an average tenure of 11½ years.

This means that legacy systems are supportable, there is no lengthy escalation process and technical support is immediate and knowledgeable. The Hopewiser development team continually provide innovative solutions that deliver accurate, reliable performance.

We supply to all vertical markets throughout both public and private sectors on a range of computer hardware – from Mainframe through Mid-range (including Unix and Linux) to PC systems plus Web and Cloud based solutions. Our clients range from FTSE Top 100 companies through to small businesses and our innovative solutions include:

• Address capture and cleansing
• Analysis of Names data
• Deduplication, file conversion and data loading
• 'Find your Nearest'
• CRM Systems Integration
• Bank Codes Validation
• Full Mail sortation including Downstream Access
• Cloud based pay per click services
• Full Bureau Services, on-line bureau, specialists in consultancy and bespoke development services
• Grid references, foreign and business data sets

Benefits of our solutions include:

• Consolidation of software and files ensures cost savings.
• Unrivalled technical support for rapid and secure software installation.
• Improved accuracy and reliability through our unique rules based software.
• Bespoke systems tailored to your specific requirement.
• Legacy systems fully supported, no forced upgrades.

Addressing Software is now in the Cloud
Hopewiser’s latest release is a new Cloud based addressing service that enables customers to log on and use the most up to date PAF and software for a fraction of the costs of internal installation. This service is available on a Pay Per Click basis in multiples of 100 look ups. It also provides access to the National Statistics Postcode Directory data grid references, Ward and Parish codes.

This solution is ideal for smaller companies, Clubs and partnerships who want to capture/verify addresses for any reason. By capturing an accurate address you reduce any future communication problems.
It is also useful for companies with several offices as one account can have multiple cost centres which simplifies internal accounting and budgets. Channel partners can purchase bundles on behalf of their end users and the transactions can be split according to need.

We also provide desktop applications which can be freely downloaded from our website. These apps allow instant access to the address capture/verification functions without the need for expensive IT development and resource.
Usage can be monitored very easily and when needed, more transactions can be purchased on-line. This is particularly useful if you need more transactions over a Public Holiday weekend for example.

AddressServer in the Cloud is a cost effective, simple to use, web based addressing tool. There are no set up costs and the latest Postcode Address File is always available.

Simply log on to http://services.hopewiser.com and try for yourself by using the 10 free clicks, or for more information e-mail enquiries@hopewiser.com or telephone 0845 600 9231.

Alchemetrics: leading the way in staying ahead of the game

Staying ahead of the game in a rapidly evolving multi-channel marketing world is what sets alchemetrics apart.

Let’s face it; we now live in a world where consumers move from tweeting, to liking a product before you can even say Instagram. The exponential rise of digital communications has irrevocably changed the consumer landscape, creating what Bob Garfield refers to as the Chaos Scenario (a book which is well worth a read). With the immediacy of digital, the timeframes within which marketers work are shrinking. The rise of the cult of “now” is evident in almost all aspects of our lives. The days of the 28-day delivery period are gone. Real-time is where we’re at, and predictive marketing is coming to the fore. In the absence of a crystal ball a data driven strategy is fundamental.

To increase sales, organisations must ensure they are communicating with consumers through the most relevant touch-points. To approach customers in the most appropriate way, businesses need to know as much as possible about customer activities and behaviours, likes and dislikes. And as the platforms themselves grow and evolve, marketers also need to keep up with new trends and adapt their offering accordingly.

Companies should position their products and services to entice consumers to purchase. However, while consumers enjoy the multi-channel world, companies have a difficult task in identifying where they should engage next – Twitter, Facebook, Storify, Snapchat, Renren? The list is daunting.

We have reached an era of consumer-driven customer engagement. For some, this is a real challenge, but for others, an exciting opportunity. How can marketers embrace the challenge multi-channel comms bring and evolve with their customers to deliver products and services suited to their needs?

Collecting the data at each touch point
Instead of looking at customer behaviour once a month, marketers need to be collecting and analysing in real time (or as close as possible), after the point of interaction.

