Digital marketers are constantly looking to embrace the latest and greatest when it comes to the world of digital transformation. They are hard pressed to not only be creative and engaging, but data-driven as well. However, drawing insights from raw customer data, held in a canyon-wide chasm of silos, can prove challenging for marketers who are expected to use this customer information to deliver fantastic and personalised digital experiences.
At the same time, today’s consumers are more tech-savvy than ever. They block digital ads, prefer user reviews to brand messaging, and are protective about both their technology and their time. Despite this, consumers still want customised digital experiences and content that is relevant and useful, leaving brands to navigate the data minefield to deliver this demand.
The amount of customer data available is huge, but for marketers to harness it, it needs to centralised. The true value lies in combining the data from all the separate sources and compiling it to create a complete picture of the customer.
There are numerous, prevalent sources of customer data in a modern marketing operation across CRM, marketing automation, analytics, social, mobile, commerce, and third-party systems. Every team within a marketing organisation may use one or more of its own tools, each generating its own record of actions and activities through the customer journey. This occurs through every step, from when a customer clicks a link, opens an email, or checks out a shopping trolley from the online store. These tools work in silos and don’t paint a complete picture of the individual customer as they interact with a brand. Digital experiences can’t be personalised without the insight that combined data delivers.
The Unified Customer Profile
In order for marketers to gain the insight they need for success, they need to create a customer profile that unifies all the available customer information. What may seem like a mammoth task can in fact be made relatively straightforward with tools that allow you to create profiles that develop with every visit, touch, call, or sale.
This process can start at the first site visit by an anonymous user through the collection of data points such as an IP address, a search term that brought them to the site, the operating system, the time of day, or a rough geolocation. By the time they leave the site, valuable information will have been assembled, such as a record of the pages they looked at, the content they clicked on or downloaded, the forms they completed, and the shopping carts they filled.
This profile data continues to grow with each customer interaction, taking into account not just what actions they’ve taken but why they’ve taken them, adding context and increasing the accuracy of a brand’s personalisation efforts.
Anonymous users turn into identified names and hopefully customers, through every touch and interaction across every device.
This unified view of the customer not only helps marketers deliver tailored digital experiences, but also unites the marketing organisation as whole by providing a comprehensive view of the customer. Data silos are broken down and marketing decisions become better informed.
First Steps
The ideal unified profile should incorporate data from both first-party and third-party sources. First-party data is what you collect about your customers from web logs, point of sale systems, call centres and ecommerce systems. It can be anonymous or highly detailed if the customer shares personal information with a brand. Third-party data is generally appended to the record after being rented or purchased from an outside source, such as Experian or Acxiom. First-party data is more valuable than third but combining both is useful when building a customer profile.
Whatever tool you use, it must do the following three things:
● Collect data from various sources
● Support real-time audience segmentation for targeted messaging
● Share that information back out across various marketing tools, technology and platforms
In creating valuable customer insight from data collected from across the marketing function, each marketer has ownership of the result and an understanding of the contribution they and others have made. This process helps to give them a greater understanding of the bigger picture.
Detailed, unified customer profiles are a crucial step in delivering exceptional digital experiences. Marketers can execute the promise of the right content at the right time to the right person.
By Maria McCann, Senior Marketing Manager at Acquia.
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