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Data sources for customer analysis and targeting

Author's avatar By Dave Chaffey 15 Jan, 2015
Essential Essential topic

How well do businesses really know their customers?

As consumer expectations for relevant content and offers grow as they experience top retailers such as Amazon, companies need to focus even more on customer experience through relevant communications.

When completing our Managing Digital Marketing in 2015 research we were interested to see how well companies do understand their customers since many respondents said that improving use of CRM and applying Big Data concepts was a priority for this year.

We asked businesses which of the classic segmentation and targeting techniques they used to target their customers using online marketing, for example targeted emails or web-based personalisation.

data-driven-marketing-sources

The results show that, overall businesses are long way from the 360 degree customer view and personalised customer lifecycle marketing that many have discussed for a long time.

As marketers we see a lot of examples about how we should improve creative and copy, but it's targeting to increase relevance that will give the best improvements.

How many data sources are used to assess customer experience?

As we were were preparing our research report we also saw this related report from Ventana Research showing that companies are limiting the data sources to measure effectiveness. What about social media influencer score, Customer LTV and NPS?

datausedcustomeranalysis

 

Read more in the Slideshare summarising their research on the '3 Waves of the Customer Experience'.

Author's avatar

By Dave Chaffey

Digital strategist Dr Dave Chaffey is co-founder and Content Director of online marketing training platform and publisher Smart Insights. 'Dr Dave' is known for his strategic, but practical, data-driven advice. He has trained and consulted with many business of all sizes in most sectors. These include large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. Dave is editor of the templates, guides and courses in our digital marketing resource library used by our Business members to plan, manage and optimize their marketing. Free members can access our free sample templates here. Dave is also keynote speaker, trainer and consultant who is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing. My personal site, DaveChaffey.com, lists my latest Digital marketing and E-commerce books and support materials including a digital marketing glossary. Please connect on LinkedIn to receive updates or ask me a question.

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Customer profiling

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