How to Create a Customer Centric Marketing Strategy by Augmenting & Slicing Your Database

Thanks to the proliferation of big data, we know more and more about our customers these days. And we have so many ways we can connect to them in a one-to-one marketing fashion. This has lead to a rise in customer-centric marketing, a philosophy we truly believe in.

What is customer-centric marketing? Here's good definition from Custora, "Customer-centric marketing is a strategy that places the individual customer at the center of marketing design and delivery. It starts from the realization that there is no “average” customer. Customers have different behaviors and preferences – and this presents rich opportunities to move past a “one-size-fits-all” marketing approach."

So, how do you use the data available to you to develop a customer-centric marketing strategy? Here's a step-by-step "how to" guide, based on the work we've done for clients. Knowing who your customer was in the past and who she is today is essential to knowing who she will be in the future. Gaining that insight is the first step in creating a customer-centric marketing strategy.

We gain insight from information like this:

What’s her age?
How much does she earn?
If she’s older, does she have investable assets?
Is she married?
Does she have children at home?
Does she rent or own a home? If an owner, how much is it worth?
How long has she lived at her current location?
Does she have discretionary income?
When she buys how long is she in a purchase cycle? How much time is there between purchases?
What interests does she have?
If she’s a Millennial, what styles is she buying?

We manage a lot of our client's databases, starting with customer transaction records. Augmenting the customer transaction records with attributes like those listed above allow businesses to have a clear picture of their customer. The results allow us to:

create messaging that will resonate with her.
find lookalike customers in their database to make similar offers that others like her bought.
be able to showcase appropriate merchandise that others like her are buying.
identify the business’ likely customer attributes
identify gaps. For instance, are you selling to older people and missing opportunities to reach younger ones?
be able to prospect in a highly targeted way.
identify other business opportunities that insight brings.

Steps we take to get strategies right:

Agree on objectives and attributes relevant to the business
Append attributes
Mine data for predictive patterns
Identify opportunities to gain business
Strategize ways to achieve objectives
Implement tests
Measure results
Refine strategies

Once you've done all this, you have the tools to create a customer-centric marketing strategy that is highly likely to succeed because you've used your data to analyze exactly what it will take to connect directly to your customer and motivate her (or him) to take the next step down the purchase funnel. Now, you can use that strategy to figure out exactly what your customers want and increase their customer lifetime value. We've even created a list of 24 ways to create a deeper connection with your customers, once you've adopted a customer-centric mindset.

Michael Morin, President, Yaffe Direct