Utilising vast amounts of data properly allows businesses to engage with customers better and subsequently understand how to influence purchasing behaviour. However, to achieve this, marketers need to be able to integrate these multi-channel interactions and consolidate this into a single customer view.
Unifying data from different sources into a single view will reveal in-depth insights into customer behaviour. These insights can be used to maximise the value of each customer relationship. To stay ahead of the game, businesses need to invest in a solution that provides the ability to connect with each touch point easily and cost effectively.
Alchemetrics’ informa brings everything together, giving businesses a platform that provides the flexibility and scalability to manage all aspects of the marketing strategy. It integrates seamlessly across all channels, collecting data from the latest smart app, social media site, microsite and traditional offline sources, and has the flexibility to adapt to new technologies. Where have customers browsed online? Who responded to which email? Who is using which mobile app? Who re-tweeted what comment? Who ‘liked’ a certain brand?

Understanding more about your customer
Understanding information on customers is key to influencing behaviour. This requires the use of cutting edge tools to analyse the customer data, such as the FastStats suite of products.

Marketers need the ability to drill down into their customer data and identify patterns simply and easily; they need a way to visualise their customers. Using a highly visual analytical tool such as FastStats provides users with a simple interface that allows the easy creation of meaningful target segments, that will be based on near real time information.
informa can integrate easily with the best in class marketing analysis products that are required to discover the insight that will drive effective marketing communications. Businesses will be able to see how their customers behave, recognise what they like and understand how to talk to them effectively; true customer engagement.

Relevant customer communication
Having an effective customer engagement programme is utopia. Businesses will understand and value their customers whilst the customers feel listened to and valued. Planning highly personalised, timely marketing communication programmes that operate automatically will ensure you maintain this two-way communication with your customers.
The requirement for marketers here is for an interactive multi-channel campaign management application. FastStats PeopleStage enables the implementation of marketing process flow diagrams that describe and automate your marketing activity clearly and comprehensively. It can trigger event driven communications, and enables the automation and coordination of complex multi-stage campaigns.

Handling the dynamic nature of individuals and interactions is paramount; the demand is for timely communications, personalised triggered emails, dynamic website and app content. Each communication needs to be relevant, executed in real-time and based on real-time data.

So the next time a customer says “Instagram”, ensure you are there to meet them at every touch point and communicate with them in the way they would the rest of their social circle. Want to stay ahead of your customers? Be ready and waiting when they need you and become engaging!

CASE STUDY: OgilvyOne
“Efficiency, speed to market and quality of data are just three of the benefits Alchemetrics have brought to our organisation. On top of this they offer a service relationship I believe is second to none and they allow us to maintain, to our clients, that degree of service that we require.”
Paul King, Managing Partner – Head of Data Services, OgilvyOne

As a leader in the UK‘s direct and digital marketing industry, OgilvyOne requires database systems at the cutting edge of technology. Through Alchemetrics’ understanding of the DM space, the agency is able to provide an entire suite of database tools that supply high quality data, efficient analysis and rapid servicing, allowing OgilvyOne to maintain its exceptional standards of service for some of the world’s leading brands. Alchemetrics’ ability to evolve and grow means OgilvyOne has used the company for its database requirements for over 10 years. Alchemetrics host, maintain and manage data environments for some of OgilvyOne’s key clients, all within a highly secure database. They also work with OgilvyOne to analyse the data, providing unparalleled insight and expertise. On top of this, they act as a consultancy service, fielding all queries relating to data management and use. This longstanding partnership has enabled OgilvyOne to continue to improve customer engagement, and retain its position as Campaign’s DM Agency of the Year for three years in a row.

Email: info@alchemetrics.co.uk
Phone: 0118 902 9000
Sales Contact: Francis Wallinger or Dave Gurney
Twitter: @Alchemetrics

Callcredit: let’s ‘Define’ what Quality Data means

it’s been a busy and exceptionally positive year since callcredit launched its hugely innovative ‘define’ combined consumer dataset.

