Personalized Marketing: How to Take a Customer-Centric Approach

Customers these days expect personalization from brands, so how can you create an effective customer-centric marketing strategy?

If that new product release or big sale wasn’t the smash hit your company planned for, you might blame your marketing strategy for not being broad enough. Yet success isn’t always achieved by blindly addressing a larger number of consumers, but instead by crafting an approach that speaks to people on a personal level.

In Teradata’s recent survey on data-driven marketing, 90 percent of marketers said that customer individualization is a priority, and that’s because they’re learning that the more personal the approach, the greater the chance of a positive response. In order to create a customer-centric campaign, a few essential steps are required, ranging from asking pertinent questions to tackling big data to building unified pathways toward your audience.

Asking the Right Questions

Knowing who your target audience is and what they will respond to depends on gathering valuable data from the constant flow of online activity. Before you dive into it, it’s crucial to ask the right questions. Which demographic are you aiming for? Does the timing of your message affect people’s response to it? Which media platform is the best way to reach them? Big data can help answer those questions, but in order to analyze your data, you’ll need to work with teams outside the marketing department.

Collaborating With IT on Data Analytics

Marketers may be aware of what big data has to offer, but sifting through it to gain insights on your audience requires a skillset that’s rare in the marketing field. Personalized marketing requires cross-departmental teamwork, and that means IT and marketing will need to work together to formulate an analytics strategy. Recognizing patterns within customer data will require some technical expertise in data gathering, access, and storage. Analytics is no small feat, and reaching a deeper understanding of your audience will rely on a combination of creativity, data skills, and a focus on company goals.

Taking the Omnichannel Approach

Today, people’s buying decisions are more sophisticated than ever, and marketers must take an equally sophisticated approach toward reaching them. A one-dimensional technique won’t succeed and will likely make your brand look outdated. Omnichannel marketing consists of not only sending a unified message through the multiple pathways, but sending a message that reflects a consumer’s latest interaction with a brand, whether online or in a store. In other words, all marketing channels operate from the same information. The latest customer activity will be the basis for the messages that reach a customer and deliver a personalized experience, whether it’s from an email newsletter or a Facebook update.

Putting Personalized Tactics to Work

Businesses of all kinds know their tech-savvy consumers will reject a “one size fits all” approach. The basis of personalized marketing hinges on a thorough strategy, excellent teamwork, and an effective plan of action. When a company has developed a repeatable process for customer-centric marketing, it lays the groundwork for turning past customers into loyal brand enthusiasts.

teradata-logo-1* Sponsored content in collaboration with Teradata. Views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect ClickZ’s opinions.

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