As 2018 commences, customers have sky-high expectations when it comes to their experiences with every business they interact with: retail brands, utility services, and even their banks. We expect these businesses to anticipate our needs, know who we are, and always be relevant. Essentially, we want companies to read our minds. While this is impossible and unrealistic, businesses can make strides by enriching their customer data to improve their customer experience. Here’s how it can help:
1. Connecting with customers on an emotional level
It’s no secret that consumers have endless options of businesses they can choose to work with, and loyalty is extremely hard to inspire. What if you could understand what motivated your consumers and could speak to those interests in your messaging—and in the right tone—every single time? Maybe you’re speaking to a new mom, who has 20 minutes to herself all day and really needs to work with a brand who understands her busy lifestyle and provides her with the convenience she’s looking for. When you communicate with her, you want to demonstrate your empathy with her situation, and highlight that you offer her the benefits of storing her credit card information, recommending products that she might like based on past searches, and providing rush delivery on the diapers she’s ordering to make sure she doesn’t run out. Or perhaps you’re speaking to a new homeowner who bought a fixer-upper. That’s a good chance to deliver more content and do it yourself tips to extend the relationship beyond transactions. Knowing this kind of information about your customers can be crucial to tailoring your brand experience. People choose brands they feel connected with, and nothing inspires loyalty more than emotion.
2. Give deal seekers what they want
While some consumers require an offer to motivate a purchase, you don’t want to dilute your margins by constantly offering deals to your entire customer base. It’s even worse when you offer a discount to a customer who would have purchased at full price. We typically see that 20% of customers are generating 80% of revenue in many businesses. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could find that 20% and treat them a little differently than the rest of your audience? What if you knew which customers will only purchase when presented with a deal? This information would help you focus most of your attention on those customers who will pay full price, while knowing you can always pull the string of offering incentives to those who are constantly seeking a good deal.
3. Talk to your customers via the channels they want to use
Let’s face it, push notifications are very annoying to some people, others don’t check their email for weeks at a time, and many throw away direct mail immediately. It’s very hard to know just how to reach the average consumer with your messaging. While some people enjoy receiving catalogs in the mail, others would prefer weekly emails that highlight some products or services that would be particularly of interest, and others still might like to receive text messages. What if you knew which channels to focus on for groups of consumers and you could reach them in the most effective way possible? Sounds pretty ideal, doesn’t it?
4. Speak their language
With the prevalence of internet-enabled mobile devices, anyone can reach your content 24/7. Gen-Z, Millennials, Gen-X, and Baby boomers all want to be spoken to in the way that they communicate themselves. Maybe a Millennial is more likely to open your emails if you use emojis in the subject line, while Baby boomers prefer a lot of detail when you’re describing what you are offering. Gen-X and Baby boomers may be more likely to engage with longer-form content, while Gen-Z and Millennials are accustomed to encountering so much content daily, that they like bite-size pieces instead. Understanding which generation you are trying to appeal to helps you create messaging that will resonate with them.
5. Anticipate their needs
In the age of data that we live in today, you must know where your customers have been, anticipate where they are going, and figure out how you can take that journey with them. With metadata, cookies, and so on, you can easily get a sense of what interests your customers and anticipate what they may be looking for. If you know what stage of the customer lifecycle they are in, what they recently searched for, and what categories they typically buy, you’ll be set up for greater success. By gaining this granular view and acting accordingly, your consumers will feel as though you understand them.
Data enrichment can provide you with unprecedented amounts of information on the customers that drive your business. The information you already have serves as the key to unlocking greater insight. The greater insight you have about your customers, the better you can go about personalizing your marketing. This insight also guides strategic decisions, allowing you to maximize the potential of every campaign you send.
Creating a better experience all starts with the data.
What more can you learn from yours?