One of the key challenges that marketers face is the continual battle to better understand the consumer, their ever changing needs and their desire to take greater control of what, how and when they consume information. Callcredit Information Group understands this challenge and as a result we have continued to change our business to fit with what can be deemed a dynamic and somewhat demanding industry.

Some of these changes include the ways we are open and transparent about data, where our data comes from, permissions, consent, product development and our growth both organic and supported by strategic acquisitions that plug into our vast array of innovative products and solutions that help to enhance the level of data and insight we hold.

In 2011 we brought two of the UK’s largest data businesses together – Callcredit Marketing Solutions and The Trading Floor which, a year later, saw the launch of the largest data innovation – Define.

Integrating over 162 million disparate pieces of data across 80 contributing partners in 11 markets meant an extremely complex set of data applications had to be developed to authenticate, verify, analyse and finally link and apply the intelligence driven from the data to create Define – giving an unparalleled and unbiased 360° view of today’s consumers.

Given the frequency of touch points on the data – Define processes over 80m records in a standard week – the nature of the database is such that it constantly grows, changes, enhances and expands to reflect the consumer’s exact position at the immediate point in time. Since its launch in May 2011, Define now contains an additional 380 pieces of vital information on consumers – from what motivates them, to their attitudinal position, to their financial status and much more.

Key to the development of Define is the immediacy of view generated, and it was with this in mind that we recently acquired lead generation experts Lifestyles Online to feed directly into the data Define already holds.

Define’s seamless approach to the consumer experience revolutionises multi-channel marketing, by bringing together all available channels to a client this then feeds into the evolution of omni-channel retailing where the omni-channel consumer uses all channels simultaneously. The acquisition of Lifestyles Online boosts this omni-channel approach further, building on Define’s 360° view of a consumer and strengthening that data further to provide clients with real time leads.

Leveraging the power of tangible leads
Lifestyles Online enhances the detail that Define offers by working with the consumer to gain their consent and then understand whether they want to find out more about a particular product or service– providing a tangible lead. By giving the power back to the consumer and enabling them to tell the marketer when they want to be contacted and providing a real time lead, combining this with Define’s dynamic 360° view then begins to meet the challenge of the consumer and their continually changing needs.

This more targeted real time lead saves marketer’s time and money and provides the consumer with the information they want making them more receptive to products and services they really want and reducing the amount of unwanted marketing they receive.

Looking to the future we want to continue to develop ways that will enhance the data we hold and provide our clients and consumers a better experience. We are currently looking at launching, through Lifestyles Online, sector specific websites to help consumers get the best deals and empower them further. Clients will benefit from stronger real time leads of consumers who are actively in play that have chosen to go to that specific website and consumers will then only receive further information from companies they want to hear from.

2013 will see Callcredit pushing the boundaries even further with our continued focus on helping clients’ seamlessly join the ‘on-line’ and the ‘off-line' worlds together. We have found many ways to deliver not only marketing data but information on engagement, channel preference, credit propensity and key life triggers. Our digital capabilities, analytical capabilities and probably the most discriminative dataset in the UK – Define –  will sit at the heart of everything we do in 2013.

greenstone data solutions: 10 years under its belt and counting

Independent data bureau greenstone data solutions has remained true to its founding aims for more than a decade.

The idea was simple: to create an independently owned bureau for customer-focused companies to turn to for advice, solutions, services and applications that would enable them to make better use of their existing customer data, and to source new, profitable customers for their products and services. In 2003, Jon Hinkley, Brendan Pey and David Ball created greenstone data solutions and have stayed true to that simple concept ever since.

Now with offices in Maidstone and Mortlake, greenstone employs over 30 members of staff handling a wide variety of local, national and international businesses. So what is different about greenstone since its inception 10 years ago?

Innovation in Products & Services
Innovation is key and greenstone’s management team has focussed on staying at the forefront as data rapidly adapts in the 21st century. This year will be no different with a number of new initiatives over the coming months...

