Don't Fear the Data

PERSONALIZED DATA IN AN INCREASINGLY DIGITIZED ECONOMY

Did you know that over 200 billion emails are sent every five minutes across the world? Try differentiating yourself through that level of noise without help from an expert marketing technology partner. Data masters like GBG work tirelessly on the back end of your systems to optimize your records; however, these repositories are increasingly reliant on individuals to voluntarily share information about themselves. “In the digital world, we are continually defined by the data we share,” said David Green, Managing Director at GBG. While there are consumers who hesitate to openly share “personal” information, those who do are immediately rewarded with significantly tailored and improved customer experiences. In fact, the DMA has confirmed that the majority of young people are willing to exchange personal data for improved customer service.

This younger demographic is defining a new expectation for the ways in which companies contact and communicate with their consumers. For example, one of our guests found that Millennials and Generation Z typically dislike lengthy phone calls and prefer to limit these conversations to 20 minutes and two main questions. In order to efficiently manage direct calls to customers and prospects like this, data intelligence companies like GBG help their users enter phone communication with consumer data already on hand, shortening call time by removing the need to exchange preexisting data.

TECHNOLOGY: CHANGES & CHALLENGES

By mobilizing data to address major competitive advantages within markets, smaller players have the ability to disrupt industries and compete with the more traditionally known “big guys.” David Green gave examples of these “game changers” across industries including brands like Airbnb, Uber, 23 & Me, and Bitcoin. The greatest differentiator between these adaptive companies and the well-known giants is a dedication to increasing the power of the consumer.

As technology changes, consumers change, therefore marketers must also change. For most companies, the change occurs in that order and is very reactive. The successful brands mentioned above rise above the rest because they are proactive—analyzing trends, forecasting shifts, and trying to stay ahead of their customers, thus providing the best possible customer experience and ensuring brand satisfaction and loyalty.

THE MEDIA REVOLUTION

Devices have changed. We’re moving away from keystrokes, which means that marketers must fundamentally change the methods we use for tracking the movements of our consumers as well as the interfaces needed for efficiently collecting their data. For example, it’s not uncommon for users today to set up something like home insurance on their mobile device; given the typical use of mobile, people simply won’t be willing to spend 15 minutes typing pages upon pages of information. Now that most smartphones are touchscreen, UIs must instead utilize dropdown menus, predictive field completion, data sourcing, and other tactics to speed up and ease the entry process.

To further challenge your mind as a marketer, consider that, in developing countries, like many in Africa, keyboards will never even exist—the adoption of touchscreen technology will gloss right over that period of behavior. This is important because it completely replaces the basic way that CX is expected and perceived by an entire population that has never experienced the “old” way of doing things. The Adaptive Marketers^™ who can shift into this type of mindset will be able to truly understand their audiences and rise above other marketers who are still operating on outdated assumptions.

ALTERIAN ADAPTIVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE^™

As the day’s participants had shared their most common or pressing challenges for marketing and analytics, we were excited for the opportunity to demo two components of our Adaptive Customer Experience^™ platform, our Dynamic Decision Engine (DDE) and Campaign Manager. Considering that 84% of organizations see data as an integral part of determining business strategy, these new features had our clients very excited.