“We are similar to oil refining business. There is crude oil but crude oil cannot be used as such. You need to refine it and then you can get useful products which you can use. And that’s what Xtract does. We take raw data from mobile or internet and we refine it so that marketers and advertisers can use it,” says Jouko Ahvenainen, founder of Xtract while speaking in front of a large audience at Marketing Communications Week in Helsinki.
The user data is becoming more and more important as media is becoming more interactive and as advertising is shifting from traditional media to online and mobile. One of the most valuable aspects of using user data for marketing is that we are able to visualise, group and measure customers’ social networks. This has created an opportunity for marketers to utilise word of mouth marketing which is the most powerful selling tool (Nielsen 2007). Mobile operators have the largest social network in the world today. Xtract can refine that rich customer data to create 3D user profiles based on social network, behaviour and demographic information. These profiles for the first time utilise data as a dynamic tool in day to day marketing for effective and intelligent targeting of advertising, viral campaigns and predictive churn management. History has shown that companies who market more and more efficiently are the ones that survive economic downturn. If that’s the case then, now is a good time to turn to a social marketing intelligence solution.
