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.

Customers are the lifeblood of any business, yet businesses lose anywhere from 10-30% of them per year.

Today’s “always on” shopper makes decisions in every channel – direct, online and in-store. In looking for better ways to sell more products to current and new customers, marketers seek out ways to expand their prospect universe to improve customer acquisition levels. Why? Customers are the lifeblood of any business, yet businesses lose anywhere from 10-30% of them per year. This makes new customer acquisition extremely important to both protect and grow business year over year.

The acquisition challenge is that traditional prospect universe expansion is becoming increasingly difficult. Many marketers have exhausted list and co-op rental names, and optimization strategies. They’ve been using the same predictive prospecting models against compiled prospect data or co-ops for a long time. But these tools, which are based on traditional demographics, are increasingly leading to a decline in good prospect identification and acquisition. We know that in prospecting, there is no customer behavioral data to drive higher performing analytics – no plastic surgery or proverbial fountain of youth.

In today’s multi-channel shopping world, the fresh face of online behavior can’t be overlooked. While direct marketers in self-preservation mode have leveraged traditional acquisition models for years, the reality is that if they do not consider fresh new data and modeling solutions, they will be looking for their next, new job.

So, what can marketers do to overcome prospect universe expansion hurdles with online insight to increase acquisition and ROI?

Meet direct marketing’s fresh new face: online behavioral data and modeling.

Online behavioral data addresses a key challenge of traditional direct marketers: profitable prospect universe expansion. By incorporating online behavioral data (website traffic and behavior, search, demographics, lifestyle data) into offline marketing strategies, marketers can:

• Identify previously untapped prospect universes
• Suppress likely non-responders
• Enhance offline prospecting

Where else do consumers so actively demonstrate their purchase interest and behavior? Where else do we go when we want to learn about something? Anything? We go online. But most direct marketers have not enhanced their offline marketing efforts with online data, missing the opportunity to incorporate online behavior into targeting efforts.

With this fresh new data source, direct marketers are able to:

• Better understand customer behavior across channels
• Refresh their current models
• Develop better models, built from true, multi-channel data

Ultimately, direct marketers will be able to identify new pockets of high-value prospects that traditional response models miss, resulting in an increase in revenues and profit.

Fashion models and trends change, and sometimes that’s for the best, otherwise we might still be wearing parachute pants and slap bracelets. Luckily, you now know what the new face of marketing is and can begin integrating online behavior into your existing customer data today to leverage new marketing opportunities. Discover the new fresh face of direct marketing; learn more about online behavioral profiling and modeling.

The same concept also holds true for marketers. There are so many competing priorities that it can be difficult to determine what to do when, and to determine how to get the best return on the marketing investment. Marketers ask themselves what type of data to invest in, how to leverage social media channels, when to invest in new database technologies and infrastructures, how to use response attribution and analytics to be more customer centric, etc. CMOs are also challenging their teams to get it all done immediately. With all of that on your plate, how can any marketer be successful?

The answer is simple. Prioritize. Identify the low-hanging fruit so that you can start seeing benefits fast. Understand what to focus on now, what to focus on in the mid-term, what your long-term strategy is, and how to focus your efforts to get there. A well-planned roadmap provides alignment and focus in a challenging landscape and addresses the urgent and the important items for immediate action. This helps marketers align to their strategic objectives, maximize marketing spend and prove value to their CMO – and even better, to their customers. And sometimes it is hard to make the right short term choices and ensure they align with the long term vision.  This is where expert guidance can help.  So, just like on a vacation, you have to determine where you want to start. What activity do you want to do first? What are those activities that you absolutely have to do, and what activities can you put on the back burner until time or money permit? Finally, what are those filler activities that you could do if something takes less time than planned?

A road mapping exercise is a great way to identify the needs , priorities and wish lists of multiple stakeholders.

A road mapping exercise is a great way to identify the needs , priorities and wish lists of multiple stakeholders. When a reputable 3^rd party is brought in to help identify the components of the roadmap, marketers can be even more in tune with what other retailers are doing in the industry. Just think… why do many travelers turn to travel agencies for vacation planning? Because travel agencies know how to plan a vacation for all customer types… they have feedback from former travelers on what is fun and what isn’t, and can help you decide if you want an adventure vacation or to just relax on a beach.

If you are a marketer struggling to put the right roadmap in place, seek an industry “travel agent” who can help understand your goals and objectives, provide the response attribution and analytics, and develop a roadmap customized for your marketing “vacation.”

If you are interested, read how our customer intelligence platform can help provide the analytics you need to build the right roadmap.

So as you can imagine, I was delighted to get an email, which I assumed was part of a special communication, congratulating me on my purchase and welcoming me to the car manufacturer’s community of discerning drivers. But instead the email was actually an invitation to participate in a sweepstakes to win a day at the track for a competition among five teams—you just had to pick the winning team to enter. So, as a former Skip Barbour driving school graduate, I was thrilled. That is, I was thrilled until the link didn’t work. It didn’t work even after four tries and I got no response from the numerous emails that I sent to the manufacturer.

And worst of all, the team I had picked won.

I certainly don’t feel special now. This manufacturer is a great auto maker and I know that I will love my car, but a car that good deserves a better social media campaign!

The lessons:

• The primary objective of a retailer is to acquire, SATISFY and retain customers, profitably
• Marketers MUST link their customers to their prospect lists so that they can treat their customers uniquely and ALWAYS recognize them
• A great offer REQUIRES superior execution
• Marketers must communicate with their customers in a SEAMLESS, consistent way that earns trust, is relevant and drives trips to the stores, website, call center, etc.

A wonderful product’s aura can be tarnished by not paying attention to the basics. Today sophisticated technologies let you link your customers and prospects by email across social media, and ensure you always have the basics covered.

Quite simply, missing and incomplete customer identity data diminishes response and the ability to drive customer relationships. Solutions exist today that enable marketers to identify a customer with a single piece of personally identifiable information (PII), such as an email address, and then match it to the person’s physical address, alternate emails, social, mobile and even cookie data. This cross-channel identity resolution helps marketers to better understand customer preferences, as well as gain a better understanding of the efficacy of their marketing budget. Layer this on a solid loyalty program, and marketers will ensure they know all available touch points for a customer and can leverage those touch points to communicate the right message at the right time.

For more information about cross-channel identity resolution, download a copy of The 2012 Digital Marketer Report.