People-Based Marketing: What Is It and How Does It Work? on bdex.com

People-Based Marketing: What Is It and How Does It Work?
June 26, 2019| | in category analysis methods, bdex, Big Data, business, custom segment building, daas, Data Exchange Platform, Data Industry News, Data Vendors, digital marketing, Email Marketing, First Party Data, General, in-market data, Internet of Things, location-based data, Mobile Marketing, Real Time Data, sell data, Third party Data, Web Design, Web Hosting, website re-targeting Comments Off on People-Based Marketing: What Is It and How Does It Work?

People-based marketing is here right now. So long as you understand that, you have the advantage

That’s right. The power of human connectivity, the proliferation of connected devices, and how both of these have affected individuals’ media consumption and purchasing behaviors means that people-based marketing is a fact, and there are the knowers and the know-nots. It’s not some far-off “in the future” dream, like something out of “Minority Report.” It’s here. Right now.

So, now that you know, you can begin to use the power of people-based marketing for your company.

Why is people-based marketing such a big deal?

Well, it all comes down to boxes. Since the dawn of radio in the early 1920s, all media has been consumed from a box. For most of the last hundred years, we sat in our living rooms and stared at our radios, then at our boxy TVs. Even the ads we encountered in magazines and newspapers came in boxes. The point is that when we consumed most media (and therefore most advertising), we did it in front of a specific device or setting – holding a newspaper or watching a TV.

So, we marketed to people through these boxes, and we chose those people by the very coarse means of selecting programming and content that probably appealed to the “target consumer”: people of a certain age range, sex, possible interests, and income. This is how it came to pass that lots of light beer were sold to men ages 21 to 45, with median household incomes (HHIs) of $25,000, via the adventures of “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

Even when the internet came on the scene, we consumed it on yet another box – our computers, which mostly sat on desks. Digital marketing became (and, in some ways, remains to this day) putting ads in boxes on web pages targeted in much the same ways as they captured the dudes watching “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

Then the iPhone came out

When the iPhone launched in 2007, it liberated digital media from the desktop – it was set free from the box. It also was the start of digital media invading and taking over traditional media. Today, digital media encompasses all the individual media of the past in one online universe: TV, radio, print, and film, along with social, and e-Commerce.

Today people live much of their lives online. It’s where they watch, read, listen to, and buy. Their hobbies, their interests, and their work lives revolve around the web and their mobile devices. And the resulting data is a bonanza to marketers.

Digital marketing begins to mature into a people-based marketing

This relatively new world of widespread human connectivity means we can leverage the avalanche of data available concerning consumer behavior. Advances in data and analytics make this all a tantalizing reality, enabling marketers to merge all they know about a customer with what others know to connect with and engage that individual. By doing so skillfully, we can target specific consumers – in an anonymous, unobtrusive fashion – across various media and devices to provide them with marketing that is relevant and timely, not intrusive or disruptive.

To illustrate, imagine past marketing efforts as someone standing on a street corner hawking balloons at the top of their lungs to passersby. Now, compare that with a professional salesperson who, having just sold a pantsuit to a repeat customer whose tastes they are familiar with, suggests, “You know, I have the perfect pair of patent leather pumps to go with this.” That add-on item doubles the sale – and in the process, it makes the customer even more loyal than they were before. People-based marketing is being able to do this with customers across the globe whom you’ve never met.

Marketing and sales online can and will be just as charming, subtle and engaging as the best sales associate in the world. And relationships between online vendors and their customers will be defined by more than a race to the bottom, where making a sale means almost just breaking even on the transaction. The most successful purveyors of goods and services online will be those who know their customers best and can speak to them most persuasively, at the right time. And the data is there to make that possible.

Taking people-based marketing too far

Knowledge is power, but a deft hand with the subtle application of the increasing wealth of data is key to the ongoing development of successful people-based marketing. The more granular the data available, and the more specifically businesses can target a consumer, the more care must be taken with how that data is used.

Employed carelessly, people-based marketing may incite consumer backlash by igniting fears of a surveillance culture that doesn’t respect privacy. This could result in a reduction of actionable data available and deprive marketers of a tool that has changed their everything.

Having access to the data is not enough. Knowing how to use it effectively and with great care is also paramount. You can count on BDEX to help you use your own data and the information on the network to further genuine human connectivity and close sales with a customer base willing to reward the extra attention.

BDEX endows your marketing with the power and depth of human connectivity. Call 917-410-6616 or contact us to learn how marketing solutions from BDEX can help you with your present and future marketing data needs.

