My sister knew I was going to get something for my niece, so when she got an email from Toy World that everything would be 50% off on Black Friday she forwarded it to me to let me know. I was thrilled. I had done some searching for good toys this year and had some ideas. While I normally would shop online, the Toy World coupon said the 50% off was in-store only so I braved the crowds for a good deal.

Unfortunately, when I got there I learned that the email was wrong – only select items were 50% off and others were buy one, get one 50% off. I was pretty upset because the hottest toys were the ones excluded from the deal. I came all that way based on the email. I wound up getting a gift, but I could have saved myself the hassle and long lines, especially since I didn’t get a deal that was different from any other day.

That was a rough start to the shopping weekend, but, no worries, things improved. I have to tell you about my best shopping experience – I’ve been telling everyone! This year I used Pinterest to see what my mom has had her eye on lately. One of her pins is a food processor and I think that’s a perfect gift for her. I’m a card holder and reward member at Aaron’s department store and I know they carry some really nice kitchen appliances. They also happened to send me great Cyber Monday coupons in the mail – it was perfect timing. I went online on Cyber Monday, used the promo codes from the coupons and not only got great deals, but got free shipping too! How easy was that?! They also sent me shipping notifications so I knew exactly when to expect the package.

I am really happy that I got something great for everyone on my list and now have time to enjoy the rest of 2012. I hope you enjoy it too!

XOXO,

Dana

Editor’s note: You can tell that Aaron’s knows Dana. They used their direct mail piece to send her online offers because they know that’s her preferred purchase method. They’ve won her over once again and created a brand advocate. Learn where your company stands in your marketing efforts today, and how you can help move efforts forward to ensure your customers have good experiences like Dana had with Aaron’s, and avoid bad ones like her trip to Toy World.

Text-to-join program   

Marketers can organically grow their mobile base by initiating a text-to-join program to allow mobile users to opt in to receive promotional text messages.

• Choose a specialized keyword or style
• Create a campaign to engage subscribers
• Build a call to action like an in-unit display or window signage to promote the Short Message Service (SMS) program

Loyalty program

Businesses can set up a loyalty program where customers gain reward points to help increase engagement and retention rates with customers. Although there can be many barriers to entry, setting up a loyalty program is the best way to create a link between the customer and transactional data. It enables marketers to gain visibility into who their best customers are and market directly to them.

Retail address capture

Marketers can capture transactional data after a purchase is made in a store to get a direct profile of who customers are, from economic status to key demographics. By understanding who is shopping in your store, you can better target them with personalized and dynamic content in other channels.

To learn more about our holiday insights, join our webinar on October 25^th. Our resident data experts Bill Tancer and Regina Gray will review holiday trends and offer insights you can use to update your email, search and social campaigns based on real-time data.

Experian Marketing Services will be presenting marketing solutions and techniques to attendees at several sessions along with some of our leading client brands. Here’s a rundown:

• What Do Users Want From Mobile Commerce Sites?With the increasing penetration of smart phones providing the ability to grab consumers on the go, getting your mobile commerce site right can pay huge dividends. A panel of leading brands including HauteLook, Econsultancy and Experian Marketing Services will discuss an array of successful m-commerce strategies, tactics and best practices.
  Alok Kapur, vice president, Global Head of Mobile, Experian Marketing Services
  Monday, October 15, 11:15 am
• Supercharging Your Energy – How Duke Energy Changed How We View PowerLearn how Duke Energy put the customer at the center of their strategy and created programs to help them spend less on energy. Specific examples will be shared to illustrate how Duke Energy and Experian Marketing Services partnered to drive customer value, loyalty and customer satisfaction, leading to a growth in overall company revenues while encouraging people to spend less on energy.
  Rick Erwin, President, Data and Analytics Division, Experian Marketing Services
  Joe Cunningham, Manager, Market and Customer Insights, Duke Energy
  Tuesday, October 16, 2:00 pm
• Segmentation as a Strategy – Internally and Externally, a Zappos Case StudyZappos, known for its customer service obsession, relies on customer segmentation data which is used in all areas of the company, including operations, product management, merchandising and marketing. This case study will illustrate how strategies are developed, and how the entire company aligns to achieve actions and results.
  Rick Erwin, President, Data and Analytics Division, Experian Marketing Services
  Amara Silao, Senior Director, Retail Operations and Product Management, Zappos
  Dinesh Gaur, Analytics Manager, Zappos
  Chris Peake, Director, Product Management Customer Experience & Data, Zappos
  Lisa Archambault, Display Marketing Manager, Zappos
  Wednesday, October 17, 10:00 am
• Database Marketing Certification – Attaining Marketing Database ROI
  This session brings together data and technology experts to describe how best-in-class solutions within an integrated data management platform support data flow and customer intelligence delivery for more effective customer engagement across all channels.
  Marcus Tewksbury, Experian Marketing Services
  Paul Manderville, Experian Marketing Services’ Conversen
  Wednesday, October 17, 1:00 pm

