Modern day marketing has far evolved from the historic one size fits all tactics that were previously used.
In today's society, customers demand a more tailored and less bothersome approach. So while the blind firing approach may have provided results once upon a time, it couldn't be further from the truth now.
Marketing communications can be made infinitely more effective by considering whether your targets actually want the information you're sending by personalising the approach taken to reach them by employing customer profiling. This tactic enables marketers to be able to target groups of people with similar interests, which isn't quite the same as marketing to individuals but it is definitely a great first step in the right direction.
Customers are individuals and need to be treated as such. Their experience is the key battleground in marketing and the best way to improve the customer experience is to be able to tailor it to the preference of each individual. This is where ‘segments of one’ comes into play.
A larger segment may have several thousand customers in it, but ideally brands need to treat each one within that segment as an individual. In order to treat customers as individual segments you have to think of them as such. Just because they’re similar in some aspects to others in the segment group, it does not mean they are the same. They may differ wildly in certain areas (football team supported, car driven, political empathy – the possibilities are endless) and it depends on the original segmentation exercise – not only how detailed it was, but also what factors the brand chose to differentiate on.
This demonstrates the value of conducting an accurate as possible profiling process that produces segments you can rely on, and also demonstrates how critical the thinking behind each segment is. Marketers should be asking themselves “what are you trying to achieve with each segment?” to unlock maximum return from creating them.
To go further than detailed segmentation marketers need to be able to personalise within each group. To achieve this, marketers should maintain a database containing detail about the customer that can be used for creating more personalised messages for this segment of one, and an automated process to facilitate communications using not only the segment information but also every scrap of data you have in order to provide an individual experience.
There are many different types of data that can allow today's marketers to better understand their customers. The number of touch points now available is extraordinary, including social media, email, direct mail and SMS. Each one provides marketers access to more information about their customers as well as a means of reaching them.
The key to implementing the segment of one is making sure you are collecting and accurately recording as much information and data as is available. Today’s customers create vast amounts of data – more than ever before. Every time an individual interacts with your brand is an opportunity to collect and record data that will help your communications resonate with them more in future.
Likewise you need to ensure that the picture of a customer painted by the data is accurate and robust by validating that the data you have is accurate and considering enriching it with trusted third party data.
For brands to successfully implement the individual segment of one method of personalised marketing they must first understand that personalisation is paramount. Effective personalisation is based on accurate segmentation, customer insight and dynamic cross-channel capability, powered by technology and enabled by the expertise that allows brands to understand insights.
Increasing customer engagement, advocacy and loyalty are of utmost importance to brands in a highly competitive economy. Highly personalised marketing allows enable brands to do this successfully, as communicating with customers on their terms ensures that they receive relevant messages, at the right time and through the right channels.
By Matt Dunn, Experian
PrivSec Conferences will bring together leading speakers and experts from privacy and security to deliver compelling content via solo presentations, panel discussions, debates, roundtables and workshops.
For more information on upcoming events, visit the website.
comments powered by Disqus