What happens when one of the world's largest and most successful companies sets out to revise its direct marketing strategies? If that company is Microsoft, who also create popular database and analytics software, the result is known as "eating your own dogfood" — a synergy of existing techniques and new development. This session focuses on the experience within Microsoft of building a direct marketing strategy, following customers through a process from prospects to product advocates. You will learn how the strategy was developed and implemented and how it uniquely closed the loop with technological developments in databases and predictive analytics. Yet you will also discover that even Microsoft has technological constraints — eating our own dogfood is a rule, not an option. Nevertheless, although built on the Microsoft experience, this will be a strictly vendor-neutral session in terms of techniques and recommendations. You will take away much of immediate value in your own work, for example: How to model customers and their needs with predictive analytics, while working within the increasingly stringent demands of consumer and business privacy; How to identify technological advantages and constraints within your existing technology stacks: maximizing their benefit, or surmounting them as needed; How to develop a continuous chain of predictive models, helping you to lead your customer on the path from prospect to advocate. In short, the session will help you to build your strategy on the combined marketing and technological experience of one of our leading companies.