Data strategies: brands need to focus on customer behaviour

Brands are collecting lots of information about their customers, yet many brands are still sending out generic marketing, which fails to make use of this data. 

When devising data strategies, we need to think about what’s important and what will really make a difference, and to use only the data we need...

As the internet continues to expand and ever more analog data migrates to digital format, experts are speculating we could run out of storage space.

In fact, it’s estimated that by 2020 the digital universe will be 44 times larger than it was in 2009 and the gap between the amount of digital data created and the amount of storage available is growing fast.

Already the global digital data stats are mind-blowing. Today, there are close to 2000m internet users, over 250m websites, 65m pages on Wikipedia, 65m tweets a day and over 500m Facebook users.

Although the tenet “information is power” certainly still stands, I wonder if we really need all the information we seek to store?

Brands certainly have a habit of collecting lots of information about us that never seems to be used. For example, how many times have you completed an extensive registration form (stating your preferences, gender, date of birth and other details), yet received nothing but generic marketing? 

It seems brands intend to be targeted, but it rarely becomes a reality. So what’s the answer? Don’t collect information and save the storage space?  It’s an option but probably not the most intelligent one. 

I believe the best way to do this is think about what will make a difference, and focus on customer behaviour. This information will expand our understanding of our customers and allow us to influence their behaviour and buying patterns.

Graze, the company that delivers healthy snacks to your desk, seems to have this idea at the forefront of their agenda. I receive an email after each delivery asking me to rate the foods I received and allowing me to edit my preferences all the time. 

These simple bits of data are key to my future behaviour and purchases with the brand. Arguably everything else is superfluous.

Relevance and attractiveness is key. If you can glean information about your customer’s preferences, your marketing can be very specific to their needs. 

We’ve been helping Travelbag to gather data and then act on customer search preferences, allowing them to market relevant offers. So for example, only people who have previously shown interest in a trip to Dubai will be sent a particular offer for that destination. 

This kind of analysis, combined with multichannel communication testing, has in some cases doubled click-throughs and telephone enquiries.

Digital media gives us the opportunity to mine a mind-blowing amount of data but in terms of storage, you need only incorporate cherry-picked “useful” data. Once this information is consolidated, it can be used to develop profiles and segments to inform clever and rewarding marketing communications. 

And not only will the data collected be useful, we should have plenty of room to store it!