Imagine being able to cut through all the marketing noise and connect with your customers on a personal level.
That’s what my new book, Data-Driven Personalization, is all about – showing you how to use data to create marketing that really resonates.
We all know data is important, but a lot of marketers are still struggling to really make the most of it.
At Convince & Convert, we help organizations with this challenge every day. If data strategy is an area where you need support, this book is for you. I wrote it to provide you with all the tools and frameworks you need to get your team on the same page, gather the right data, and turn those insights into marketing that strengthens customer relationships and drives real results.
Get started on your learning journey with this inside look at Chapter One: The Case for Data-Driven Personalization.
This following is an edited extract from Data-Driven Personalization by Zontee Hou ©2024 and is reproduced and adapted with permission from Kogan Page Ltd.
The Case for Data-Driven Personalization
Picture your inbox in the morning. How quickly do you scan your emails for junk mail, then highlight those messages that fit the bill, and delete them? It’s probably a split second.
Similarly, how quickly do you scroll past irrelevant content on social media without a second thought? You probably do that all the time. That’s no surprise when there is so much content that you’re exposed to every day.
On average, in every minute of the day, there are 157 million videos watched on TikTok, 5.9 million Google searches, and 2.1 million people active on Facebook (Heitman, 2022). The volume of content that we are all bombarded with is immense. It’s no wonder that our customers, like us, are quick to dismiss messages that don’t immediately hook them.
In this environment, which brands stand out for becoming the de facto choices for customers? It’s the brands that make it easy for customers to say yes, because they anticipate their needs and offer a seamless experience.
Think about brands like Netflix, whose streaming platform became dominant because of its content recommendations algorithm.
Or think about mega-store Amazon, which aggressively adapts every page of its website and app to the behaviors of customers.
The thing is: Most of us don’t have Amazon’s budgets. But the good news is that you can build a strategy that allows your brand to communicate with your audiences in an intuitive and responsive way at nearly any budget.
Throughout this book, you’ll read case studies from organizations large and small and hear from experts who work with clients in just about every industry. Their experiences help illustrate why and how investing in a data-driven approach to personalization is necessary to build a competitive advantage.
For instance, you’ll hear from folks like Robbie Fitzwater, founder of digital market agency MKTG Rhythm, which works with small/medium ecommerce businesses across the US, who said in our conversation, “I always say: Our goal is not to out-scale Amazon. Our goal is to out-human Amazon. For the businesses we work with, we can really work to connect the data and insights we have on their customers with content and context around their purchasing and customer journey. And when we can connect those two, that’s where we really can create some magic” (2023).
“Our goal is not to out-scale Amazon. Our goal is to out-human Amazon.” – Robbie Fitzwater, MKTG Rhythm
What Fitzwater is describing is our opportunity. When we know more about our customers than the competition and we use that knowledge to deliver more relevant messages, content, and product recommendations based on their needs or circumstances, they say yes to our brands.
But knowing more about our customers takes work. Even as we all have access to more opportunities to measure and track, many businesses still aren’t using their data to their fullest potential.
Why Now is the Time to Improve How Your Marketing Team Use Data
Since I started in the marketing industry nearly two decades ago, the number of digital touch points has continued to increase. That means that our marketing efforts are more measurable than ever and marketers are expected to be able to connect the dots between marketing campaigns and business results.
Furthermore, we’re working in an environment in which marketers are expected to do more with our resources. Content Marketing Institute/ MarketingProfs’ annual report (2021) found that 67 percent of marketers surveyed agreed that, over the last year, their content team had been asked to do more with the same resources.
It should be a no-brainer to use data to find efficiencies and eliminate wasted efforts. And yet, when I work with marketers and business leaders across organizations both large and small, I often find that the marketing metrics that are reported out are about reach or general engagement, not about consumer insights or customer lifetime value.
What will drive our business forward is our ability to learn about our customers, deliver more relevant messages to them, and improve their relationship with the brand through insights.
How Marketers Are Using Data
If you’re feeling discouraged because your organization still faces significant limitations when it comes to how you’re using data, don’t fret. You’re not alone.
To help you better understand what other organizations are facing and doing currently when it comes to data-driven personalization, I—along with my team at Convince & Convert and our friends at ICUC, a leading social media and online community agency—surveyed 319 marketers in both B2B and B2C industries in August 2023.
