Big-data or Big hype?
How I used customer data to improve Dodici wine sales
Many years ago I ran a wine business called Dodici (“12″ in Italian). We sold cases (12 bottles) of Italian wine and arranged winemaker wine dinners for customers. I had under a thousand customers so used a fairly basic database to help determine which customers received which sales and marketing emails, letters, offers. Through telephone conversations with customers and knowing their buying habits I knew reasonably well which products and services they were interested in. For example there was a couple from Norfolk who bought no wine but loved coming to the winemaker dinners in London. There was also a customer who loved off-beat red varieties that 99% of my customers wouldn’t be interested in. The list is endless. All this information was logged onto the database so customer communications were as relevant and compelling as possible. This was “small data”.
