Marketing today is all about personalization. In recent years, enterprise marketers have increasingly become more sophisticated as consumer expectations evolve. Today’s consumer expects relevant, personalized messages from brands instead of generic content that doesn’t interest them. This requires brands to tap into data from all customer touchpoints to use in email and other marketing channels.
Smart marketers create a dialog with their customers by tapping into demographic and geographic data, purchasing behavior, lifestyle and interests, and more.
But a study by VB Insight suggests that most brands really don’t use much beyond basic demographic and purchase data. Why? Because the majority don’t have a way to utilize everything else and create a comprehensive view of their customers.
Organizations must have a centralized location for customer data to live — a modern data warehouse like Snowflake is a good option for many — that marketers can pull from in order to be effective with their cross-channel messaging campaigns. Keeping everything separate only limits what a marketer knows about their customers and can damage their brand’s image because the messaging doesn’t feel personal and relevant. Enterprise marketers need technology that integrates seamlessly and empowers them to use all of their data for marketing instead of forcing them to be selective with what to use.
In addition to having access to all customer data, marketers need that data to be up to date and fresh so there’s no ineffective or out-of-touch messaging sent out, which can undermine strategic attempts to personalize and maintain relevance. Data synchronization between internal systems and third-party providers can create lag and disrupt continuity of messaging. Imagine a customer receiving an abandoned cart email with a coupon code after they’ve already come back to the site and completed the purchase. This sort of misstep happens far too often. You’ve probably encountered something similar as a consumer yourself. Think about how those experiences make you feel, compared to the ones where the brand seems to understand your desires and actions, and their communication with you reflects that.
Just because many Super Senders aren’t there yet doesn’t mean they don’t want to be. When asked last year, 25% of marketers told us real-time data access was the No. 1 feature they’d choose for their ESP to improve upon — a higher percentage than any other factor. Marketers are beginning to realize how necessary it is to have their data organized and easily accessible in real time in order to deliver the sorts of campaigns consumers increasingly demand. That requires that right set of technology that empowers them to move as fast as they need to instead of constantly throwing up obstacles.
Will Devlin
A 20-year email marketing veteran, Will has focused on marketing strategy and execution for MessageGears since 2014. He has extensive experience on both the retail customer and service side of email marketing, and he’s interested in helping businesses better understand how they can make the most of the work they put into their email campaigns.
