4 Keys to Strong Consumer Identity Management
Companies must be purposeful in linking disparate pieces of data into one system. To build a consumer identity database to use for personalization, you often need to ask for information from your clients and prospects and offer them something in return, like a discount code for an email address; an appointment confirmation for cell phone number; or a free dessert with a meal for a birth date.
Each nugget of consumer information collected helps marketers access and link together more complete profiles that allow marketers to model and scale personalization efforts.
Clean the data. Cleaning data through systems that standardize, de-dupe, correct, update, and link all identifiers will reduce the chance of delivering irrelevant offers or making incorrect assumptions about consumers. This becomes even more critical as marketers automate via omnichannel marketing programs as well as loyalty and customer engagement platforms. Take, for instance, an auto manufacturer that sends an offer for a new minivan to a consumer who last interacted with one of these systems five-plus years ago and whose children were then preteens but are now in college, or an online retailer emailing three copies of its holiday catalog to the same address due to duplicate data. Both are irritants at best, relationship enders at worst.
Use the data. When those micro moments happen, a repository of on-demand, clean, linked data equips marketers to provide personalized information through an omnichannel approach. Consider the attributes needed to best engage with a client during their lifetime journey through your product suite. Do your systems know simple things like the customer’s birthday? Has that information been utilized to create personalization when they are visiting the store, calling your service department, opening your email, or interacting with your social content? Do all of those channels also know what is the latest customer transaction or last piece of content the consumer viewed? Do you have pertinent information on whether your customer or prospect has just had kids, been divorced, or graduated college, moved from a small home to larger one, or traded the minivan for a sports car? Any of these data points can allow you to personalize your engagement and improve the lifetime value of your clients, turning clients into loyalists, enabling the upselling of new product lines, or getting prospects to convert quicker.
Ensure security and privacy. Responsible CIM embraces other critical needs, too: security, risk, and compliance. Pulling information from multiple silos into one secure repository that has been reinforced and protected reduces opportunities for hackers to access sensitive data. Additionally it can allow consumers to control data and preferences from one place. Nothing can be more of a turnoff for a client than to unsubscribe from one email and get robo-dialed the next day from the same brand. On-demand updates also help companies meet regulations and stay compliant in areas such as spam and TCPA.
Ultimately, CIM is about building trust with consumers, giving them the confidence that you know who they are at the point of a micro-moment interaction. Achieving personalization, and ultimately delivering the value customers deserve makes it a win for consumers, marketers, and brands alike.
Gib Olander is senior vice president of product strategy at Infutor Data Solutions, overseeing the strategic vision and execution of Infutor’s products and services. A 20-year veteran of the information services, SaaS, and analytics industries, Olander brings expertise in building and launching new products into new markets, software development, monetizing structured data, machine learning, data modeling and scoring, and agile methodologies.