Defining marketing strategies through derived E-commerce patterns

• US 9,043,220 B2
• Filed: 10/19/2010
• Issued: 05/26/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/19/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Jacob Sushil, George T., Kannan, Kalapriya
• Primary Examiner(s): Miller, Alan S
• Application Number:
  US12/907,680
• Publication Number:
  US 20120095770A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,680 Days
• Field of Search: 705 711- 742, 705 144- 1449
• US Class Current: 705/7.33
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0202 Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities

Abstract

A mechanism, in a data processing system, is provided for defining marketing strategies. The mechanism dynamically obtains information related to customer interactions associated with a plurality of customers, analyzes the information to identify patterns, selects patterns to define a marketing strategy for a marketer, and defines a marketing strategy based on the selected patterns.

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a marketing system computing device, causes the marketing system computing device to:

dynamically obtain, by an information gathering agent of the marketing system computing device, information related to customer interactions associated with a given customer from a client-side agent running on a client computing device associated with the given customer via a network;

analyze, by a pattern analysis component of the marking system computing device, the information related to customer interactions to identify patterns in the information related to the customer interactions based on a set of predefined rules;

group, by a categorization and mapping component of the marketing system computing device, the identified patterns into a plurality of groups of patterns;

create, by the categorization and mapping component of the marketing system computing device, a ranked list of the plurality of groups of patterns based on the set of predefined rules;

select, by a marketing strategy selection component of the marketing system computing device, patterns from the ranked list of the plurality of groups of patterns for defining a marketing strategy for a marketer;

identify a marketing strategy of a merchant associated with a segment of products using the ranked list of the plurality of groups of patterns; and

present to the client computing device associated the given customer the marketing strategy via the network.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein obtaining information related to customer interactions further comprises:

performing data mining operations to collect customer interaction information from a plurality of sources.

3. The computer program product of claim 2, wherein the data mining operations comprise Web crawling or scuttering.

4. The computer program product of claim 2, wherein the customer interactions comprise at least one of a product review, a review comment, a post, a comment, or interconnected documents.

5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer readable program further causes the marketing system computing device to:

receive a query from a merchant associated with a segment of products;

dynamically select a set of influencing parameters based on a ranked list of patterns in response to the query; and

present to the merchant the set of influencing parameters associated with the segment of products, thereby allowing the merchant to define marketing strategies in relation to the segment of products.

6. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer readable program is stored in a computer readable storage medium in a data processing system and wherein the computer readable program was downloaded over a network from a remote data processing system.

7. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer readable program is stored in a computer readable storage medium in a server data processing system and wherein the computer readable program is downloaded over a network to a remote data processing system for use in a computer readable storage medium with the remote system.

8. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer readable program further causes the marketing system computing device to:

identify a most effective channel to present the marketing strategy to reach the given customer.

9. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the client-side agent comprises a browser plug-in or a terminate and stay resident program.

10. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer readable program further causes the marketing system computing device to create mappings of related patterns.

11. An apparatus, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to;

dynamically obtain, by an information gathering agent of a marketing system computing device, information related to customer interactions associated with a given customer from a client-side agent running on a client computing device associated with the given customer via a network;

analyze, by a pattern analysis component of the marketing system computing device, the information related to customer interactions to identify patterns in the information related to the customer interactions based on a set of predefined roles;

group, by a categorization and mapping component of the marketing system computing device, the identified patterns into a plurality of groups of patterns;

create, by the categorization and mapping component of the marketing system computing device, a ranked list of the plurality of groups of patterns based on the set of predefined rules;

select, by a marketing strategy selection component of the marketing system computing device, patterns from the ranked list of the plurality of groups of patterns for defining a marketing strategy for a marketer;

identify, by the marketing strategy selection component of the marketing system computing device, a marketing strategy of a merchant associated with a segment of products using the ranked list of the plurality of groups patterns; and

present to the client computing device associated with the given customer the marketing strategy via the network.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein obtaining information related to customer interactions further comprises:

performing data mining operations to collect customer interaction information from a plurality of sources.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the data mining operations comprise Web crawling or scuttering.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the customer interactions comprise at least one of a product review, a review comment, a post, a comment, or interconnected documents.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:

identify a most effective channel to present the marketing strategy to the given customer.

16. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to:

receive a query from a merchant associated with a segment of products;

dynamically select a set of influencing parameters based on a ranked list of patterns in response to the query; and

present to the merchant the set of influencing parameters associated the segment of products, thereby allowing the merchant to define marketing strategies relation to the segment of products.

17. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the client-side agent comprises a browser plug-in or a terminate and stay resident program.

18. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the instructions further cause the processor to create mappings of related patterns.