Home > Blog > Tips > Unifying the Customer Journey: the key to data-driven growth
Data is at the heart of the challenges of future business growth. It is a fact. Moreover, the results of the business CRM strategies barometer [1] show that 67% of companies already have a single customer database. Why? Because the structure of the customer repository is a key element of a strategy oriented towards the consumer, and not only towards the product.
Nevertheless, if a clean CRM base is a great starting point for your marketing stack, tomorrow’s data-driven business needs to go further. Go further to be able to manage some particularities of the customer journey, such as the multiplication of communication channels and devices.
Multiple paths for a single Customer Journey
From social networks (from Facebook to Snapchat) to price comparators, including Search, companies have seen their opportunities to communicate with consumers grow. But it’s not just about implementing multichannel marketing, it’s about being able to offer a coherent and homogeneous experience to the client through the different media at his disposal.
Because yes, the number of devices per consumer has, in parallel, stopped increasing. According to The State of Consumers and Technology: Benchmark 2016, US [2], the average US consumer used at least 4 connected devices. Every consumer has his habits with the brand. A common story that is built over time in many environments. Here is an example of a story with Guillaume:
Guillaume woke up this morning realizing that his brother’s birthday was coming very quickly. As usual, he takes the time to do a quick check of his emails before getting up. Awesome timing, he finds a promotional offer on the “Sneakers” of a specialized retailer. He clicks on the link, begins his visit. Undecided, he is late. On the way to work, he will navigate the app looking for the perfect pair. Arrived at his post, he will type the mark on Google and click on the first link that will appear: the sponsored link of the website. He will complete his quest and finalize his purchase.
To reach the end of a single purchase, the consumer’s history with the brand will have been built on several channels and devices.
The challenge of a data-driven growth? Move to a people-based approach.
The first challenge of a data-driven growth is the unification of the Customer Journey. Meaning: to be able to identify and connect all the events of the customer journey.
The identification will have to take into account the impressions actually seen by the consumer on his desktop as the retention indicators after the download of the mobile application.
The reunification will have to propose long-term methods of merging the online, ON / OFF and cross-device marketing journeys, as well as their maintenance!
Reunify but also activate
For the unified Customer Journey to serve the data-driven growth, it must be activated. This data can be made available to marketing teams to optimize media campaigns on all online channels: Search, display, affiliation, retargeting. And, why not, on the offline media history like TV or display (DOOH).
All of this is obviously to activate your campaign in the right place, at the right time and to the right person. This provision of Customer Journeys will allow you, marketers, to customize the relationship throughout the customer journey and therefore optimize both conversion rates at each step, accelerate the purchase process and to fuel growth.
You can, for example, change the aggressivity of the promotional message according to the consumer’s progress in his search for travel. Once you have booked your stay, you may be able to increase the price of the average cart by offering complementary products (i.e. excursion).
This data can also be pushed towards the Datascience teams. By having unified Customer Journeys, they will be able to create patterns between media paths or define scoring linked to customer knowledge. This data, enriched, can then be made available to marketing teams. The link will be made between these two worlds that definitely need to get closer.
Here’s how the unified and activated Customer Journey will help you grow your business through a powerful people-based approach.
[1] UDA et Mediapost Publicité, 2017
[2] Forrester, 2016
