Excellent marketing lays the groundwork for a business to succeed. Unfortunately, many companies today struggle to get their marketing right. Marketers face challenges like developing a deep understanding of their target audiences, managing their data, and standing out from competing businesses. 

One way to tackle all those challenges is to use a customer data platform (CDP). A CDP is a software solution that aggregates first-person data from a variety of sources to create comprehensive customer profiles. Oftentimes, sources of company customer data like their e-commerce engines and customer service platforms are isolated. Thus, preventing the companies from getting a complete picture of their customers. Using a CDP changes that. Your CDP connects all this data in real time so you can develop personalized marketing efforts for your customers.

Top Marketing Uses Cases of Customer Data Platforms

So how exactly do companies put customer data platforms to work? There are a number of specific marketing use cases for CDPs, including:

Offering a Comprehensive 360-Degree View of Customers

By bringing together all of your customer data into a single platform, a CDP offers a comprehensive 360-degree view of your customers you wouldn’t typically be able to access. Instead of viewing your customer data sources individually, a CDP is your single source of truth about your customers. Learn about a customer’s interaction with your customer service, your website, and their activity on your social media pages, etc. — all from one convenient platform. 

Without this 360-degree view of your customers, your marketing decisions may be grounded in incomplete information. The best way to create marketing efforts that succeed is to base them on comprehensive, reliable data which is exactly what a customer data platform offers. 

Tailored Multichannel Marketing Efforts

In the modern age, it’s not enough to reach out to your customers through a single marketing channel. Digital ads are great, for example, but they’re even more effective when paired with other marketing efforts across online and offline channels. 

Say you have a customer who reliably engages with your marketing emails and recently added one of your products to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase. Your CDP can provide you with this information. This results in a tailored email marketing message to the customer about their abandoned cart. You’ll be able to engage with the customer directly through a marketing channel that you know works for them. That kind of tailored marketing channel messaging has much more of an impact than broad, random multichannel efforts. 

Identifying High-Value Customers

Any marketer can tell you that some customers are of higher value than others. More specifically, some customers have a higher customer lifetime value (CLV) than others. CLV is an estimated measure of the total amount of money the customer will spend on a business’s products or services. Many customer data platforms have built-in models that will identify your customers with the highest CLVs so you can adjust your marketing efforts accordingly. 

For example, you may want to create special promotions that you only offer to customers who have a customer lifetime value above a certain figure. This would ensure you’re rewarding your valuable customers and hopefully keeping them loyal to your business. With a customer data platform, creating promotions like that is as simple as sorting through your customer data with a CLV filter. 

Creating Personalized Customer Experiences

The majority of customers today expect businesses to understand their specific needs and offer personalized experiences that fit those needs. Businesses can no longer simply decide on a “one-size-fits-all” approach and hope that it works for many of their customers — they need to be working on personalization. customer data platforms make a new level of personalization possible and manageable for companies. 

Your CDP offers a whole host of insights into each of your customers, from their behaviors to their preferences. You can use this information to create detailed customer segments based on information like customers’ spending levels, preferred product categories, web page visits, and more. The next step is to use these customer segments and create personalized customer experiences that fit each one. You can even take it to the next level and use the information from your CDP to develop personalized marketing efforts on an individual level. 

Better Compliance with Data Privacy Regulations

Though not necessarily specific to marketing, one of the key benefits of using a customer data platform is ensuring better compliance with data privacy regulations. In recent years there have been a variety of new data privacy laws and regulations, most notably the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) of 2018 and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

To avoid hefty fines and losing customers’ trust, companies need to ensure that they comply with these regulations. Since customer data platforms give you more control over your customer data management, they’re incredibly helpful for compliance. Using a CDP will help you meet the current regulations and stay up-to-date with data privacy laws as they evolve. 

Benefits of Personalized Marketing

So it’s clear that customer data platforms can lead to better, more personalized marketing efforts, but why does that matter? Some of the benefits of personalized marketing include:

• Increasing brand loyalty
• Improving the customer experience
• Getting more value for your marketing spend
• Standing out from your competitors
• Achieving higher customer satisfaction

All of these factors feed into the single biggest benefit of using personalized marketing — driving higher revenue. By creating more effective, impactful marketing through personalization, you’re going to see a positive effect on your bottom line. 

Drive Better Marketing Decisions by Applying Big Data

You can leverage big data across your business to make better decisions and be more competitive in your industry. Marketing is one of the key areas where data, specifically customer data, can be incredibly useful. Take advantage of an AI-powered data streaming platform like Live Earth to start reaping the benefits of data analysis. Contact Us to learn more about how customer data can help your organization.