If you’re at the show and would like to learn more, please stop by Experian’s Booth 815 or visit the DMA event agenda.

It’s hard to be back in reality, but it’s nice to come home to fall. I love fall: pumpkin lattes, football, boots – mostly the boots. I got some great ones from ShoeSparkle. I’d never bought from them before, but I did a quick search and saw they had free shipping and returns – obsessed! I signed up for their email loyalty program and snagged some great riding boots.

I also got a new dress from Evolution. I saw it while searching for cruise-wear. It is perfect for transitioning to fall, just not quite right for a cruise. I put it in my cart, but got a text from my boss about my presentation and had to jump on a call. Anyway, I’m so glad I saw Evolution’s ad for it later because I’ve gotten so many compliments and it looks great with my boots!

I don’t know how they do it, but these brands are ah-mazing!

XOXO,
Dana

Editor’s note: We know how they do it! Get a glimpse of Dana’s workspace. Click image for a better view.

To help you know and understand Dana better, she’ll be guest blogging from time to time, and she’ll share both her good and bad experiences with brands. We want to be sure your brand lines up with the good experiences so stay tuned to future blog posts for ideas on how to enchant and delight your customers. We’ll continue to share must-know stats, tips and trends you can use to connect, engage and empower customers like Dana.

While digital channels (i.e., email, mobile, social, search and display ads) naturally enable the sharing of customer information in order to facilitate a transaction, brick and mortar stores generally capture less information during a sale. Capture rates also vary wildly by retail vertical, from boutique to big box. Even within the same retail segments, techniques and strategies can differ greatly across companies. Legislative challenges and the increased skepticism among customers regarding sharing their contact information have made it harder to understand customer identity, which is central to multi-channel marketing programs.

With these expanded challenges, it may be tempting to consider walking away from even attempting customer identification techniques in-store. At the same time, consumers are demanding more relevant and targeted communications in all channels, so making the effort is worth it.

The good news is that technological advancements in customer linkage have made it easier to combine the customer information that you may already have across channels to resolve a customer’s identity. Even if you don’t ask or capture full customer information at the in-store point of purchase, any pieces of information that the customer willingly offers may be useful in understanding and linking them to your customer database. Your customer information is what enables targeted and relevant communications, so every little bit that you capture helps.

For example, if a customer opts into your mobile program for text message incentives, that contact information can be linked to the data the customer provided to you from a website purchase. Cross-channel identity resolution techniques then help bridge the offline and online worlds to understand that customer. Once you have completed the linkage of your own data, reputable data partners can help you to fill in any information gaps. The added benefit of working with an external data expert lies with compliance. The compliance rules surrounding proper use of personally identifiable information are complex and the risk of misuse can be detrimental to a business and a brand.

When people think of customer linkage, they often think in terms of digital channels. Remember, that linkage can cross over into other retail channels as well. What this means is that any information customers willingly provide in the retail store can be used to link them to your digital customer information enabling a consistent customer view across all channels – and the ability to communicate with that customer and provide the relevant and targeted communications they expect.