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Marketing: The Effective Use of Data Brings the Ready-to-Buy to Your Door on bdex.com

Marketing: The Effective Use of Data Brings the Ready-to-Buy to Your Door
June 19, 2019| | in category analysis methods, bdex, Big Data, business, buy data, Data Exchange Platform, Data Industry News, data marketplace, digital marketing, direct mail targeting, Email Marketing, First Party Data, Internet of Things, Mobile Marketing, Real Time Data, sell data, Thick Data, Third party Data, Web Design, Web Hosting, website re-targeting Comments Off on Marketing: The Effective Use of Data Brings the Ready-to-Buy to Your Door

In automotive marketing, the same buyer data is used again and again throughout the industry. It takes an entirely new way of using the available information to gain an edge. BDEX can be that edge.

The BDEX edge for automotive dealers and other businesses is its Data Exchange Platform, which is a data nexus that gathers billions of real-time data points. The platform puts the identity and behavior data of individual shoppers – potential car buyers already in the sales cycle – into the hands of automotive marketers in time to reach them before they make a final buying decision.

This means dealers aren’t wasting time and money trying to pull new customers into the sales cycle, they’re reaching out to potential buyers who are already there. It’s all thanks to BDEX Omnisource IQ, which identifies consumers who are in the market and actively looking.

Eliminating auto dealership pain points

Behind the smiling faces in every auto dealership, there lurks a deep pain that saps the very lifeblood of the organization. It is the enduring angst – felt down to the bottom line – of marketing overspend. Sure, they don’t run ads in the daily newspapers anymore. That was an advertising-spend boondoggle whose time is past.

However, now there is the pay-per-click lottery – pay $1,000 for 100 clicks on Facebook, of which maybe five come from people who may buy/consider/look at a vehicle in the next year or so. The clicks keep coming in, and the advertiser keeps paying for them and taking the time to respond to them, with a very minimal return on investment. However, they ask, what else are they supposed to do?

The problem isn’t data. It’s knowing how to use it and having the tools to do so

Businesses are collecting ever more data from potential consumers these days. However, in this avalanche of information, one salient fact is lost among the mountains of email addresses, tweets, and Facebook likes: Few know what to do with it beyond the most obvious of applications.

Most of these uses, by their very nature, just scratch the surface. There is so much more to glean from this accumulation of information on consumer activity, which covers the landscape like a snowfall that will never melt. At BDEX, this is what we do.

A world where a Facebook click or an Instagram like is just the beginning

For all the spend and effort that goes into earning what is just a data point from social media (or a new email in the company’s mailing list) – the fact is, that single data point is just the start of a journey. To make full use of BDEX’s mind-boggling collection of data, advertisers need a place to start, and that’s where their social data and mailing list come in.

Let’s say a company has 10,000 people on its mailing list. Those 10,000 addresses can be whittled down by additional data points, and each one narrows the list until it consists of folks actively shopping for a new car.

How is that possible? By connecting data points, we see that 5,000 people on the list visited an auto website in the last 30 days. The superimposition of another data set narrows that number down to 1,500 of those 5,000 who also have a vehicle lease expiring in the next 30 days. Layer on a final data set – geolocation data showing how many of these potentials visited a competing auto dealer in the last two weeks – and we’ve identified 437 people who are actively shopping for a car.

That will enable the company to send fewer than 500 mailers to genuinely qualified prospects and save the money it would have spent on mailing an additional 9,500 pieces to people who, according to all evidence, aren’t looking to invest in a new or used vehicle just yet.

BDEX provides lasting relief from the profound pain of marketing overspend

There’s no virtue in living with unnecessary pain, and even less to be found in spending more money chasing inferior results. Let us at BDEX show you how you can master the use of your data to make your marketing efforts better-targeted, more productive, and capable of generating real foot traffic. You’ll see the direct results in fast-moving inventory, impressive sales results, and happy sales staff.

BDEX is committed to helping businesses make better use of their data resources. Call 917-410-6616 or contact us at our website today and learn how marketing solutions from BDEX can help you reach out to buyers ready to deal.

