Innova

The most widespread and valuable commodity of our time is data. Every single day Google completes around 10 billion searches and therefore produces 2,5 exabytes of data. So how valuable can this data be?

In 2017, Ebola epidemic was responsible for more than 11 thousand people’s death. 9 days before World Health Day by WHO, this great disaster was estimated by a software. And it was only able to estimate it because it had access to customer data, a vast resource the world still underestimates.

The Healthy Map app, which was developed by 20 doctors and several volunteer software developers from the United States Children's Hospital in Boston, have made this prediction and alarmed the world by collecting and interpreting data from people's Google searches and social media. For example, abdominal pain and fire are being searched an average of 1000 times a day, a normal day, but this day in history, the number of searches suddenly raised to 20,000. The system gave an alarm and predicted that there could be an outbreak in the area. Think about it, just Google search data can be valuable enough to save thousands of people’s lives.

Creating marketing value through data

Getting to know your customers is the number one priority in marketing. Businesses are focused on turning customer data into real money since there is a great opportunity in this area. According to IDC’s EMC Digital Universe analysis, 90 percent of the data is unstructured. And in 2020, 37% of the data businesses have can be useful for the future actions. For this you can start with first-party acquired customer data.

Here’s another key point to understand which many brands (understandably) haven’t fully grasped quite yet — successful data management is a fluid process. Data is not solidified in stone. It’s in flux, it’s revolving and changing. Managing massive amounts of information constantly in orbit isn’t an easy task.

We have collected the best practices for successful customer data management.

1. Collect in adherence to regulations: Being able to document all the customer data is ethically vital. If you can’t prove consent, you have to re-permission your database. Let everyone know that you are transparent in how you collect and plan to use data. With a permission center type of approach, you can ask and get consent for even more data.

2. Choose carefully: For we live in an age of data abundance, it would be great if you found out which categories of data are of most value to your business and if you are collecting or storing information about contacts that you don’t even use. Remember, there’s 2,5 quintillion bytes of data generated every day and 90% of the data in the world has been generated in the last two years.

3. Create a unified profile: Unified customer profiles are the epitome of effective customer data management. You need a complete profile to understand the entire picture of who your customer is. They aren’t a sliver of the data you have about them; they’re the whole of ALL of the interactions they’ve had.

4. Understand shoppers’ online (and offline) habits: Go omni-channel and use the data you got online to understand offline behaviors and habits as well. This will help you anticipate and predict customers’ needs better.

5. Personalize the journey: Customer data management helps you pinpoint moments in time where you can personalize elements of the customer journey. Data allows us to understand where our customers are, and how to personalize certain interactions to the best of our ability — and this is both better than the alternative of stagnant, uniform mass messages as well as the best that we can do.

6. Monitor integrity, relevance, and freshness: Customer data management goes hand-in-hand with data cleansing. Since customer behavior is fluid, it’s probable that the information will change. Communicate with your customers on their terms and cleanse the data of who did not engage. The process of data cleansing will enable you to be more effective. Usable data lends itself to easier and more actionable campaign building, segment creation, and freer creative and strategic thought (because you’ll have more time).

7. Keep it secure: You’ll want to have data back protocols in place, and also take security measures to encrypt and protect your most valuable business asset. Confidential or private information — like credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, health information, financial information, and the like — needs to be secure at all times. Use best practices like “need to know basis” and let everyone in your company embrace data protection philosophy.

How does customer data management drive customer loyalty?

Customer loyalty is a vital element for a B2C company. Adding honesty and authenticity is a good start, but you should also refine your approach constantly.

A research shows that a 5 percent increase in customer retention can increase the profits by up to 25 percent. Besides that, repeat customers contribute to the profits more according to the same source, because they refer more people compared to the first time buyers.

Companies who don’t address negative reviews, lack good customer support system, miss timely opportunities of promotions and do not value user data will have hardships building customer loyalty. But, an organized approach might change this very quickly. Your motto should be, “The right data in the right hands, at the right time”.