First party data can reveal a lot about your customers – from what neighborhood they live in to their purchase preferences and everything in between. But while it is a valuable source of information, relying solely on first party data can leave gaps in your customer marketing.
Today’s marketers lean on data enrichment for additional customer understanding. Data enrichment incorporates the data found in people’s public social media profiles, online activity, etc., to gain insight and unlock opportunities. In 2017, 50% of organizations enriched their data with third-party variables, and in 2018, U.S. companies spent $19.17 billion on third-party audience data and solutions. Here’s how data enrichment can help you deliver exceptional customer experience, empower more data-driven decisions, and transform your marketing strategy.
Increase Data Quality
Quality data is absolutely essential for brands demanding higher conversion rates. Poor data can be full of gaps, out-of-date, or missing entirely, and this is where data enrichment comes in. With the right tools, marketers can verify customer details and correct the imprecise or flawed information stored in their databases.
Data enrichment can also identify and eliminate redundant data that could cost organizations $3.3 trillion by 2020. Data enrichment automatically identifies duplicate or outdated entries and removes them, reducing the overall cost of your campaign and storage costs. To keep your data accurate and useful, make data cleansing a habitual process and choose a data enrichment solution that can rapidly enrich, process, and analyze information.
Enhance Audience Segmentation
In 2017, Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty disrupted the beauty industry by responding to the needs of women of color and launching 40 shades of foundation to fit skin tones across the entire spectrum. But Rhianna’s insight-based marketing success was the exception, not the rule. Many marketers neglect profitable customer groups by building their segmentation strategy on basic customer data. A recent CMO report found that 71% of marketers still look at basic demographics and 62% use behavioral data like search and past purchases.
Demographic and behavioral data aren’t enough to identify market opportunities. Marketers must enrich databases with attributes such as psychographic data, socioeconomic data, and purchase propensity to segment audiences on a granular level. Deep segmentation identifies customer groups with growth potential, examines their needs and behaviors on a deeper level, and delivers hyper-personalized messages.
With data enrichment, marketers can discover lookalike segments similar to existing core customers, allowing for the brand’s targeted exposure to new audiences. But though data enrichment offers nearly endless possibilities for getting to know customers, don’t segment yourself to death. Find the most relevant segment and make sure all your data is up to date.
Spot Lifetime Events
Whether having a baby, moving, or getting married, life events trigger 75% of consumers to make new purchases, and over 50% of marketers will capitalize on these opportunities and reach out to customers. To nail this strategy, augment limited first-party data with life trigger data. This will help identify specific purchases and provide the optimal offer at the perfect time. But although customers want contextual and personalized experiences, be sure to maintain their privacy and avoid the creepiness factor when capitalizing on life events. Let us never forget Target’s infamous blunder where they a customer’s pregnancy and sent coupons to the family home before she could tell her own father!
When Using Data Enrichment, Keep These Things in Mind
The increasing necessity for personalized marketing means data enrichment is a continuous process. Before you begin, have a clear picture of your needs in order to select the best possible data provider for your brand. Do your research, ask data providers where they source their data from, and ensure the data is in accordance with data protection principles and regulatory guidance. In the age of the customer, brands that use data enrichment to enhance customer profiles and better understand their audience will deliver stronger campaigns, heighten conversions, make more sales and ultimately stay two steps ahead of everyone else.