As noted above, to be successful, marketers must become more and more sophisticated in terms of their marketing capabilities. Understanding how a customer interacts with your brand in only one channel just isn’t good enough for most retailers these days. Retailers must become more effective in personally interacting with their customers via cross-channel optimization and linking all disparate data is essential to enable that level of marketing sophistication.

With the proliferation of the Internet and mobile technology, today’s consumer operates differently and expects more from their favorite brands. To adapt to that new American consumer, marketers are using highly targeted strategies to drive interest. These can be messages that are relevant to a few hundred consumers or detailed one-on-one communications that target individuals at the point of sale or online.

But some marketers struggle to execute these tactics effectively. Most segmentation is currently done prior to a campaign, meaning that marketers determine which message a consumer will receive before ever interacting with that individual. Unfortunately, with the rapid nature of purchasing decisions and buying transactions, businesses often miss opportunities because it takes too long to get the right message to the right consumer.

To keep up, marketers need to collect intelligence at the point of contact so they can understand each individual consumer’s habits and preferences during that connection. This intelligence can then feed modeling algorithms that enable automatic offers based on an individual’s preferences.

To develop a strategy around real-time marketing intelligence, marketers should take the following steps:

1. Clean existing data – at the root of any intelligence strategy is data. Information determines a company’s ability to reach target individuals – and understand who they are and what they’re interested in. Unfortunately, if the data that feeds intelligence efforts is inaccurate, marketers are simply unable to communicate with or understand consumers. Ensuring the validity of contact information, internal records and third-party data elements helps organizations target consumers and ensures that sophisticated analysis is as precise as possible.
2. Identify strategies – organizations should analyze their target markets and determine which communication channels could benefit from a more personalized customer experience. Marketers should decide how they want to change each communication to help drive the desired action from each consumer. Consider personalizing website displays based on geographic regions, customizing an introductory message or revamping loyalty campaigns based on purchase history and consumer interests.
3. Real-time intelligence – marketers should build models to help predict the best offers for each target audience. These models can be designed to take into account demographic and behavioral information, as well as purchase history and internal data. Marketers can feed these models with intelligence gained at the point of contact to prompt consumers in real time with specific, relevant offers.

As marketers continue to enhance and refine targeting efforts, it’s important to gain customer insight. Those who leverage these advanced technologies and strategies will create stronger customer engagement.

Segmenting customers and taking measurable action in real time are advanced techniques that appeal to many marketers today. Achieving this level of interaction allows organizations to optimize marketing efforts and provide the right offer at the right time to the right consumer.

First, it is imperative to determine what lies in the “social silo” that will impact other channels. For example, data-driven profiles, plus segmentation and models of highly engaged high value Facebook fans, can be used in all channels. We know that all fans are not high value, but high value customers are often fans — and socially active. So it’s important to be able to leverage social intelligence in customer marketing strategy and plans, thereby making the intelligence actionable for improved program results.

So what’s the best way to do this?

Let’s look at a Facebook roadmap for social intelligence:

Leverage Open Graph in Facebook with offers to encourage fans and customers to connect, not just to increase the number of fans, but to gather opt-in data. Make a compelling offer in customer emails, on your website or on your Facebook page. (Make sure the privacy policy and the permissions you display cover as much data as possible.)

Once you collect this valuable information don’t just file it somewhere. Treat it as a valuable feed of customer information. Using email or other collected data, link the Facebook information to your customer, compiled demographics, attitudinal, and behavioral data.

• Flag this insight within your customer database so that you have a more complete view of your customers.
• Understand which social connectors are prospects, leads or existing customers.

Create profiles and add to models and segmentation frameworks.

This roadmap allows you to use social intelligence anywhere in your marketing programs across all channels for activities like:

• Developing marketing tactics for prospects, leads and customers.
• Targeting high-value social customers with tailored offers and messaging.
• Creating campaigns in the social space targeted to higher value fans.
• Adjusting campaign messaging in all channels.