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How Real-Time Targeting Can Revolutionize Your Marketing Strategy on bdex.com

How Real-Time Targeting Can Revolutionize Your Marketing Strategy
June 12, 2019| | in category analysis methods, bdex, Big Data, business, buy data, daas, Data Exchange Platform, Data Industry News, data management platform, data marketplace, digital marketing, direct mail targeting, Email Marketing, email retargeting, First Party Data, in-market data, Internet of Things, IT, location-based data, Mobile Marketing, Real Time Data, Science, sell data, Web Design, Web Hosting, website re-targeting Comments Off on How Real-Time Targeting Can Revolutionize Your Marketing Strategy

Delivering the right content at the right moment is a vital part of obtaining – and keeping – customers

The ways companies reach and obtain new customers has evolved since the early days of marketing and advertising. Long gone are the days of spray-and-pray marketing, when advertisers would send and spread mass campaigns in the hopes of turning a few curious eyeballs into paying customers. Today’s consumers recognize a generic advertisement or message when they see it, and they’re completely turned off. They demand personalization throughout the customer experience – and that begins with a relevant, timely marketing campaign.

Through real-time targeting, companies can access the exact data they need, connect with their customers no matter their device, and create the most effective marketing campaigns possible.

Find the right data at the right time

At its core, real-time marketing is serving the right content to the right person on the right device at the right time. Of course, that’s easier said than done – especially if you don’t know when and where your prospects are shopping or the products and services they’re looking to buy. Many companies rely on common, outdated resources that only provide traditional data or predictive analytics. While helpful for establishing a customer base, this kind of information provides limited value when it comes to real-time marketing.

Enter real-time targeting. By tagging, collecting, and integrating data from online and offline channels and a variety of mobile and desktop devices, companies can get the information they need to target potential customers the moment they start shopping.

Collecting relevant real-time data

To ensure companies can reach potential customers quickly and accurately through real-time targeting, BDEX collects real-time data by:

  • Accessing consumers’ recent activity and purchases (airline tickets, cars, apparel, furniture, etc.).
  • Collecting data from Point-of-Sale (POS) systems in brick-and-mortar stores.
  • Using geofencing technology, a location-based service that accesses GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi, and cellular data to track stores that consumers have visited.

This wealth of data from disparate sources is then integrated into the BDEX Data Exchange Platform, where it becomes unique, highly targeted, and actionable marketing information that companies can use to enable and enhance human connectivity.

Connect customers across multiple devices

Real-time targeting is not just a matter of finding the right data, however. Knowing who and what device to target is a crucial step in any effective marketing strategy.

The proliferation of mobile devices has allowed people around the world to access the internet, but it’s also made it difficult for marketers to match customers across multiple devices. To organize the wealth of data they have on their customers, companies are adopting ID graphs, or databases that hold customer profiles and all the known identifiers that correlate with those consumers. However, if the information in these databases is based purely on the probability of a user being connected to a device, the ID graph might not provide the most accurate matches possible, and since consumers are constantly changing and turning on new devices, it is a challenge to know if your device data is still current.

To ensure certainty when matching customers with devices, BDEX’s ID graph uses a deterministic cross-device matching approach. Rather than relying on probabilistic measures, BDEX uses deterministic authenticated customer information, such as anonymized log-in data, email addresses, and credit card purchases to match and recognize individuals regardless of which device they are using. With real-time information from more than 75 vetted partners and over 800 million mobile-to-email ID connections, BDEX can help you target consumers across different platforms with unparalleled accuracy.

Once companies have a wealth of real-time data and can successfully match users with their correct devices, they can create marketing campaigns customized for specific customers and channels.

Personalize and send marketing campaigns

Personalization is a key component of an effective marketing campaign and a successful customer relationship. Not only do customers appreciate personalization – they expect it. According to Salesforce, 76 percent of consumers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations.

Through real-time targeting and cross-device matching, companies can:

  • Tailor marketing messaging based on behavior. For example, if a customer searched for a pair of shoes via smartphone last week, a company can send a personalized coupon code to encourage a transaction.
  • Offer relevant product recommendations. Based on a customer’s recent purchases or recent search history, a company can offer similar products or other items that would complement the purchase.
  • Take better advantage of programmatic advertising. Accurate, real-time data is the foundation of successful programmatic advertising.
  • Encourage customers to come in-store. Retailers, restaurants, and other businesses can use geofencing technology to know when their customers are close by and encourage them to visit through push notifications, text messages, and other channels.

These are just a few ways real-time data can be used to cultivate human connectivity and enhance customer experience. By using personalization to attract and engage with their customers, companies can foster genuine relationships that lead to increased sales and stronger brand loyalty.

Though the tactic is very effective, 60 percent of marketers struggle to personalize content in real time. To aid companies in their marketing efforts and beyond, BDEX developed the Explore Data Tool, which allows companies to mine through various data sets to reach customers throughout their purchasing process – from building a custom audience to real-time targeting to post-purchase.

