What harnessing first-party data looks like in marketing
With the growing movement away from third-party identifying data, a sound primary data strategy is critical for organizations to adopt.
There is tremendous power in harnessing primary data, as this data is unique to your business, data that you direct, collect and own.
Unfortunately, despite significant benefits, most organizations are not yet harnessing the power of first-party data at all, and certainly not to its full potential.
This article will cover the best sources of primary data that you may not have thought of, how to obtain and manage this data, and how to put this data to work to improve your customer’s experience and grow your business.
Primary data is collected from your customers and prospects through their interactions with your business. Examples include data shared by customers through your Web sites, applications, landing pages, lead response forms and in response to the communications that you send out, such as marketing initiatives through email, events and webinars.
This data is so much better because it comes from your direct relationship with your customers, which helps build familiarity and create authentic conversations.
Before your organization begins collecting data, you should set a clear strategy that will establish which data should be collected in the first place.
Your overarching business strategy must drive your approach, be rooted in the customer experience, and need to distinguish between necessary and discretionary data.
For example, one of your business goals may be to acquire new customers by pulling them into a thought leadership funnel.
To push toward this goal, you create a strong content plan complete with webinars and demonstrations, all designed to attract new customers seeking solutions.
You would use this as your focused primary data source as you would use this program to provide personalized content, target high-priority customer segments, and create forums for knowledge creation.
This will all create rich data points for your organization and increase engagement with your organization’s products and services.
Your primary data collection plan should be constructed with measurable objectives to guide which data will achieve your business objective, where your organization should invest in harvesting this data, and how these points of intersection may impact the customer experience.
There are costs to data acquisition, which need to be factored in, including risking the customer experience, data privacy compliance, data governance and security, and impact on the perception of your organization.
When weighted with your objectives, these costs can help prioritize your data collection efforts.
Consumers want to understand how their data will be used and why it is being requested.
