June 3, 2010
Published by 1to1 Media
Written by Josh Gordon
We can all admit it. Customer-centricity is equal parts necessary and scary.
We all know why it is necessary. The customer is an individual, one who is evolving in how he or she consumes media and experiences a brand. It is an inescapable truth for modern marketers.
But the concept is also scary. It forces marketers to contemplate substantial change in how email, mobile, and Web-based communications – collectively known as direct digital marketing – are approached. Perhaps the collection of marketing databases that have been strung together over the past 10 years is not the most efficient system, but it works…and it has become comfortable. Additionally, there is no easily identifiable starting point when it comes to reshaping a marketing organization into a lithe group capable of accommodating this new customer-centric mandate.
Comfortable no longer cuts it if engagement, loyalty, and revenue are still the primary measuring sticks for marketing success. A new, more efficient approach to marketing's data foundation is required to reconcile the natural evolution of the customer.
Enter universal profile management, the essential glue for achieving customer-centric direct digital marketing.
Universal profile management is not the use of a single database that solves every conceivable challenge facing a marketing organization. It is, however, a centralized location for every important marketing data point. It is a system is specifically designed to capture and store vital information to create specific marketing audience segments that are easily attached to content.
A universal profile management system is capable of capturing and storing known customer attributes like enterprise customer data, purchase history information, and responses to forms and surveys. Additionally, it captures behavioral data like browsing history from a company's Web and mobile site, email open and click activity, organic and paid search activity, and online advertising clicks.
When it is native to the same software platform that delivers marketing communications through multiple digital channels, then the marketing organization can harness its true value, and customer-centricity becomes a reality. The ability to store and capture every bit of actionable marketing data in one location, build precise audience segments, then attach those segments to any email, mobile, or website content is the type of evolution that is required to keep pace with the rapidly changing behavior of the customer.
Universal profile management enables living, breathing dynamic marketing content that is coordinated across multiple direct digital marketing channels. It frees marketers from the dull grind of connecting disparate systems to integrate data and allows the focus to shift where it is needed most – the customer.
Marketers must shift emphasis from an increasingly complex marketing ecosystem, one that is built around the "how" of delivering messages, to the customer-first consideration of what message should be delivered. Fortunately, with universal profile management, customer-centricity is not scary. It makes a marketing necessity easy by accommodating the natural, inescapable evolution of the customer.
Josh Gordon s the editor-in-chief of the popular direct digital marketing blog The Lunch Pail and director of marketing at Knotice, a direct digital marketing solutions company. Contact him at jgordon@knotice.com.