We’re getting pretty spoiled these days, in terms of media and technology. People don’t want to be inundated with irrelevant marketing messages. They expect content that’s directly tied to their needs, wants, and preferences. For a 20-year-old to see an online ad for osteoporosis medication means somebody messed up. According to a survey of more than 3,000 adult consumers in the US and UK by AgilOne, more than 70% said they expect personalized experiences with the brands they interact with.
To satisfy buyers, many companies are implementing some level of personalization into their marketing strategies. In fact, a recent study from Teradata revealed that 90% of marketers surveyed said that consumer personalization is now a top priority. Whether it’s through personalized email marketing or highly-targeted content marketing, today’s brands are getting more up close and personal with their consumers.
Consumer personalization, however, is proving to be more challenging to execute than many brands expected. In order to create more targeted marketing campaigns, marketers need to access valuable data insight. For most companies, however, consumer data resides in silos, which makes it difficult to get that 360 degree view needed to create more personalized messages.
So what can companies to do break down the barriers to personalization? Below are several ways marketers can improve data insight and get more personal with their messaging.
Take Inventory of Your Customer Data
From sales interactions to content downloads and social media conversations, consumer data flows into your businesses from a number of different sources. Before you can integrate any of this, it’s important to take stock of all the different ways data is entering your business to ensure that no piece of information is lost.
Create a Plan of Action
Now that you’ve taken inventory of your data, it’s time to create a game plan. For businesses whose data resides in legacy IT systems, this information overhaul may require a large investment and the involvement of your IT team. For smaller organizations, it could be possible to outsource the project to a data specialist who can unify data for you. Integrate Customer Data.
Integrate Customer Data
With a plan of action in place, it’s time to start integrating your data, which involves combining information from several disparate sources. If your IT team doesn’t have the bandwidth or expertise to take on this complex task, you might want to consider adopting a solution that combines, standardizes, and cleanses all of your data for you.
Put Data Into Action
After you’ve integrated your customer data it’s time to put that information into action. Map out who your customers are according to age, gender, preferences, and usage trends. Based on this information you can then build detailed buyer personas and segment your consumers. Equipped with this customer analysis, you can then create more detailed marketing campaigns that speak directly to each consumer’s needs.
Successful personalization starts with valuable data insight. Before you go about developing more targeted marketing campaigns, it’s important that you organize and standardize your data to ensure that you have a clear, 360 degree view of who your customer is and how they want to interact with you.