As customers, our identities and lives become more and more digitised every day. The more time we spend on the world wide web, the more information we create. In 2014, Facebook users shared 2,460,000 parts of content, YouTube users uploaded 72 hours of new movie, and Yelp users posted 26,380 reviews. These statistics are not per week or even daily — they are per minute.
With each online order, media stream, or click-through, customers are generating new data points that help define their online identities. For businesses, this information may be used to create more personalised and related experiences, which result in high conversion rates and revenue.
Similarly, each time a consumer registers with a business using either traditional forms or social authentication, and then takes certain activities on the brand’s website or native mobile program, the user is giving the organisation access to valuable first-party, permission-based identity data. This may be used to customise the user experience in meaningful and accurate ways.
However, not all marketers have an intuitive way to make sense of information. According to a current Teradata survey, 87 percent of survey respondents consider information to be the most underused advantage in advertising.
The sheer amount of data consumers produce certainly provides a challenge, but there are additional hurdles preventing brands out of becoming more data-driven, including the nature of the data itself. The information that provides personal insight into customers, their interests, activities, favorite brands, life events, and even more, is all unstructured. The huge majority of databases lack the ability to reconcile these types of data points together with organized, relational information (gender, age, location, etc.) in a means that makes it easy for marketers to query, segment, and use the information.
Because many entrepreneurs also lack a visual representation of the exabytes of customer information being created and recorded, brands face the probability of being unable to leverage rich data to power tactical business and marketing choices. In reality, a recent study shows that only 16 percent of respondents agree that all workers have a user-friendly way to conduct relevant data analyses via, for instance, customised feeds and dashboards.
Once marketers are able to put in place the required tools, they could effectively use the vast number of information to personalise consumer encounters. Consumers today are inundated with marketing-related stimulation. From screen advertisements and email newsletters to push notifications and sponsored articles on social networking, the average consumer sees nearly 250 advertising messages every day , and likely will not notice half of them despite the vulnerability.
With this much information constantly fighting for customer mindshare, it’s simple to see how business messages may only get lost in the shuffle. The key to breaking through the clutter is by delivering personalised and relevant communications to consumers. In reality, 90% of entrepreneurs see individualisation since the future of marketing — moving past segmentation to true one-to-one personalisation in a real-time circumstance.
Though achieving this level of individualised marketing may seem daunting, the immense range of technologies available now makes it completely possible. 86 percent of customers say personalisation plays a part in their buying decisions. Consumers are publicly acknowledging that businesses can influence them by delivering relevant messaging and creating shopping experiences more private.
Brands that continue to send cookie-cutter advertising correspondences and treat every customer the same are missing the opportunity to create lasting, valuable client relationships.
