A new suite of solutions allows marketers to tap into the world’s biggest CRM database, find potential customers and offer them exactly what they want to buy.
Described as a “revolution” in marketing, MicroStrategy’s new tools will allow brands to unlock information from Facebook’s 800 million-strong user base, slice and dice relevant market information, and connect directly with customers – all with the customer’s permission.
MicroStrategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), a worldwide provider of business intelligence (BI) software, reports that its Facebook solutions – MicroStrategy Wisdom, MicroStrategy Gateway and MicroStrategy Alert – give marketers more relevant, valuable and up-to-date market information than they have ever had access to before, and allows them to use it for direct and immediate customer interaction.
“These solutions are going to revolutionise the way that enterprises market to consumers. They will enable them to take brands to the next level in terms of the way they interact with consumers,” says Mark Bannerman, country manager at MicroStrategy in South Africa.
Showcased to huge acclaim at MicroStrategy World 2012 in Miami, these tools deliver on a growing need among marketers for a simple way to mine the consumer mother lode.
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor told delegates at the annual conference that 50% of world GDP would be transformed by mobile, social, cloud and big data technologies. Saylor’s pet focus is Facebook, which he describes as “an ever-refreshing database of anyone with wealth or power on Earth”.
The three solutions, part of MicroStrategy’s social intelligence toolset, work together to allow brands to “listen, learn and act”. MicroStrategy Gateway for Facebook allows brands to track trends and place the information in a rational database. It gives a 360-degree view of a brand’s Facebook app users and allows marketers to synchronise the data with existing enterprise applications.
MicroStrategy Wisdom Enterprise enables extraction of valuable market information about their Facebook app users according to criteria such as likes, whereabouts, events, activities and networks. It allows marketers to easily segment the app user population and analyse the results based on demographics such as gender, age bracket, relationship status, urbanicity, metro area and language. A marketer could, for example, ask: “Which users in the Johannesburg area are aged between 22 and 35 and are new parents?”
It also allows for real-time insights into trends in areas such as consumer brands, entertainment, sports, music and activities.
MicroStrategy Alert adds the marketing and commerce component, giving marketers one-on-one interaction tools with customers and allowing them to offer tailored specials, vouchers and news.
Bannerman says the innovations focus on Facebook, since this is essentially the world’s biggest market database. Because the social media platform includes options to ‘like’, ‘friend’ and comment, this market information is more comprehensive and valuable than that on many other social media platforms.
By incentivising users to opt-in to the system, marketers can extract information on the users’ Facebook likes, dislikes, activities, check-ins and friends. Not only does this allow for up-to-date demographics, psychographics and trends information, it allows marketers to deliver desired and on-time information about new products, competitions and special offers.
“If a user happens to like love songs, for example, the marketer could deliver an alert about a special offer on a love song CD to the consumer, or could send a discount voucher directly to them when they check in to the area of a music store,” Bannerman says.
In line with the Consumer Protection Act and Facebook user privacy settings, customers can opt out to communication at any stage, and will be automatically removed from the system. The information is also secured against unauthorised access.
The data collected using MicroStrategy’s new solutions can be easily integrated into existing CRM databases, adding vast amounts of in-depth information to existing data.
The suite, launched in Q3 last year, has six major customers in the US using it to interact with around 4.2 million fans, says Bannerman.
Bannerman says the possibilities are now being introduced to marketers in South Africa too.
