CMOs: 3 Things to Know About Collecting Consumer Data in a Disruptive Marketplace

As a CMO, you are increasingly involved with matters of data security and privacy, with a growing number of consumers questioning how companies are using their personal information. As a graduate student of Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University’s Medill School who is interested in the role data plays in identifying and meeting customer needs, I have found two articles that address the subject of what you should know when it comes to collecting customers’ data in today's disruptive marketplace.

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Personalized Marketing and Sales, is written by Bain & Company consultants Melanie Bockemuehl, Genia Kudryasheva and Huy Nguyen-Tuong. It shares examples of how companies in many industries are tapping on customer data and technology to improve both the end-user experience as well as the company’s bottom line. Touching on common blunders made in personalized marketing, the article elaborates on the steps marketers can take for effective “segment-of-one marketing”, to identify elements of your products or services valued most by customers and successfully create a sustainable competitive advantage.

Photographer: Jack Moreh. Taken from Freerange Stock Photos

Does Your Social Media App Know Too Much About You?, is written by Forbes contributor Jayson DeMers. Examining the value of personal data for marketers, particularly for those turning to social media sites to gather customer data, it identifies some key trends in user data collection over the years. It makes the case for why user privacy concerns matter and provides suggestions on what marketers can do to alleviate these concerns in a way that benefits both parties. 

 

Based on my analysis of these two articles as well as my observations as a marketing student, I have developed three action items you should consider implementing – there is no better time than right now! These are:

• Transparency Establishes Trust. Be transparent and explain what data you’re collecting and why, to build relationships with your customers that are based on trust.

• Personalization Creates Value. Get to know your customers on a deeper level to capture the bigger picture of what matters to them – their needs, frustrations, points of enchantment – so you can interact with them in a personalized manner instead of bombarding them with what they perceive as intrusive spam.

• Reliability Drives Reciprocity. Finally, focus on building your brand reputation in a way that convinces consumers that your solution best meets their needs, so they voluntarily come to you and share their data instead of the other way around.

So, the next time you encounter a surplus of customer data and need to decide what to do with it, recall these three action items – they can make a world of difference.

Aneesha Subramaniam

I am currently pursuing a master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications at Medill School, Northwestern University (graduating in December 2017). I have three years of work experience in public relations and am keen to build expertise in marketing analytics and brand strategy. Connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Where can you find better Brand Advocates?

In the search for brand advocates, the usage of social media sites is the hot topic for most marketers. It is seen as a great way to directly connect with customers and to get them to start talking about your brand and recommending it to their friends. This is the ideal situation however, and marketers find that it is much harder to create true brand advocates. Corporate-Eye conducted a survey and found that the number one reason people ‘like’ a company’s Facebook page is to receive discounts and promotions. This doesn’t really scream brand advocacy, but a new social media is trying to put a new twist on the brand-user experience.

Unthink.com is introducing the idea of having each user choose a brand in which to “sponsor” their profile page. In exchange, the user owns all of his or her data. Although it is still in its infancy and has not fully been planned out, it will be interesting to see exactly how integrated the idea of a brand sponsor will be. It does offer a huge opportunity for people to be true brand advocates by picking a brand that is really important to them. This could be a much more authentic and engaging way for users to interact with brands which should prove to be much more effective. As a marketer, this is definitely something to keep an eye on to see if this either gains any traction or has an influence on other social media sites. As social media marketing continues to get more advanced and moves beyond number of 'likes' or friends, level of engagement will be something to look at.

Unthink does not stand much of a chance competing directly with giants like Facebook, but just getting a fraction of those users could be seen as a success (CNN). Their business model is based on providing a better tool for these brands while providing users with the protections they are demanding. Every once in a while we hear of the next Facebook, and it is the users who ultimately decide if it is worthy. It appears that Google+ has fizzled, because people weren’t willing to try something new that their friends weren’t already on (UWIRE). A site isn’t very social if you have no one to talk to, and Unthink must certainly be aware of this.

Alex Greenwald, Graduate Northwestern IMC, @agreenw