Seeing is believing: mapping MCIF data.

AuthorCoffey, John J.
PositionDatabase Marketing - Marketing Customer Information File

Most marketers need to visualize MCIF data using charts, pictures or maps in order to interpret what the data is saying about their customers and markets. Mapping your bank's data provides a powerful marketing weapon because it enables you to "see" geographically what is going on in your markets.

Through data mapping, your targeted marketing efforts can go beyond the mailbox and telephone. Product attributes can be modified to meet the needs of each unique geographic area. Visually depicting the geographic distribution of your customers, their loans, deposits and profitability in relation to the location of your branches can help your bank increase the effectiveness of branch personnel.

What kinds of data can be mapped?

Each state, county and census tract in the United States has its own unique numerical identifier. This geographic information can be purchased through a demographic data company and added to or 'appended" to your MCIF at the household level.

Because your MCIF is able to consolidate loans, deposits and other services at the household level and the geographic data is at the household level, it is possible to combine both sources of data. For example, you can create a report that illustrates the total loan balances your bank has in a state, county or single census tract. It is also possible to illustrate the total loan balances in a particular zip code, although the geographic area of a census tract is usually much smaller than a zip code and better for marketing purposes. However, this data is still in its "natural" rows and columns format.

Something magical happens when you import this combined geographic and product data (usually in a database format) into mapping software. The mapping software is capable of segmenting this data in a variety of ways. For instance, the data can be segmented into "quartiles" (four equal distributions of data), or it can be segmented into predefined groups. The mapping software can then assign a wide variety of colors and patterns to each group. For instance, if a census tract has a high level of loan balances in relation to the other census tracts in a particular region, it can be assigned a dark blue color vs. a light blue color a census tract...

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