Title: Fuzzy model to target selection in direct marketing for large client and preferences database

Authors: Julio Cesar Ramos-Fernandez, Virgilio Lopez-Morales, Gilles Enea, Jean Duplaix

Addresses: Universidad Tecnologica de Tula Tepeji (UTTT), Carr. Tula – Tepeji, Km. 8.0, Col. El 61, Ejido El Carmen, Tula de Allende, Hgo., Mexico. ' Centro de Investigacion en Tecnologias de Informacion y Sistemas, Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Hidalgo, Carr. Pachuca – Tulancingo km. 4.5, Pachuca 42090, Mexico. ' Laboratoire LSIS (UMR CNRS 6168) – Marseille, Universite du Sud Toulon – Var, France. ' Laboratoire LSIS (UMR CNRS 6168) – Marseille, Universite du Sud Toulon – Var, France

Abstract: Recent advances on Computational Intelligence (CI) methods have been published employing novel tools to solve problems in the world of finances, management and marketing research. Different CI techniques have been applied in data mining to obtain a model for commercial preferences of consumers and tendencies of consumption. This paper discusses and proposes an approach to model (by applying some fuzzy methods) a target selection from large databases for direct marketing. We state a methodology, via an algorithm, which pre-processes a database, by using properties of the Hotelling transformation. The processed database is used for the identification and modelling of the representative clients and preferences with a fuzzy clustering approach.

Keywords: direct marketing; fuzzy clustering; potential customers; Hotelling transformation; modelling; data mining; target selection; consumer preferences; fuzzy sets.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLM.2006.009384

International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 2006 Vol.1 No.3, pp.249 - 267

Published online: 28 Mar 2006 *

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