The Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire-based facilities management and data services group PCL Ltd held a seminar last month to highlight the activities of its direct marketing services division, which holds the European rights to the Athena direct marketing software from New York company CRC. To strengthen its pitch for a range of services, including data capture, campaign management and telemarketing, as well as database management, the company wheeled a couple of its customers out in front of the audience of potential prospects and press. And so it is that Computergram is now in possession of a number of fascinating facts about the size, structure and problems facing the UK farming community, as Jim Potter, business manager of tractor manufacturer Massey Ferguson, outlined how his company brushed up its marketing database. Five years ago, it appears, Massey Ferguson’s UK customer database was in a mess. The company did not know who its customers were, or when they were likely to buy new machinery, nor could it do any targeted direct marketing. In a limited market of no more than 17,000 farmers with the wherewithal to buy equipment that starts at UKP8,000 for a basic tractor and goes up to UKP200,000 for a state-of-the-art combine harvester, this was very bad news indeed. The company had a couple of shots at cleaning up its database in-house, then decided it was good at manufacturing tractors, not running databases, and signed up for PCL’s Athena-based direct marketing services, running on a Digital Equipment Corp Ultrix system and using Oracle Corp’s database at PCL’s centre in Maidenhead. The net result is that now, in the second year of the system, Massey Ferguson knows more about the UK farming market than you can shake a stick at; has saved itself a considerable amount of money by targeting its direct mailshots; and is running a number of customer loyalty campaigns. Potter said Massey Ferguson UK, which sells via a network of 60 dealers, now knows what its customers have bought; what machinery they have bought from the company’s rivals; and when they are likely to be buying equipment again. Response rates to direct mailshots have shot up. And all this is crucial, said Potter, in a market where it is very difficult to differentiate the products: basically, tractors pull things through the ground, he said.
