Most marketers would agree that marketing to the true consumer is a priority, but there’s a real a gap between the priority and the capability. Ironically, in an effort to be trendsetters in the rising “big data conversation,” many marketers tout personalization as the new normal. At the same time, they lean on old data and antiquated ways of activating information about their customers. So again, the reality falls short of the promise.
Inadequate data is a serious barrier to knowing the real consumer. Even when the technology exists to do really interesting things, we lack the information to deliver on those capabilities. For example, customer address lists are a company’s most valuable asset, and it is projected that some $36 billion will be invested in CRM this year. Ironically, it is also estimated that up to 60% of CRM efforts will fail due to inability to execute and lack of adequate data.
Fulfilling the tremendous potential CRM offers for improved marketing efficiency, customer experience, and profitability, requires re-imagining customer data and the traditional CRM model. New technologies and data sources provide brands this more complete, intimate, and holistic view of the consumer.
These software- and data-as-a-service solutions deliver three essential elements:
- Multipronged Matching.
These solutions start by connecting all of the data together. For example, accurately matching permission-based customer lists to multiple digital identifiers at the household address level, including IP addresses, mobile device IDs and cookies used by all of the devices in the household—not just leveraging one or two. The result: effectively connecting insights from every device in a household to a specific CRM record. The best solutions go even further, continuously updating the data for the frequency with which people replace phones and acquire new devices. - Enhanced 360 degree view.
With all of the data connected together, these technologies now provide an enriched profile of the consumer, incorporating owned data—such as past online and offline interactions—and third-party data on the customer’s real-time location, interests, purchase intent indicators, preferred retailers, same-day co-visitation and other contextual factors. This enhanced view is constantly up-to-date, appended with the latest customer activity, as it happens, so brands and retailers are better able to anticipate consumer needs and where they are in the purchase journey. - Portable activation at scale.
This data is now ready for action, available for online or offline media activation. In this new world of online-offline convergence, walled gardens are opened up with data integrations with marketing cloud platforms such as Adobe, Oracle, and others. This new generation of solution providers enable porting data directly into a host of marketing partners such as social media platforms, marketing automation software, and addressable TV networks.
The world is full of signals – digital clues to who your customers are, where they go, and where they spend money. The challenge and opportunity is to sense and understand these signals for a full, real-life profile of your customer, so you can deliver truly relevant, personalized content to motivate a purchase. We have the technology, and the data is out there. So the retailers that embrace it, will be the winners in this new era of convergence.