Does a lack of email clicks for two,
four or six months signal trouble? If a
customer abandons a product on your page
and you send a follow-up message, what’s the
best offer strategy – a discount or free shipping?
And how does the impact of customer interactions
decay over time?
Marketers have wondered about these and similar
questions for some time, but unless you worked at
a big corporation with huge marketing budgets,
the answers eluded you. But in 2014, savvy
marketers at companies of all sizes will be using
buyer intelligence to build really smart programs
that engage customers more strongly.
Starting to tap into deep data-driven intelligence
might involve simply changing the way you
collect information, gathering “implicit” customer
preferences to complement and inform the
“explicit” data contacts have given you. Or it might
mean tapping a predictive analytics or business
intelligence partner, such as AgilOne or Windsor
Circle, to gain insights about propensity-to-buy
and lifetime customer value based on the data you
already have.
Either way, the goal is to use your data to start
modeling behaviors, and then use these models
to help you reach your goal of delivering the right
message at the right time – taking this intelligence
as it boils to the surface and making it customerfacing
via really smart programs. For instance, if
you learn that customers who buy Product A often
go on to purchase either low-margin Product B or
high-margin Product C, you may want to give them
a “10 percent off” offer to incent them to go
with Product C.
Of course, you could also add Web tracking, page
level visits, SKU considerations and more into
the mix, with the combination pushing select
customers into an automated program. Maybe
only 10 people a day meet the criteria, but they
get this phenomenal offer that pushes the revenue
needle for you.
So if you’ve been focused on big, high-volume blast
messaging, make it a goal in 2014 to take one or
two really intelligent campaigns and layer them
into your messaging mix, gradually making your
content more relevant.
Key tactics for using buyer
intelligence to your benefit in 2014:
• Look at aggregate data for new insights
about your customers’ and prospects’ needs
throughout their lifecycles. Then, think about
what content you could provide that would
deepen their engagement at different stages.
• Mine your purchase history data
to identify customers most likely to
generate long-term value. Brainstorm
new retention programs you might
implement to build stronger relationships
with these high-value customers.
• Look at the marketing/sales relationship
in new ways. How might the order,
combination and frequency of marketing
touches impact sales? Does interaction
with certain pieces of content designate
a stronger engagement level? Questions
like these can help you optimize
your initiatives.