Understand Your Customers Better With Data

A research report from Segment found that 71% of consumers are frustrated with a lack of personalized shopping experiences. Conversely, 44% of consumers say a personalized experience leads to them becoming repeat and loyal customers.

These statistics only reinforce how important it is to take the time to get to know your customers, who they are, what they like, what they want, and what they need. 

Why Is It Important To Understand Your Customers?

When you get a better picture of your people, you’ll be able to provide them with that meaningful, relevant, and personalized experience they’ve come to expect in 2023.

We’re going to show you a few ways you can get to know your people – from brand-new prospects to loyal, repeat customers. After all, the Salesforce report also states, “More than half (52%) of consumers are somewhat likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t make an effort to personalize their communications to them.”

What Is The Importance of Data In Customer Success?

Data is essential for customer success. By analyzing customer data, you are able to identify customer needs and pain points to optimize your offerings and messaging. 

What Information or Data Can Help Us To Understand Our Customer Better?

Any and all data supports a deeper understanding of customers. Let’s break down the different types of data that help us build strong customer relationships:

Behavioral Patterns 

Take a Walk in Their Shoes. When was the last time you considered the consumer’s journey to buy your products or services? Take some time to revisit the buying cycle and alleviate pain points where appropriate. This means giving your website an audit, clicking on your digital ads, visiting your brick-and-mortar location, and so on.

Website Activity 

Use Google Analytics and Consumer Data to Draw Insights. As you revisit the buying cycle and customer experience, you should also tie in Google Analytics to draw additional insights about your audience. Your website should have a wealth of data on your customers and prospects. At a high level, you can see which pages are grabbing the most attention and which pages need some work. Use this data to help fine-tune your marketing strategy and make adjustments where needed.

Emotional Responses

Ask Engaging Questions & Ask for Feedback. Are your customers happy? Survey Emails are a great way to find out, and in most cases, all you have to do is ask! Use email to ask for ratings and reviews or find out how likely your customer base is to recommend your business to a friend in an effort to maintain or improve your brand’s online reputation. This is key, as 97% of consumers read online reviews before buying, and 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

What Are Effective Methods For Capturing Customer Data?

According to Salesforce, “Customers know that companies need more of their data in order to deliver personalized experiences — and a majority are now on board with that, as 57% of consumers say they’re willing to share personal data in exchange for personalized offers or discounts.”

Naturally, we then have to ask how you collect this data to deliver personalized experiences. Here are a few methods to try:

1. Form Fills on Your Website

A majority of that data can come in the form of a form fill. Forms can be for email newsletter subscriptions, whitepapers, coupons, offers, contests, and more.

You can ask for basic information like name, email address, and occupation, or, if you want, you can drill down deeper and ask for more details. Just keep user experience in mind, as your customers might be discouraged by a lengthy, laborious, or intrusive process.

You’ll also want to ensure that forms on your site use a CAPTCHA, preventing bots and fake accounts from muddying up the waters. CAPTCHAs help keep your subscriber data clean and accurate.

2. Progressive Profiling Emails

Another great way to get to know your customers is through Progressive Profiling or Segmentation emails. These allow you to ask questions that help you better understand who your recipients are and what they’re interested in so you can better serve their needs in the future.

For example, if you’re an automotive dealership, you can ask if recipients are interested in cars versus trucks. You can further segment their interests by make and model, year, parts and products, and recency.

The more you drill down and further segment your recipient lists through these types of emails, you’ll be able to increase both your open and click rates as emails become more personalized.

3. Leverage Social Media Data

Social networks can provide a wealth of data about your customers and prospects. At a high level, you can look into your audience’s personal life, interests, hobbies, events they attend, the music they listen to, and so on.

Social Media also gives marketers a platform to communicate and interact with their audience. Start a group where people can talk about your brand, or be sure to monitor and really listen to comments made on social media and in these types of focus groups to get insights on your audience.

TEGNA can identify your ideal audience and create profiles based on geographic location, behaviors, likes, and interests to develop highly targeted ads. Click here to learn more.

 4. Creating Persona Profiles

All of the insights you gather on your audience can be pieced together quite nicely in a persona profile. Personas are high-level overviews for each demographic of your target audience. You can use the Make My Persona template from HubSpot to help you get started.

For example, let’s say you’re an auto dealership. You’ll want to know basics, like where your customers live, what social networks they frequent, how old they are, education level, household income, occupation, what a typical day looks like for them, buying behaviors, shopping habits, and most important, what problems are they trying to solve?

Next time you want to know pieces of information about your audience, you’ll have a handy cheat sheet like little cheat sheets that give bite-sized pieces of information to help tailor marketing campaigns to your audience and their needs.

Get To Know Your Customers Better With TEGNA

TEGNA  delivers proven results through simplified advertising solutions that bridge the gap between linear broadcast, OTT streaming, and digital marketing in order to connect your business to the audiences that matter most to your unique brand. From concept development to implementation and measurement, we offer the highest level of support as your marketing partner. Contact TEGNA and see how we can help you reach your marketing goals.