Today’s retailers are under immense pressure to deliver appealing experiences to their customers. Successful retail marketing now revolves around delivering personalized, multi-channel campaigns to reach existing and prospective customers. According to Alliance Data’s recent research study on brand marketing and consumer expectations, “The Great Divide: Connecting brands to the real needs of today’s consumer,” 77% of consumer respondents identified “tailored sales, discounts, and promotions” as a top priority when receiving some form of marketing material.
With consumers constantly bombarded with email, social media, web ads and promotions everywhere they turn, it can be challenging to stand out from the pack and resonate with your customers. Without detailed data on your customers and their customer lifecycle when they shop with you, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll see positive results from your personalized retail marketing campaigns. Taking this a step further, if this customer data is spread across multiple systems your organization has in-place, you’re also dealing with an efficiency nightmare.
A glut of “customer data” tools to choose from
There are legions of technology platforms knocking at the doors of retailers, claiming to help them better manage and use their data, to the point that choosing the right one(s) is a challenge in itself. Options include customer relationship management software, data management platforms, and marketing automation software, among others. The problem oftentimes though is that these systems/software only handle certain functions with respect to customer data and marketing, rather than providing retail marketers with a complete system with a range of capabilities that meet their needs. Luckily for retail marketers, such systems do exist in the form of customer data platforms.
How customer data platforms support retail marketing
You’ve likely heard of a customer data platform (CDP) before, and have a general understanding of the features and benefits CDPs offer. What is likely a bit more unclear is their place in the retail marketing world, your tech stack, and whether investing in one is the right move for your business. Our latest whitepaper, Retail Use Cases for a Customer Data Platform, addresses this and more.
Produced in conjunction with the CDP Institute, a vendor-neutral organization dedicated to helping marketers manage customer data and the leader on all-things CDP, the whitepaper provides information on specific retail business objectives that can be aided by the use of a CDP. It also identifies several common problem areas often dealt with by retailers -- for example, executing multi-channel marketing campaigns -- and details the solution(s) to these problems that can be solved by using a CDP.
Want to Take Your Marketing Data to the Next Level?
Check out these additional resources for retailers on how to develop personalized and relevant communications at scale and execute smarter lifecycle marketing programs.
- The Retailers Guide to Personalized Marketing
- [Video] Retail Customer Journeys with the QuickPivot CDP
