I think the principles you've set out are great to cover off the data capture 'process' but there's a lot more to think about than that if you really want to max out on ROI.

I've just done loads of work with Diageo brands (Guinness, Smirnoff,, Johnny Walker etc) on this front and our key principles (in addition to yours) were as follows:

1) Word of mouth is the most effective route to driving registrations - get a small number of key target consumers (seeds) to drive mass registration for you! Benefits are: it doesn't cost anything, the profile of people you register will be very similar to those you initially targeted, your 'seeds' will explain the benefits of registering to the site better than you could ever. The key here is that trust (and therefore registration) is more likely to come if a friend tells you it's ok than if a site is actively seeking a registration.

2) So how do you get the seeds? Well this is the complex part but I guess it can be summarised by the word 'community'. These seeds need to feel part of the site seeking the registrations. They should see the benefits in getting more people to register (not just a reward benefit but also kudos to them for providing their friends with a great lead). I've got lots of information on how to find seeds, what kind of people they are, how to get them bought in etc from past experience...

3) Link your data capture directly to all other marketing activity. Make sure it's absolutely integrated - otherwise it is clearly a cynical marketing ploy to allow your brand to fill the post boxes of the consumers involved! In the long-term the ROI is maxed out if you are building your brand through the data capture process itself. I guess the key is to view data capture as an end in itself (a form of advertising, a certain type of consumer experience) rather than a means to an end (if I can get their address then I can send them an ad...).

A lot of this goes against traditional marketing approaches and so doesn't sit that comfortably with many marketers. But we've proven it works with a number of Diageo brands. We used to spend millions on buying data, pushing website registrations and planning complex e-CRM strategies. We now use data capture as one part of a process that builds our brand equity through getting our consumers to create communities for themselves (and for our brand as a result!)

On 15:16:41 10 May 2001 ashley wrote:
>eCRM is all very well but you cannot do it without
>customer data. Actually capturing that data in the first
>place, considering most people are very distrustful of
>simply handing over their personal data to some website,
>is an art form in itself. Doing it well, or poorly, makes
>a huge impact on your ability to acquire and retain
>customers i.e. hits your bottom line. Arguably, along with
>site usability, examining and fine tuning your customer
>data capture processes is one of the quickest of quick
>wins in the arsenal of weapons at your disposal to improve
>overall web site ROI.
>
>Here are a few pointers about how to do it right:
>
>1. Define your data capture strategy
>
>– Know what data you actually need to achieve the
>aims of your business (and eCRM) strategy
>
>– Compulsory data: keep to a bare minimum, to
>maximise consumer registrations and transactions
>
>– Voluntary data: for really useful, but not
>essential data
>
>– Only ask for information from customers that you
>are going to use and is of value to the organisation
>and/or the customer interaction
>
>- Define how you plan to identify and track users. There
>are Only 2 ways to adequately identify unique users: 1.
>persistent user cookie 2. user registers and logs in. Best
>practice uses a mixture of both e.g. Amazon
>(“Welcome X, if you are not X, click here”).
>Unique user data should be written to a central user
>profile database. The user profiles are enriched over time
>as the relationship grows. The deeper the user profile
>information the more valuable the customer base becomes
>and the more potential there is for eCRM and improved
>customer retention and acquisition
>
>
>2. Pre-registration
>
>–Always be open and honest about data capture and
>data usage. Clearly state your privacy policies and data
>protection guidelines
>
>–Have third party personal data security validation
>(TRUSTe, Which etc.)
>
>–Clearly articulate the benefits of giving data
>
>–Use form validation to improve the quality of
>captured data (e.g. checking for @ sign in e-mail
>addresses)
>
>– Make it clear to users where they are in the
>registration process (e.g. Step 1 of 2)
>
>- Centralise customer data with a common format for
>accuracy of analysis
>
>- Use ‘open’ data standards to store the
>customer data (e.g. XML) so that it can easily be shared
>or exported to other systems e.g. legacy or CRM systems
>
>3. Post-registration
>
>–Thank you screen has ‘interactive
>hooks’ so that customer is led on to something else
>relevant (cf. Amazon’s post-buy screen suggesting
>other books you might like)
>
>–Send an e-mail confirmation to the user following
>registration: this verifies whether the e-mail address
>works + establishes a more personal contact with the
>customer + allows suggestions of other links, content,
>services etc.
>
>–Tracking: set cookie to track who then returns to
>the site, build richness of user profile + begin to
>measure loyalty by Recency, Frequency, Monetary or other
>relevant loyalty and customer value metrics.
>
>–Segmentation: build user segments (e.g. by loyalty,
>by interests) to target with marketing
>
>–Value exchange to enrichen profile and strengthen
>relationship
>
>–Personalisation: pre-filled forms, newsletters,
>alerts and reminders, what’s changed on the site
>since last visit etc.
>
>–Customer service and Contact Strategy: look at
>improving speed and quality of responses to customer
>enquiries + define a customer contact plan as part of the
>online marketing / CRM strategy (including premium
>services for most valuable customers)
>
>We’re beginning to move into CRM territory by the
>end…
>
>Anyone else got any tips or thoughts on best practice
>online customer data capture? Anyone seen significant
>improvement in ROI by improving their data capture
>processes?

