Words of wisdom from Trish Mueller, CMO of Home Depot: “Don’t buy into your own B.S. Ultimately, it’s not about you; it’s about the customer. The first time you forget that, you’re done.” She’s right, of course. But it’s impossible to be customer-centric if you don’t know who your customer is. With all the data we have available today, there’s really no excuse NOT to know our customers.
There are a myriad of ways and sources for building customer profiles. CMOs like Mueller are using social media to build more complete views of their customers. Social data can provide information about which brands resonate with audiences, what their hobbies are, and much more. But there are other tools that can be equally helpful. Mueller also leverages behavioral data – marketers can learn so much about consumers based on their online activities, including sites they’ve visited and content they’ve consumed. (Says Mueller, “We look at the behavior. We look at what you did.”) Demographic data can fill in gaps about age, geography and other, broader points.
Merging this data with a marketer’s own data from loyalty programs, past purchases and brand interactions can provide a fairly complete picture of who our customers are. That data can provide the actionable insights we hear about so often, fueling marketing that is truly personalized. When rooted in customer data, messaging can be relevant and meaningful.
With the right technology to anchor it all, marketers can create one to one communications that resonate with customers, and we can do this at scale. We have the tools and data available to us today to reach the right customer with the right message at the right time, and on the right device. By putting the customer first, we can deliver messages that actually serve their needs, rather than ours. And ultimately, that’s what’s going to drive results.
To learn more about MediaMath’s solution, click here.