The Calculus Suite
In 2012 greenstone acquired TCP Marketing Solutions and redeveloped its Marketing Optimisation applications. The rebranded Calculus Suite (Contact Calculus, Budget Calculus & Campaign Calculus) is a proven means of optimising the value of every marketing pound. At a significantly lower price-point than competing products, a growing number of bigger budget businesses are implementing Calculus Suite.

Marco De Caprio, greenstone’s Commercial Director, explains: “When we purchased TCP, we knew there was a core set of marketing optimisation products we could adapt and take to market. It is really encouraging to see that work paying off and over 98% of prospects who undertake a proof-of-concept project with us go ahead and implement the full solution. Winning the 2012 Database Marketing ‘Innovation in Database Marketing Software’ award has only helped too.”

New for Summer 2013 – PERSONAR
greenstone’s new attitudinal segmentation tool PersonaR, launching this summer, will help clients speak to their target audience in a way that will tap into consumers’ underlying motivations and engage them on a deeper level than they can with only demographic or transactional modelling.

For example in the case where we have two consumers with identical demographic profiles, what is it that enables us to tell which one of them will only ever buy a Mercedes and which one will only ever buy a BMW, or which one will only ever donate to Charity A and which only to Charity B?

Jon Hinkley, greenstone’s MD, comments: “If we can understand a consumer’s values and thought processes we have a much better chance of successfully engaging with them than if we use demographic or transactional information alone.
“Until PersonaR came along, there was nothing capable of answering this question well.”

Bigger, Faster, Better – ‘NEO’
greenstone’s in-house developed pseudo-grid-computing technology NEO was developed over the past 2 ½ years to enable superquick processing of very high volumes of data. greenstone operates some of the largest UK marketing database systems for its clients and partners and high-speed processing is critical for frequent or real-time updates.
Brendan Pey, greenstone’s Technical Director, explains: “Tests on live operational systems using NEO have shown a gain of over a 70% increase in speed of processing.

“The ability to handle vast systems effectively whie maintaining update speeds will be a key differentiator among database bureau in future.”

‘Orchard’ – super-high def view of UK
Launched in 2011, Orchard contains consumer data on over 48 million individuals from five different UK wide data sources with over 350 lifestyle, transactional and demographic variables. It is fast becoming a core solution in the support of Insight Services, Data Enhancement and Prospect data provision solutions across greenstone’s client base. This enables us to identify with a far higher degree of accuracy the right individuals at the right address with the right values across every multi-sourced variable that we receive from our Data Partners.

ISO
As well as new acquisitions to support continued innovation in
its product & service offering, greenstone have invested and
continues to work hard to maintain ISO accreditation for ISO 9001 & ISO 27001.

Contact greenstone data solutions on (01622) 766466
or email enquiries@greenstonedatasolutions.com

8 May 2013: Hector Vass, former Systems Architect in the Customer Lifecycle and Optimisation team at the Lloyds Banking Group, has joined marketing analytics agency Metametrics as Chief Technology Officer.  Renowned for his exceptional skills in data engineering, database management and adaptive systems, Vass will lead Metametrics’ technical development agenda and bring the next generation of marketing data integration and modelling platforms into production.

With over 30 years of analytics and systems development experience, Vass’s blend of expertise spans systems architecture and corporate SQL applications as well as the more traditional skills of the data scientist that include coding, operations research, applying big data map reduce techniques and algorithms, machine learning and statistics.  A former IS Director at EHS Brann and co-founder of integrated agency LVB (subsequently acquired by Draft Worldwide), he is a widely respected and influential industry figure.

 “Big data is fuelling the demand for high quality analytics and decision support, yet we see a shift away from the old world of cumbersome, inflexible data management systems towards agile and cost-effective platforms that can be hosted in the cloud,”  said Metametrics founder Janet Snedden. “Hector has been pioneering marketing data solutions for decades and is almost uniquely placed to work across the spectrum of our marketing mix, digital attribution and customer database analytics practices.  We’re thrilled to have Hector on board and firmly believe that we now have an unrivalled offering to help clients fully exploit the data at their disposal.”

