Despite legitimate privacy concerns, customers want personalized experiences from companies they choose to do business with. In fact, most customers willingly share information with businesses anticipating customized content and experiences in return.
According to a Gartner survey, “71% of B2C and 86% of B2B customers expect companies to be well informed about their personal information during an interaction.”
When you think about it, it’s really a win-win: Customers share valuable information about themselves. In exchange, you give your customers the personalized VIP treatment they desire, which increases brand loyalty and revenue, helping you outpace your competition.
More and more brands are embracing personalization because they understand reaching and engaging with their highest-value customers drives performance. But that means you must know who those customers are and where to find them, which requires a strong data strategy that leverages data collaboration.
CPG manufacturer Kimberly-Clark is a great example. As a manufacturer and marketer of personal care and household products, Kimberly-Clark doesn’t have access to a lot of direct retail data. So they locked-in partnerships with retailers to bring more customer data into view, in a privacy-centric way.
3 ways you can reach your most valuable customers
Here are some of the steps Kimberly-Clark has taken to personalize customer engagement through data collaboration:
- Adopted a person-based approach using both first- and second-party insights, allowing them to target customers more accurately and increase their return on ad spend.
- Built powerful customer analytics without exposing personally identifiable consumer information, creating opportunities for personalization while keeping customer privacy in mind.
- Shifted relations with data partners to move away from using third-party audience models – because they’re difficult to understand or audit – and placed more control and transparency in the hands of Kimberly-Clark’s internal teams.
These examples are important to help understand how to make the most of your marketing spend by reaching and engaging with your highest-value customers. Here’s a checklist of three key things to consider as you explore your customer data strategy:
Bottom line: As you discover your highest-value customers, remember that you need to attract them and nurture them wherever they’re spending their time.
This blog was originally published on Jessica’s Shapiro’s LinkedIn. Follow her for more CMO insights.