Thanks to more than 100 partners, BDEX analysts can search more than 1 trillion data points on every U.S. consumer across 19 categories of shoppers and more than 5,000 other categories – all designed to help marketers fine-tune their real-time marketing. Contact us to learn how we can help you advance your current marketing strategy.

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Marketing Culture 2.0: Data Analytics on bdex.com

Marketing Culture 2.0: Data Analytics
June 5, 2019| | in category analysis methods, Big Data, business, buy data, daas, Data Exchange Platform, Data Industry News, data management platform, data marketplace, Data Vendors, Email Marketing, email retargeting, First Party Data, in-market data, Internet of Things, IT, location-based data, Real Time Data, sell data, Thick Data, Third party Data, Web Design, Web Hosting, website re-targeting Comments Off on Marketing Culture 2.0: Data Analytics

A look at updates organizations must make culturally to compete in today’s real-time marketplace, where the focus is human connectivity

Customer data is driving marketing into the future. But even the most tech-savvy marketing office won’t fully succeed when analyzing data without also integrating big changes into its company culture.

Data is valuable; there’s no doubt about that. But without using it to its full potential, businesses miss out on many crucial improvements to business strategy, including, most importantly, fostering real human connections.

A Forrester survey revealed that companies that integrate an advanced analytics culture increased their marketing ROI by an average of 9.1 percent over the last one to two years. This improved performance 1.7 times for these companies versus those that didn’t have an advanced analytics culture.

These considerations clearly matter for the bottom line. Here are ways that organizations can harness data to its full potential.

Updating company analytics culture

A greater focus on company culture is a major part of using data analytics successfully. It’s not enough to use the newest tools and technologies; the team must collaborate and learn together how data push the business forward.

Across the company, the key components of a successful analytics culture are, according to Forrester:

  • Strategy. This requires business leaders to use data insights to drive decision-making. Data should be included in all marketing channels.
  • Adoption. Marketing strategy that is driven by data insights must be considered a business growth driver across the company.
  • Turning insights into action. The team must be able to interpret data and use it quickly.
  • Tech and tools. Data must come from various sources, and tools must be implemented that provide clear and distinguishable facts about the data.
  • Data science expertise. The team must be able to weed through large amounts of data and have the expertise required to use the insights for future predictions.

Because using customer data to drive marketing strategy is so multifaceted, it’s clear that doing so successfully requires much more than bringing new platforms into the office. An effective analytics culture must be learned and implemented across teams and experience levels so decisions can be driven efficiently by real-time data insights.

Integrate data in a decision-making

Company leaders may not be fully using data and relevant customer-insight teams to make decisions. The Forrester surveyors concluded that companies that involve customer insights and data teams into decision-making for marketing show a stronger analytics culture overall than those that don’t.

This is why customer insights and data should be directly connected to marketing decision-making. Business outcomes are improved when decisions are made based on facts and real-time insights. The majority of companies surveyed by Forrester (81 percent) that use data to drive their decision-making processes saw better business outcomes and reported improvements in marketing performance.

Companies should, therefore, focus on educating employees so everyone is aligned on driving decisions from analytics, and teams must then come together behind this practice. Decisions should be backed up by facts pulled from data, and this should become the minimum expectation.

Fostering real human connection

One of the biggest benefits of fully integrating data analytics is the human component. Companies using real-time customer data are able to make immediate, relevant connections with their audience.

It’s important to note that customers shouldn’t be treated like data figures or numbers; for companies to effectively use real-time customer insights, they must connect on an individual and human level. This means decisions should be well thought-through and based on data, but they should also have a basis of underlying trust that drives relationships, as Inc.com points out.

This thinking continues to drive the age-old idea that the customer should be No. 1 in any marketing strategy, digital or not.

Mastering analytics

The Forrester survey also indicated that there were clear advantages for companies that had actually mastered measurement and analytics, over those that had just started implementing such programs. One company surveyed reported a 30 percent reduction in customer acquisition cost that was directly attributable to the company’s increased focus on analytics.

These “mastering” companies were shown to have “nearly 3x improvement in business decision-making speed and time-to-market with new products, higher marketing ROI, greater marketing efficiency, and new customer insights.”

The benefits of revamping analytics company culture are clear. Knowledge is power, and data is behind all valuable marketing information in our modern world. Data should begin to drive business decisions, which will ultimately improve business outcomes, valuable customer connections, flexibility, credibility, and ROI.

BDEX provides advanced data infrastructure that drives human connectivity. The BDEX Data Exchange Platform (DXP) provides data as a service (DaaS) and real-time data signals so you can target consumers with the latest information. Get in touch today to learn more about BDEX’s advanced data solutions for marketers.

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