Database Marketing Process Supported by Ontologies: a Data Mining System Architecture Proposal

Abstract

Marketing departments handles with a great volume of data which are normally task or marketing activity dependent. This requires the use of certain, and perhaps unique, specific knowledge background and framework approach. Database marketing provides in depth analysis of marketing databases. Knowledge discovery in database techniques is one of the most prominent approaches to support some of the database marketing process phases. However, in many cases, the benefits of these tools are not fully exploited by marketers. Complexity and amount of data constitute two major factors limiting the application of knowledge discovery techniques in marketing activities. Here, ontologies may play an important role in the marketing discipline. Motivated by its success in the area of artificial intelligence, we propose an ontologysupported database marketing approach. The approach aims to enhance database marketing process supported by a data mining system architecture proposal which provides detailed step-phase specific information. From a data mining framework, issues raised in this work both respond and contribute to calls for a database marketing process improvement. Our work was evaluated throughout a relationship marketing program database. The findings of this study not only advance the state of database marketing research but also shed light on future research directions using a data mining approach. Therefore we propose a framework supported by ontologies and knowledge extraction from databases techniques. Thus, this paper has two purposes: to integrate the ontological approach into Database Marketing and to make use of a domain ontology a knowledge base that will enhance the entire process at both levels, marketing and knowledge extraction techniques.