Vass added: “I am excited to be working with the team at Metametrics who have done so much with their Bayesian interpretation of marketing modelling.  In the past we had to treat the world as essentially static, store data in warehouses, extract, analyse, model then apply our findings in cycles.  The data world now reflects the physical world and happens in real time for which we need a new, adaptive approach.  All the tools now exist, yet the challenge is the intelligent application: which is what Metametrics is all about.”

Through the integration, Really Simple Systems’ CRM users will be able to see real-time information from the Sage One accounting system, such as account balances, sales to date and overdue invoices, as well as the ability to view customers’ detailed account transactions. Furthermore, the CRM system will help create new customer accounts and invoices in Sage in just one click.

Christopher Challis, Product Manager for Sage One Third Party Integrations, commented: "Really Simple Systems Cloud CRM extends Sage One to cover the whole business process from marketing and sales through to invoicing and cash collection. It will provide our customers with a more comprehensive and flexible service that will allow them full visibility of all appropriate customer information across both platforms."

Really Simple Systems’ Sage One integration is available for standard in Free, Premium and Enterprise Editions of its cloud CRM system.

Synthesio will provide Bodog with its proprietary ‘Global Listening Dashboards’ that monitor online comments in 50 languages and 190 countries to gather in-depth information about their brands, products and customers. This information helps businesses better understand the marketplace, their position in it and what customers are looking for from it now and in the future, as well as well as their ‘Unity Engagement Platform’ to ensure productive interactions with their customers.

With many challenges facing the online gaming industry, including the growing number of sites competing for players, industry regulations and regulated environments, there continues to be a tremendous opportunity that Bodog is looking to take advantage of as the online gaming market continues to grow at a rapid pace with increasingly more players coming online looking for the best platform.

“We are thrilled to be selected by Bodog for this exciting challenge,” said Loic Moisand, Founder and CEO of Synthesio. “The online gaming industry is complicated and the customer base discerning, so it is imperative that any company looking to succeed in it fully understand what is desired and what can be delivered in order to rise above of the competition. We believe we will hear some very interesting and informative things during this process that will significantly help establish Bodog’s leadership position.”

“The key component at the heart of any social media strategy is listening and with Synthesio as our partner-of-choice we can do just that and, in turn, provide the content and interaction our customers actually want,” said Bodog’s Asian Social Media Director, Ysobel Hamidjojo. “Guessing doesn’t work and, like any part of a business, if you’re not providing the customers with what they want, you are not doing your job. Why should social media be any different?”

Maileva says its database contains addresses for 36 million households and 2.5 million businesses that can be broken down using a wide range of demographics at the click of a few buttons. The partnership says there is no minimum quantity when creating an address list, meaning test campaigns can be sent at a cost of just a few pounds. 

Steven Sellwood, MD at Selectabase, said: "SMEs have been dissuaded to use direct mail because of the hassle and cost involved in creating a campaign. Typically, there are many suppliers to manage, from list brokers and printers to mailing houses and postal operators. But, now, thanks to Selectabase and Maileva, producing a direct-mail campaign is quick, easy, and cost-effective: you can do it all from your PC in a matter of minutes."

Pascal Brighi, UK Director at France-based Maileva, explained: "This partnership means that customers can now order data, create their material, and get it produced and mailed all from one website. We are mindful that customers may be wary about buying mailing lists online, so we wanted to alleviate any concerns by offering a market-leading guarantee.

The partnership points out that recent research by the Mail Media Centre (MMC) shows that the return on investment (ROI) on direct-mail campaigns has been rising: open rates stand at 91%, as compared to email acquisition open rates that hover, typically, around 11%. The research illustrates the fact that direct-mail marketing can also boost the ROI stemming from internet marketing and social-media marketing.

Brighi concluded: "Direct mail has had to re-invent itself in response to online marketing. The Maileva hybrid direct-mail solution provides all of the convenience associated with online marketing tools, but the client or potential client receives a physical, personal and targeted piece of mail through their letterbox. Additionally, excellent ROI can be achieved."