Marketing Trends: Data & The Single Customer View

The concept of a ‘Single Customer View’ (SCV) has been around a while and is often met with polarising beliefs about its place in the real world. Single Customer View (also called a 360 degree view) is a method of gathering information about your clients and assembling it into a single record to deliver a personal and highly relevant experience.

As more people turn to online shopping data capturing is becoming an integral part of marketing strategies. It is becoming clear more recently that The Single Customer View is working very well for many businesses.

In this article, we will be going over some of the arguments for why the Single Customer View does work and the contradictions. We hope that this will encourage people to consider their thoughts and perspectives on the matter.

Arguments for the Single Customer View

There have been more than a few misunderstandings about the Single Customer View. For many businesses creating a marketing plan, there can be some reservations about SCV and how it will benefit them. Here are some of the benefits of SCV that we have identified.

1. Predicting Future Demand

Single Customer View enables businesses to gather customer past interests, purchases, history and much more. The data can then be utilised to predict future demand and marketing campaigns that are tailored to them. By having access to the customer's interaction with your business you can forecast demand and deliver personal messages within campaigns including email marketing. Customers appreciate highly relevant content, and this improves brand loyalty.

2. Segmenting and Grouping

Segmenting your customers will add value and will help your business create subgroups of the audience. In 2019 a study found that 90% of U.S consumers found marketing content personalisation ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ important (Statista, 2019) and 63% of consumers said they would stop buying from a brand that uses poor personalisation tactics (Forbes, 2020). It is clear from the two studies that there is a growing demand and expectation for personalisation in marketing. The data suggests that companies personal messaging will be crucial for business in the future.

Arguments Against the Single Customer View

SCV is reasonably well understood as a concept, however, it is less well understood as a business necessity. The idea that SCV needs to be perfect to create the perfect customer experience can be hard for businesses to fathom. Not only is it a time consuming and expensive process for businesses, but it is also often regarded as unimportant and risky.

1. Responsibility

Personalisation marketing is a mutually beneficial transaction. Customers give up their information in exchange to make an account, receive rewards or hear the latest offers available. By giving up their information they are putting their trust in you and the business is also responsible for protecting that information. This is a time-consuming process, fraught with legal difficulties, that some business struggle to come to terms with.

2. GDPR

While GDPR brings some protection to user’s security it is often believed that it also threatens personalisation tactics. Research suggests that customers value personalisation and this encourages SCV in marketing. However, as stated providing a personal experience to customers requires considerable data collection. GDPR regulations on data use and collection can make it a very challenging process. Therefore, the time and resources required can often exceed the benefits a marketing campaign is likely to provide. This leads to some businesses avoiding SCV and resorting to un-personalised marketing strategies.

Our Thoughts

We believe that the arguments for SCV far outweigh the argument against it. Both the arguments against SCV have valid points but it is important to understand that personalisation in marketing is growing. We recommend that you don’t aim for a perfect SCV strategy but just get started and over time you will reap the rewards.

In general, we have found that not only does SCV bring the benefits discussed earlier, but it can also promote better business, better GDPR compliance and better customer satisfaction.

We are keen to hear your perspective on this topic. Please, feel free to share your thoughts below.