Colin, you asked:  To comply with data protection regulations does this mean that you would first have to set up a username and password? Long answer is yes, because your legal responsibility as the data controler is to enforce the privacy of each individuals personal data, while simultaneously enabling them to 1) view the information you hold about them, 2) rectify inacuracies, and 3) opt-in / out of promotional marketing (permission marketing).  Short answer is check out the recently launched www.customerconnexions.com , it does all this yet doesn't require your data subjects to log-in with password.  Instead it uses encrypted links in emails that enable the recipients to access / update their information directly.

I'd be really interested in peoples' thoughts on how to structure the landing pages on your website to maximise the number of people willing to supply their contact details. We've done some recent online advertising and DM campaigns for a client which delivered a massive response to their website but they didn't capture many contacts, in my opinion because of their landing pages.

They are a respected academic institution offering professional development courses. They wanted people to leave their details in return for being sent or being able to download a course brochure. They didn't really say much more than this on their landing page and asked for the details straight away which was probably a bit too 'in your face' for most people - there was little 'sell' of the benefits of requesting a brochure or of the course.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the best positioning of your data capture form? Does it need to be on the landing page or will people click through to it? Is having the data capture form on the landing page counter-productive? Should you concentrate on the 'hook' and rely on people then being willing to click to leave their details? If anyone has a brochure request page / form that works really well for them, I'd be very grateful. Any thoughts?

On 15:16:41 10 May 2001 ashley wrote:
>eCRM is all very well but you cannot do it without
>customer data. Actually capturing that data in the first
>place, considering most people are very distrustful of
>simply handing over their personal data to some website,
>is an art form in itself. Doing it well, or poorly, makes
>a huge impact on your ability to acquire and retain
>customers i.e. hits your bottom line. Arguably, along with
>site usability, examining and fine tuning your customer
>data capture processes is one of the quickest of quick
>wins in the arsenal of weapons at your disposal to improve
>overall web site ROI.
>
>Here are a few pointers about how to do it right:
>
>1. Define your data capture strategy
>
>– Know what data you actually need to achieve the
>aims of your business (and eCRM) strategy
>
>– Compulsory data: keep to a bare minimum, to
>maximise consumer registrations and transactions
>
>– Voluntary data: for really useful, but not
>essential data
>
>– Only ask for information from customers that you
>are going to use and is of value to the organisation
>and/or the customer interaction
>
>- Define how you plan to identify and track users. There
>are Only 2 ways to adequately identify unique users: 1.
>persistent user cookie 2. user registers and logs in. Best
>practice uses a mixture of both e.g. Amazon
>(“Welcome X, if you are not X, click here”).
>Unique user data should be written to a central user
>profile database. The user profiles are enriched over time
>as the relationship grows. The deeper the user profile
>information the more valuable the customer base becomes
>and the more potential there is for eCRM and improved
>customer retention and acquisition
>
>
>2. Pre-registration
>
>–Always be open and honest about data capture and
>data usage. Clearly state your privacy policies and data
>protection guidelines
>
>–Have third party personal data security validation
>(TRUSTe, Which etc.)
>
>–Clearly articulate the benefits of giving data
>
>–Use form validation to improve the quality of
>captured data (e.g. checking for @ sign in e-mail
>addresses)
>
>– Make it clear to users where they are in the
>registration process (e.g. Step 1 of 2)
>
>- Centralise customer data with a common format for
>accuracy of analysis
>
>- Use ‘open’ data standards to store the
>customer data (e.g. XML) so that it can easily be shared
>or exported to other systems e.g. legacy or CRM systems
>
>3. Post-registration
>
>–Thank you screen has ‘interactive
>hooks’ so that customer is led on to something else
>relevant (cf. Amazon’s post-buy screen suggesting
>other books you might like)
>
>–Send an e-mail confirmation to the user following
>registration: this verifies whether the e-mail address
>works + establishes a more personal contact with the
>customer + allows suggestions of other links, content,
>services etc.
>
>–Tracking: set cookie to track who then returns to
>the site, build richness of user profile + begin to
>measure loyalty by Recency, Frequency, Monetary or other
>relevant loyalty and customer value metrics.
>
>–Segmentation: build user segments (e.g. by loyalty,
>by interests) to target with marketing
>
>–Value exchange to enrichen profile and strengthen
>relationship
>
>–Personalisation: pre-filled forms, newsletters,
>alerts and reminders, what’s changed on the site
>since last visit etc.
>
>–Customer service and Contact Strategy: look at
>improving speed and quality of responses to customer
>enquiries + define a customer contact plan as part of the
>online marketing / CRM strategy (including premium
>services for most valuable customers)
>
>We’re beginning to move into CRM territory by the
>end…
>
>Anyone else got any tips or thoughts on best practice
>online customer data capture? Anyone seen significant
>improvement in ROI by improving their data capture
>processes?

I think everyone who has posted above would benefit from visiting the Magiq site. www.magiq.com We use tag-free online customer data collection technology borrowed from our sister company Speed-Trap to drive an on demand digital marketing app - Magiq. Its all real time, tag free and charged on a pay as you go basis. Bear in mind we are the only people who can capture online visitor data tag-free, excluding packet-sniffing type services. Drop us a line if you would like some more information or to discuss the benefits of implementing Magiq onto any site.

Tom Hills