Correspondence: Filipe Mota Pinto, School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Campus 2, Morro do Lena – Alto do Vieiro, Apartado 4163, Leiria 2411-901, Portugal. E-mail: fpinto@estg.ipleiria.pt

¹is Professor of Database Marketing at Polytechnic Institute of Leiria – Portugal.

²is Professor of Relationship Marketing at Polytechnic Institute of Leiria – Portugal.

³is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at University of Minho – Portugal.

Received 10 March 2009; Revised 10 March 2009.

Abstract

Database marketing (DBM) provides in -depth analysis of marketing databases. Knowledge discovery in database techniques is one of the most prominent approaches to supporting some of the DBM 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. Currently, ontologies may here play an important role in the marketing discipline. Motivated by its success in the area of artificial intelligence, we propose an ontology-supported DBM approach. The approach aims to enhance DBM with ontology by providing detailed step-phase specific information. Our research work has its foundations in a double methodological approach using the Delphi and Action Research methodologies. First, we use Delphi to structure related DBM knowledge, and then we align our work to the Action Research methodology in order to systematise the knowledge extraction process and knowledge base creation. The issues raised in this paper both respond and contribute to calls for a DBM process improvement. Our work was evaluated in the relationship marketing domain focusing on a relational marketing programme database. The findings of this study not only advance the state of DBM research, but also shed light on future research directions.