Int. J. Product Lifecycle Management,Vol. 1, No. 3, 2006 249 Fuzzy model to target selection in direct marketing for large client and preferences database Julio Cesar Ramos-Fernández* Universidad Tecnológica de Tula Tepeji (UTTT), Carr. Tula – Tepeji, Km. 8.0, Col. El 61, Ejido El Carmen, Tula de Allende, Hgo., México Fax: +52-773-73-212-14 E-mail: jramos@uttt.edu.mx *Corresponding author Virgilio López-Morales Centro de Investigación en Tecnologías de Información y Sistemas, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, Carr. Pachuca – Tulancingo km. 4.5, Pachuca 42090, México Fax: +52-771-71-72000 E-mail: virgilio@uaeh.edu.mx Gilles Enea and Jean Duplaix Laboratoire LSIS (UMR CNRS 6168) – Marseille Université du Sud Toulon –Var, France Fax: +33-0-4-941-426-47 E-mail: enea@univ-tln.fr E-mail: duplaix@univ-tln.fr 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; model potential customers; Hotelling transformation. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Ramos-Fernández, J.C., López-Morales, V., Enea, G. and Duplaix, J. (2006) ‘Fuzzy model to target selection in direct marketing for large client and preferences database’, Int. J. Product Lifecycle Management, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp.249–267. Biographical notes: Julio Cesar Ramos-Fernández received his Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering from the Technologic Institute of Pachuca in 1992. He is a scholarship holder of the programme in México for the formation of searchers in the PROMEP. He is currently pursuing his PhD at the Research Copyright © 2006 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.