How to enrich customer data for efficient marketing analytics
Big Data offers huge opportunities for more efficient marketing analytics. Indeed, the data big bang unleashed since the internet went mainstream means there are now twice as many bytes of data as there is water in the world’s oceans. However, only the companies able to use this explosion in data to enrich their customer data with efficient market analytics will be able to turn this data into insights.
Companies injecting analytics into their operations can benefit from major gains in productivity and profitability. The key issue is how to do this. In this post, we will explore: what data enrichment is; how to collect customer data more effectively, and; 5 ways to make your marketing analytics more efficient.
What is Data Enrichment?
Data enrichment can be defined as merging an existing database of customer data with third-party data from an authoritative external source. When it comes to enriching customer data, it means finding ways to understand your customers more so that you can communicate more effectively with them. By linking with multiple datasets, it is possible to enrich your customer records with relevant data from billions of records. Enriched records enable more personalized communication strategies for improved success.
You can enrich customer data with anything, from phone numbers to demographic data, marital status, and more. Doing this can help reveal new opportunities, help you implement lead scoring, and improve personalization. In addition, data should be continuously enriched so that you can respond to customer changes when they happen. Clearly then, data enrichment is vital if you are to operate an effective marketing analytics strategy.
How to enrich customer data
So what are the best ways organizations can collect customer data? Here, we outline some of the top ways to enrich customer data for efficient marketing analytics.
- Web Analytics
Understanding the online behavior of customers is vital to both gain insights on their interests and optimize web usage. On-site web analytics through things like cookies offer rich data on how customers interact with your page. This can include the sorts of products and services that might catch their eye, how long it takes them to make a purchase, and what causes customers to leave your site. Off-site analytics can be used to reveal how customers ended up on your site, giving you vital insight into how to successfully generate traffic.
- Email Engagement
2020 saw more than 280 billion emails sent every day worldwide. This is set to rise to more than 330 billion a day by 2021. Given that the average open rate for emails is just 20.81% across all industries, email marketing strategies have to adapt to stay relevant. However, more than 17% of emails clicked through lead to a purchase. Email is also the preferred communication channel for the majority of consumers.
All this means that having an effective email marketing strategy can see returns on investment of as much as $44 for every $1 spent. As such, monitoring email behavior and understanding engagement can be lucrative. It can help implement strategies to segment subscribers, optimize message frequency, and personalize communication for improved returns.
- Data Capture & Continuous Enrichment
Using things like forms and surveys can be a great way to enrich your database of customer information. They make it easy to customize your approach to data capture so that you can continuously enrich data and respond to changes in your customers as they occur. However, it is important not to ask for too much at any one time. Fortunately, forms and surveys can be used to progressively profile your customers.
Progressive profiling entails building a customer record over time. You can start with vital information regarding personal details, data protection, and contact methods, and augment this with more detailed information that facilitates personalized communication. Surveys and forms allow you to be direct and ask things you can’t easily capture through analytics alone.
- Loyalty Rewards
To encourage customers to share their personal information with you, rewards can be an excellent tool. However, according to the IBM report on email marketing, you should steer clear of using words like “free”, “opportunity”, and “collect”. These words trigger email spam filters. As such, when offering rewards you need to try and keep your content free of keywords that could appear to be spam. One way to offer rewards without using language likely to be picked up by email spam filters is through loyalty rewards.
Though using loyalty rewards you can gain additional data on your top customers, build a picture of how people engage with your brand and even understand which products you should seek to promote. As mentioned, loyal customers will be more incentivized to engage in your data capture efforts when rewarded.
- Social Media Strategies
Mobile phone website traffic has seen its share grow from 0.7% in 2009 to over 50% in 2020. Nearly 50% of emails are also now read on mobile devices. Mobile users are also set to exceed 5 billion in 2020. All this means that any strategy to enrich customer data needs to be optimized for mobile. A great way to engage with customers on mobile is through social media strategies.
Fortunately, a number of social media sites like Facebook will share useful information about customers. This information can help with data enrichment, offering you insights into the content your customers like, their hobbies, and other personal details harder to capture through on-site analytics. It is also a great space to boost surveys, rewards, and special offers that help you capture more data on your customers and improve your personalized communication.
Enriching customer data enables you to harness the power of Big Data to deliver efficient marketing strategies based on analytics. Capturing data, drawing out the key insights, and implementing personalized communication strategies will enhance customer engagement. It is also vital to continuously enrich your data over time to ensure the efficiency of your marketing strategy can be maintained in the long run.