Why You Need Human Data For Real Customer Engagement

Article by Ernan Roman
Featured on Forbes.com

A cataclysmic shift is occurring in BtoB and BtoC marketing. Customers are ignoring generic messaging and demanding personalized and relevant communications based on their individual preferences.

Based on research findings, the good news is that customers and prospects are willing to provide personal or business information in exchange for more personalized offers, communications and experiences.

Marketers must meet these consumer demands by transitioning from impersonal transaction-based marketing to highly personalized, preference-based, experiences.

The Reciprocity of Value Equation

A profound finding has emerged from more than 12,000 hours of Voice of Customer (VoC) research our firm has conducted for companies including MassMutual, IBM, Norton AntiVirus, QVC, NBC, Microsoft and Songza. Notwithstanding privacy concerns, BtoB and BtoC customers are willing to provide detailed information in exchange for increased value and relevance.

To satisfy these demands, marketers must adopt transformational strategies that recognize the value of human data; true personalization of communications, offers and experiences driven by deep opt-in individual preference information provided by customers in exchange for receiving unprecedented levels of preference-driven personalization.

We call this the Reciprocity of Value Equation.

Customer Reciprocity: Recognition by customers that to receive more relevant and personalized communications and offers, they need to provide marketers with personal or business preference information.

Plus

Business Reciprocity: Recognition by marketers that they have to provide significantly more personalized communications and offers. To be truly personalized these have to be based on more than just transactional, overlay and inferential data.

Plus

"Human Data:" BtoB or BtoC opt-in self-profiled information regarding key issues, needs and expectations; decision-making process, messaging and media preferences; self-described personality types/attitudes/life stages.

Equals

Customer Experience Transformation.

But, Marketers Have to Earn the Right to Request Human Data

By earning trust through value propositions that motivate customers to opt-in and provide deep preference information, marketers will create a high quality database of responsive customers who truly want your messages.

Based on the VoC research findings, customers (BtoB and BtoC) confirmed that human data has to be earned by going through specific steps that comprise a Pyramid of Trust:

•	Do what you promised: Deliver on your fundamental brand promise.
•	Treat me fairly: Fair pricing and customer service policies.
•	Protect my information: Explain the reasons for the opt-in information requests and assure me of the privacy and safety of my data.
•	Improve my experiences: Use my stated preferences and aversions, to significantly improve my experiences.

Gilt Earns Trust and Engagement

Gilt, a top internet retailer, has used high levels of personalization to deliver relevance and drive engagement for both new and existing customers. Results of these efforts have included increased orders, decreased email and mobile push notification unsubscribe rates and boosted higher repeat-purchase rates.

According to Welington Fonseca, VP of marketing and digital analytics, “Gilt’s commitment to a personalized experience is evident when customers return to the home page of the web site or mobile app. Sales within the store (men, women, kids, home) with the highest affinity to a consumer’s past behavior and preferences (browse, purchase, favorite brands, wish list) are presented at the top of their home page with all other sales ranked according to relevance based on previous shopping behavior and collaborative filtering.”

Another example of personalization is “Your Personal Sale,” which displays the most relevant brands and products based on shopping patterns and self-stated preferences and provide Gilt with another way to interact with the customer to understand preferences in order to further refine their personalization algorithm.

According to Fonseca, “All communication is personalized, with the company sending [more than] 2,500 versions of personalized emails and mobile push notifications on a daily basis, eight times per week. Results have been a double-digit increase in orders and reduction in email and mobile push notification unsubscribes.”

Five Takeaways:

1.	Differentiate your business by providing highly personalized communications, offers and experiences.
2.	True personalization must be based on preference-based “human data,” not just traditional inferred or transactional data.
3.	The right to ask for increasingly deep levels of preference-based information is not a “given.” It must be earned.
4.	Deliver clear and obvious value based on preference information.
5.	Customers see reciprocity as a valuable exchange of information that improves their experience.

Use Human Data to Provide True B2B Personalization

Article by Ernan Roman Featured on CMS Wire

An enormous shift is occurring in how B2B customers think about engagement and relationships. Customers expect marketers to achieve relevance by providing personalized communications based on their individual preferences, rather than continuing with irrelevant “spray and pray” marketing blasts. It’s this new way of thinking that’s unlocking the true potential of human data.

