Customer Portfolios recently hosted our 2nd Marketer Roundtable in NYC. The theme of this half-day event was “Personalization: Online + Offline.” The focus of discussion was how to personalize customer communications across all channels. Specifically, our presenters and attendees discussed how brands can (and should) merge online and offline data to feed consumer insights, define marketing strategy, and drive personalized touches.
Since our event, the thing I keep coming back to is this: One.
When I asked the audience who had a single view of the customer (or something that was ‘close enough’) …only one brave soul raised their hand. One is a very low number. In fact, one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do. But not at all unexpected.
To marketers, customer-centricity is paramount, and it’s manifested itself in different ways. To some, it’s a goal. To others, it’s an approach. Some point to it as a brand promise or company mantra. Sometimes it’s mere lip-service. To me, customer-centricity is a prize. It’s hard work to get there. There’s work-around understanding and integrating devices, data, profiles, channels, behaviors, and algorithms, just to name a few. The prize is treating our customers as individuals and having meaningful interactions with those customers on a one-to-one basis. The prize is the ability to target a micro-segment of one.
I’ve been in the business of marketing for over 25 years, and the objective is still the same. Achieve the holy grail of a single customer view. While technology evolves, channels expand, and complexity increases, truly knowing an individual and having relevant conversations with them is an incredible challenge to achieve.
Throughout our event, we had industry experts and partners talk about how to get a handle on the tech stack, the evolution of ad tech and its convergence with martech, which data sources to integrate and why, and how to hire and organize marketing teams. All discussions focused on how to drive truly personalized marketing and focusing on One.
We reviewed the results of one of our clients who has implemented CP’s Perfect Pixel and Smart Cookie product. They are driving personalized communications across channels better than they ever have before. They’ve achieved the ability to connect digital and online behavior to offline and in-store behavior and everything else in-between to get a full view of a customer. They’re using this data and insight to drive meaningful personalized interactions, and they’re getting closer to an audience of one.
We’ve had success in helping our clients find their holy grail, but there’s still much work to be done to get to One. Stay tuned.
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