Published by Online Strategies Magazine
Written by Brian Deagan
Marketers have entered a new and important era of data capture on the most direct of direct digital marketing channels–the website. It is easier than ever to secure a plethora of valuable data from site visitors, both known and anonymous. Capturing consumer data online was once a primary challenge that marketers worked tireless hours to overcome.
While that challenge now has been addressed for the most part, it has given way to a new set of challenges. Now that marketers have an abundance of data, they must discover how to properly harness it in order to solve another traditional challenge to selling online: capturing the endangered sale.
The majority of e-commerce software is fantastic because it expertly secures a massive amount of sales. But, while some e-commerce software has additional tools within it for personalization and content targeting on the website, the data feed that powers these tools is unable to react effectively in real-time and is rather expensive to deploy. As a result, many e-commerce strategists have chosen to focus on making the straightforward sales, while targeting website visitors in real-time to capture the sales remains a low priority.
Those priorities are now shifting, and data is the key part of the equation for capturing the less-apparent sales. The difficulty lies with the fact that marketing data does not yet evolve as individuals evolve. The inability for marketers to quickly adapt to rapid changes in how their customers behave is undermining the effectiveness of their communications on the website.
It begs the question: How can what is learned about an individual be leveraged into a better user experience on the website, but also become a conversion for the marketer? If that question is equal parts intriguing and befuddling, then you are ready for a universal profile management system to power onsite targeting.
Enter Universal Profile Management Systems
Conceptually, a universal profile management system is very simple. It is a marketing database that captures and stores both known customer attributes and anonymous customer behavior in one location for the purpose of easily powering personalized and targeted marketing content on the website.
The importance of a universal profile management system is revealed in two ways. First, it lives within the same software platform that is responsible for executing timely and targeted content on the website–or any other marketing channel like e-mail or mobile. The proximity of the data to the content enables dynamic content quickly and easily–regardless of channel–and without the usual slow-downs encountered as data is forced to navigate an increasingly complex enterprise data ecosystem.
The ability to capture and store known and anonymous customer attributes, then build a segment and attach it to content, is unique. For example, a universal profile management system is able to capture and store enterprise customer data, past purchase history and customer preference or survey feedback directly–or bring it into the system through a secure API. It is also able to capture behavior from unauthenticated website visits, e-mail, mobile marketing activity, organic or paid search activity and any online advertising participation. As the data is captured and stored, it is able immediately to be put to effective use.
Large investments in enterprise data warehouses and business intelligence systems are important–and valuable to any marketing organization. But they are limited in that they lack ability to support real-time online marketing execution.
A universal profile management system serves as a direct digital marketing datamart capable of supporting real-time, data-driven marketing campaign execution. It is not designed to replace existing database investments, but rather to deploy alongside existing environments for real-time targeted marketing.
In many ways, a universal profile management system is the missing piece marketers are searching for to achieve effective and efficient customer-centric marketing. And the time is right for marketers to re-prioritize their data strategy.
Capturing data is still important, but marketers have more than enough data to improve marketing communications, especially at the point of sale, where targeted content is often the difference between a sale and a website bounce. For marketers, the objective is no longer simply to get as much data as possible, but to organize it better and put it to better use–the two primary strengths of a universal profile management system.
Existing database investments support linear, traditional e-commerce. It is very straightforward to build a segment in a database for upselling when a customer’s recent purchases on a website are known. But most current marketing database ecosystems are not able to, in real-time, adjust and switch site content according to unexpected or sudden changes in the behavior of an individual consumer.
Universal Profile Management in Action
Consider an example of using a universal profile management system to power a relevance-based onsite targeting strategy. “John” has a profile within the universal profile management system that identifies him as a single male who is a big spender–valuable information that is captured by business intelligence systems. However, unexpectedly, John’s next visit consists of a search for baby formula and diapers. The sophisticated back-end data tools, like the aforementioned enterprise data warehouse, lack the ability to adapt to John’s latest profile development in real-time.
A universal profile management system can recognize the new search, immediately transform the website experience to accommodate John’s newfound needs–even before John’s next click–and then feed that new data back to the appropriate internal systems. The result is a better targeted and more relevant consumer experience that often leads to a sale, and a more efficient data flow that ensures every database is working from the same set of data.
Using a universal profile management system to power targeted website experiences has many advantages. Marketing organizations are better able to avoid the real cost–and opportunity cost–of re-platforming an entire website just to make necessary upgrades to content relevance and personalization. The combination of a universal profile management system and onsite targeting also is simple to set up, deploy and measure. Perhaps most important, the combination’s sophistication and elegance does not mean it is difficult to use.
The closer the data is to the content in the campaigns, the better the campaign will perform. A universal profile management system enables timely content personalization and dramatically improves website relevance in real-time–two key drivers for campaign success. And, from a 30,000-foot view, it makes the considerable investments in e-commerce software, business intelligence software and massive data warehouses even more valuable.
Marketing organizations have tremendous resources and consumer insight, but often lack the nimble systems necessary to apply that intelligence in real-time, for real results. A universal profile management system enables marketers to achieve real-time message adaptability so they can effectively evolve with their customers and drive measurable results.
Brian Deagan is the thought-leader behind direct digital marketing and co-founder and CEO of Knotice, a direct digital marketing solutions company. Contact Deagan at bdeagan@knotice.com. For more information about Knotice visit http://www.knotice.com or their blog http://lunchpail.knotice.com.