Since social activity is very dynamic, you’ll want to manage the Open Graph opportunity on an ongoing basis, rotating offers and placement. And remember you can offer a discount, for example, but a sweepstakes or other offer aligned with your brand can also be extremely effective. The data you gather gives you a dynamic portrait of your most engaged customers. You can use it for more refined and effective marketing investments. You might also want to leverage a marketing services partner with linkage, quality data and analytic expertise to get started.

The payoff…

For the social team:

• A clear, data-driven picture of your brand’s most engaged fans, leading to smarter social display ads and campaigns.
• A way to communicate clearly to marketing colleagues about the social customer ¾ beyond likes, posts and sentiments.

For the CMO:

• An understanding of the types of customers invested in social media helps calibrate marketing spend.
• A sound way to evaluate social media investment.
• A more complete picture of customer behavior.

For other marketing teams:

• A valuable customer attribute that can be used to help refine segmentation and targeting strategies.
• Clear understanding of how to target customer segments and which channels are likely to be most effective.

Knocking down the “social silo” is necessary to gather compelling data that’s useful in every marketing channel AND to be able to improve the customer experience. Building social intelligence is a key activity to keep in step with today’s dynamic customer, and to make sure your marketing is relevant and timely.

Key take-aways:

Here is what customers want from any brand or company they do business with, and what customer obsessed businesses can do give it to them:

To belong – Initiate a sense of belonging, such as utilizing a “Welcome” program

To be known – Treat customers as individuals by employing personalization methods

To feel special – Reward customers for their loyalty and continued engagement with your brand

To be treated well – Offer assistance through customer service, such as sending out “Thank you” emails

This is a common scenario for retailers because they do not have a 360° view of their customers across all digital channels, and therefore, are lacking an understanding of their customers’ behaviors. If the retailer was able to identify who my friend was across all channels and recognize that he had already made the appliance purchase, wouldn’t it have made more sense to send him an offer for something else — or at the very least, not show him a discounted price on the item he’d just purchased? What if that retailer was able to connect his purchase (he gave them his name, terrestrial address and email address when he bought the appliance) to their customer database and make the distinction before the discounted email went out?  An email thanking him for his purchase would have made much more sense, and he might have appreciated an offer for an accessory that he hadn’t initially purchased.

Marketers today face unprecedented challenges when it comes to creating and maintaining a holistic view of their customers across their marketing ecosystem. It seems that customer interaction points, particularly in the digital world, continue to multiply on a daily basis. Add in the pressure of customers expecting highly relevant communications when and where they want them, and the business goals of increasing the lifetime value (LTV), and it equates to an increasingly difficult environment in which marketers must work. Finding, consolidating and analyzing data to achieve optimal customer interaction has never been further from us — and yet has never been so close.

With a plethora of tools available, marketers can reach their customers through emails, online profiles, loyalty programs, social network profiles and more. What hasn’t been readily available is the ability to link these digital profiles together, reducing duplication in marketing databases, giving marketers a clear understanding of active and inactive customers, plus who is buying from them, where they are shopping and how they want to be interacted with.

On the surface, this kind of customer information integration seems like a fairly simple task. Underneath however, there are several nuances within customer identity resolution that make this a profoundly difficult task. This isn’t about appending data; it’s about using the data a company already has, housed in multiple databases, and linking it all together through sophisticated matching algorithms that leverage a rich repository of referential data.

To make an integrated marketing strategy work, you need to be able to:

1. Validate contact data in real time, as it is entered online, in-store and over the phone

2. Create linkage of disparate identities and data sets, using merely a single piece of personally identifiable information for any customer

3. Enhance your data with a 360-degree view of your customers

4. Cleanse your data to remove duplicates or inaccurate information

5. Profile your best customers and understand how they want to be reached: mobile, email, catalog, social and more

6. Identify more customers like your best customers

Organizations can build this infrastructure in-house, however the process necessitates a large investment in technology and resources. In addition, the ability to resolve identities would be limited to the pieces of information collected by the organization. By working with an experienced partner who can resolve your customer and prospect identities across mediums, marketers create consistent and coordinated messaging strategies, understand the optimal path to purchase activities, maximize return on marketing investment and create memorable experiences for their customers.