We found that:
About a quarter of marketers feel that their companies are very mature or somewhat mature when it comes to using data to drive personalization. Another 22.57 percent say they’re moderately mature, 18.5 percent say slightly mature, and 9.09 percent say not at all mature.
Only 25.16 percent of marketers strongly agree with the statement “My company is able to effectively analyze our owned customer data to generate valuable customer insights for marketing.” Another 39.31 percent somewhat agree and the rest either disagree or “neither disagree or agree,” demonstrating that there are a lot of brands that need to improve to stay competitive.
More than half of marketers feel that they are not collecting enough data or only a moderate amount of data.
It’s no surprise that the most common types of data collected are customer relationship data (66.88 percent) and demographic data (64.98 percent), but it is surprising that these numbers are so low, considering how basic they are. This discrepancy could come down to marketers’ access to how their organizations collect data.
It’s also unsurprising that website and landing pages and email are the most common channels where brands collect data. But fewer than 50 percent of those surveyed said that their companies collect data via customer service support, as well as paid channels. These channels cost money to run and should be integral parts of the data-collection ecosystem, so that companies can collect insights to improve efficiency and customer experience.
The survey showed that while data is part of the way organizations are running their marketing programs, there’s a great deal of room to grow. And most marketers feel that they both need more data and have the opportunity to improve how data is used within their organizations.
To give you frameworks for making these improvements, throughout this book we’ll take a closer look at where and how data should be generated and prioritized.
Why Personalization Matters
Our opportunity is to use data to better understand our customers so that we can make better business decisions and provide more relevance to customers. How we demonstrate that relevance is through content and messages that speak to the specific needs, motivations, and attitudes of our customers.
I spoke to Chris Lu, co-founder of Copy.ai—an AI-driven platform for copywriting, designed to help businesses scale their work—about how he sees the usage of data in marketing in the coming years. He told me, “Data is important to help you target and personalize. We believe marketing will become even more relevant and more personalized in the future. Ultimately, a business solves a problem, marketing shares the solution to the world. Marketing will be able to make sure the solution is most relevant to every potential buyer” (2023).
“Ultimately, a business solves a problem, marketing shares the solution to the world. Marketing will be able to make sure the solution is most relevant to every potential buyer.” – Chris Lu, Copy.ai
The potential is there, and now, with more affordable and accessible technology, more brands than ever before can take advantage of personalization.
Most marketers understand the potential. In fact, my research found that an overwhelming majority—80 percent—of marketers agree that data-driven personalization is very or extremely important for improving customer experiences.
Furthermore, nearly 85 percent agree that data-driven personalization would provide a competitive advantage to their companies. Marketers understand that there are many ways in which personalization fulfills the needs of their audiences, while also providing benefits to their brands.
The challenge marketers face isn’t just about building the strategy to achieve an integrated approach to using data and personalization in their marketing. It’s also about:
Getting organizational and executive buy-in
Nurturing a culture that cultivates strategic data usage
Hiring for people who can execute upon the vision
Implementing the approach with the right tools
Having a seat at the table to actively play a role in how data is collected, analyzed, and used
This book will not only help you tackle those challenges, we will also explore and address each of the benefits.
Want to keep reading? Get your copy of Data-Driven Personalization at a special rate just for Convince & Convert readers. Use Discount Code: CCData20 on orders from KogenPage.com to save 20% (orders in the US and UK also get free shipping, too!).
Learn From Top Brands on the Companion Podcast, Data-Driven Decisions
Continue learning more about the themes in Data-Driven Personalization with our companion podcast, Data-Driven Decisions. This limited series is designed to bring marketers a deeper, real-world perspective on the impact of data in marketing and business. Presented as a mini-series available on both YouTube and major podcast networks, it features author Zontee Hou speaking with top leaders from major organizations, including Salesforce, IBM, and Sekisui House.
Together, they explore how data-driven approaches not only drive marketing strategy but also influence internal culture and cross-functional relationships within companies. You can expect to hear insightful discussions that go beyond traditional marketing talk to cover the intersection of marketing, sales, data, and company culture.
Add all eight episodes to your playlist here.
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