A Shift in Strategy

Gone are the days when B2B prospects and customers would sort through piles of spray and pray “stuff” to uncover the few relevant messages. They expect marketers to find them and provide relevant offers and communications based on their individual needs and preferences. This means that marketers must develop bold new strategies that achieve the delicate balance of requesting in-depth data in exchange for providing the value of significantly improved customer experiences.

That is why after careful research, The UPS Store repositioned itself as a small business peer to peer company which made it more relevant to its target audience. Its research showed that 90 percent of small-business owners would prefer to do business with other local business owners. The UPS Store targeted this small biz niche and carefully crafted its messaging to directly answer their specific requirements.

A marketing initiative was created to let UPS directly connect with this audience in order to provide personalized services, products and offers of real value. They launched a Small Business Solutions portal, offering resources for small-business owners and the Small Biz Buzz, an online community of more than 300 small-business owners.

An Exchange of Value  

Just like their B2C counterparts, B2B marketers are realizing that to be truly personalized, marketing must be based on more than transactional, overlay and inferential data. It has to be based on the individual customer’s stated needs and self-profiled preference information.

However, developing a program to gain progressively deeper levels of self-profiled data must start with a foundation of trust. Per findings from Voice of Customer research conducted by ERDM, B2B customers and prospects are willing to provide trusted brands with meaningful information in exchange for more personalized offers, communications and experiences. We call this exchange of value the “Reciprocity of Value.”

This Reciprocity of Value, built on trust, is the critical aspect of both B2B and B2C data-driven marketing. It is trust, and a perceived reciprocity, that will motivate customers to provide the preference-based information needed to drive truly relevant, engaging communication.

Keep in mind:

	Trust is the foundation and basis for obtaining deeper levels of personalized, preference-based data.
	Marketers must earn the right to obtain deeper levels of preference data by delivering on the promise of truly personalized communications.
	Marketers should strive to build sustainable relationships with customers based on trust, commitment and reciprocity, from the initial prospecting phase to every aspect of the customer lifecycle.

Microsoft's Move Beyond the Product

To better connect with B2B consumers and develop a relationship program that transcended product transactions, Microsoft sought to gain a deeper level of customer understanding. Through VoC research with Microsoft’s SMB business consumers, key factors for improvement in personalization were outlined:

	Understand my unique business needs.
	Create user levels based on business size, industry and product focus and then create targeted content based these levels.
	Develop a relationship program based on the user’s unique needs, not Microsoft’s.
	Request user feedback at every touch point. And use that feedback to evolve the customer experience and provide relevant content and communications.

After a comprehensive program of gaining data through a preference-based, easy-to-navigate opt-in process, Microsoft developed ways to deliver on the promise of an enhanced experience. Customers received a welcome email, monthly personalized e-newsletters, and ongoing personalized offers and training.

The results were powerful:

	Opt-in rates up to 95 percent.
	Open rates greater than 50 percent.
	Response rates performing in the double-digits.
	Revenue increase of 2 times.

This is what the Reciprocity of Value looked like:

Customer Benefits		Microsoft Benefits
• Deeper level of personalized experience • Customized communication, training, and services • Improved information relevant to business needs		• Opt-in Profile information to drive personalized content and communications • Ability to analyze web and email interaction behaviors • Improved Cross sell/upsell opportunities

In summary, earning the in-depth “human” preference data that drives personalized marketing is an essential strategy for B2B marketers looking to go from transactions to a long-term, value based relationships with customers.

5 Tips to Boost Native Advertising Effectiveness

There’s good news for marketers when it comes to consumer acceptance of contextual advertising. Consumers have come to terms with these ads... but only if the content is relevant, authoritative, and trustworthy.

According to a study Edelman/Berland, Getting In-Feed Sponsored Content Right: the Consumer View:

» 86% of consumers feel that online advertising is necessary to receive free content online.

» 60% of consumers are more open to in-line ads that tell a story than ones that simply sell a product.

