I heard a report on NPR yesterday about the 13 million email addresses the Obama campaign collected during the campaign.  They plan to leverage them for the creation of a post-election movement to more directly involve Americans in the legislative process.

The report raised the issue that those on the list most likely had varying degrees of partisan viewpoints … from hardcore DNC members to those who were attracted by President Obama’s bi-partisan campaign rhetoric.

This is the perfect case study in waiting for the importance of segmenting customer data.

Let’s exchange the word supporter for customer and then think about how the Obama team can boost the ROI of their efforts.

1. By developing customer profiles from the list, they can readily segment them into various categories. These could range from those who would support any effort put forth by the Democrats to those that would be more responsive to initiatives which included more people “under the tent.”

2. With that knowledge, the team could communicate with and mobilize those that would most likely respond to a particular issue or idea.

3. Metrics could be established to measre varying goals and the results used to predict likelihood of future efforts’ successes.

4. Each sgement could be polled to determine degree of support in advance of introducing legislation or positions.

The same principle applies to any business.  Think about your enterprise.  If you have a list of customers and/or prospects, you possess a valuable asset.  It’s time to leverage it for success.  You can boost your marketing ROI significantly if you take the time to understand your customers.

Once armed with a highly segmented list, you can develop campaigns with pinpoint accuracy that will produce results.