» Relevancy (90%) is the top factor in sparking interest in in-feed sponsored content, it is the top factor in the ultimate success of this type of native advertising.

Online entertainment company, Netflix has embraced the concept of native ads in a big way with a series of campaigns that has presented different content applicable to targeted audiences in varied media. It ran a contextual native ad campaign which discussed the popular TV show, “Orange is the New Black” on the New York Times website. Based on the positive results of the New York Times campaign the company decided to ramp up on native ads with an initiative on Wired which discussed TV viewing habits over the years. Netflix is using the articles to reach digital audiences looking for good storytelling—and then reinforce the message of a subscription-based entertainment service. 

Both campaigns had the intended result—shares that helped the company reach an even larger audience beyond the original viewership. And while there is some discussion over which outlet ultimately netted the bigger catch, both avenues together resulted in approximately 140,000 shares. But that is not the whole story, because the posts were also viewable on social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter. The average time spent on the ads topped a desirable 3 minutes.

5 Takeaways to Boost the Effectiveness of Native Advertising

1. Be Transparent; Own up to owning the sponsored content. There is a fine line between the “advertorial nature” of native ads and actual in-your-face in-line ads. But customers are just beginning to understand the concept of native advertising so to earn viewer trust, brands need to be upfront that the content being published, while relevant, is advertising with a message.

2. Fit In; Understand the look, feel, and format of the media you are using, so that your native ad fits what viewers expect to find on the site. As mentioned earlier, being disruptive rather than informative is a sure fire way to ensure that your native ads won’t work.

3. Keep VoC Front and Center; As in all marketing listening and understanding what customers want from you is key to delivering content that will be accepted and embraced. Fill a need with your native ads or be entertaining in a manner that fits the personality of your key customer.

4. Be a Good Storyteller; You want your native ad to go viral, so present a good story that viewers will want to share.

5. Be You; consistency across all media is key. When you are not true to your core brand message (no matter where or how it is presented) it is confusing to consumers who know you for who you are. If you are going to go in a new direction then be upfront about it so readers can go with you.

Twitter: Using News to Connect with Your Audience

The Challenge: News and events provide powerful opportunities to connect with your audience. Twitter makes this easy. Following are 7 tips.

While not all companies can have a social media “touchdown” like Oreo’s now famous Superbowl blackout tweet, real time marketing is accessible to any size company. It only took 3 minutes to Tweet “Power Out? No Problem” with a captioned Oreo image “You Can Still Dunk in the Dark”.

Oreo is a great example of the discipline of Real Time Marketing. To see how important this has become, consider the Oscars and all the companies making attempts to become the next social media sweetheart. The marketing industry was even monitoring Twitter with #OscarsRTM documenting real time successes and failures.

Cleverly connecting with the audience is not reserved for big brands. Any size company can leverage news or events to make relevant connections through Twitter.

7 Takeaways for Marketers Using Twitter:

1. Knowing your audience provides an essential understanding of how they will react to your approach to a topic. Voice of Customer research by our firm reminds us to focus on the customer’s experience at all times across all channels. Evaluate using some of the many social media monitoring tools to keep up with what the public is saying.

2. Become a news resource for your industry. Announce newsworthy topics on Twitter ahead of the trend.

3. Real time response and empowered staff are essential. The social and content accelerators at ConvinceandConvert.com tell us “That’s why it’s so critically important to staff your social media front lines with people who not only have extraordinary passion for your company, but who also have the experience and judgment to minimize response delay”. Know what to look for when hiring a social media manager.

4. The media event and your company do not have to be related. However, you must add relevant value to the conversation. That value must tie back to your brand.

5. Communicate messages with the intent to interact. It’s not about selling. Richard Robins advises, “Customers want to be engaged, not targeted. With the exception of a few "passion" brands whose customers wait for any bit of product news, customers largely don't care about products. (If we cared, brands wouldn't have to pay $4 million for ads to reach us.) “

6. Learn from some significant mistakes committed during the past year. Stay on top of current events and understand why a topic is trending. The last thing you want is to gain attention for a social media #fail.

7. Do not expect every venture into real time marketing to work. Like other disciplines in marketing, this is all about testing and measurement.