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John Iwuozor
Guest
Unified data is key to unlocking omnichannel success and keeping up with evolving customer preferences. A flexible, scalable CDP can help.
Customers today expect brands to know them, understand their preferences and engage with them consistently whether they’re browsing the web, opening an email, visiting a store or chatting with customer service. Meeting these expectations requires an omnichannel approach—one that connects touchpoints and orchestrates journeys in a cohesive, customer-centric way.
But omnichannel marketing is easier said than done. One of the biggest challenges organizations face is unifying the vast volumes of customer data scattered across their marketing, sales and service systems. Without a complete, integrated view of the customer, delivering truly seamless cross-channel experiences is nearly impossible.
Why Data Unification Matters
Customers engage with brands across an ever-expanding array of channels and touchpoints. They might first encounter a brand through a social media ad, visit the website to learn more, receive a targeted email offer, purchase via the mobile app, pick up the product in-store and then contact customer service with a question post-purchase.
At each stage of this journey, the customer leaves behind a valuable trail of data (who they are, what they’re interested in and how they prefer to engage). The problem is, this data often ends up trapped in channel-specific silos. The social media team has one view of the customer, the web team another, the email team another and so on. As a result, the customer experience can feel disjointed and impersonal as they move across touchpoints.
Data silos are kryptonite to omnichannel strategies. When data is fragmented, it’s impossible for marketers to see the full picture of the customer journey and understand the context of each interaction. They miss opportunities to connect the dots between touchpoints and craft cohesive cross-channel experiences. Personalization efforts fall flat because they’re based on a partial view of the customer.
Worse, data silos can lead to a fractured, inconsistent brand experience. The customer gets a discount offer via email that isn’t honored in-store. They receive a product recommendation online for something they just bought on the mobile app. They have to repeat their issue every time they’re passed between customer service channels. These disconnected experiences erode brand trust and loyalty.
Unifying customer data breaks down these barriers. By integrating information across touchpoints into a centralized customer profile, brands can gain a true 360-degree view of each individual. This comprehensive understanding is the foundation for delivering the seamless, relevant experiences that customers expect across their journeys.
The Benefits of Unified Data for Omnichannel
Unifying customer data delivers tangible business benefits that directly impact marketing effectiveness and the bottom line. Some of the key advantages include:
1. Improved Customer Experience
With a complete view of the customer, brands can deliver more consistent, relevant and valuable experiences across touchpoints. Research shows 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for great customer experience, and the more channels they use, the more they spend. Unified data helps inform each interaction with the full context of the customer relationship.
2. Improved Marketing ROI
Omnichannel campaigns that leverage unified data consistently outperform single-channel efforts. Targeted omnichannel messaging results in an 18.96% engagement rate, compared to 5.4% on single-channel. By understanding which channels and tactics drive the best results for each customer, marketers can optimize spend and boost overall ROI.
3. Better Segmentation and Targeting
Connecting data across channels provides a richer basis for segmentation. Marketers can identify high-value audiences based on cross-channel behaviors, preferences and propensities, then target them with personalized messaging. Hyper-segmentation is shown to increase revenue by 760%.
4. Enhanced Personalization
True 1:1 personalization requires an integrated understanding of each customer’s unique journey. In fact, 91% of consumers say they’re more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations. Unified data enables brands to tailor experiences to the individual based on their full cross-channel context.
5. Improved Customer Retention
It costs 5X more to attract a new customer than keep an existing one. Unified data helps brands proactively identify and engage at-risk customers before they churn. For example, a drop in login frequency combined with a visit to the cancellation page could trigger a personalized win-back offer via the customer’s preferred channel.
6. Accelerated Product Innovation
Unified customer data is a goldmine for informing product strategy. By analyzing cross-channel customer feedback and behavioral patterns, brands can identify unmet needs and prioritize features that will have the biggest impact.
Breaking Down Data Silos: The Role of Customer Data Platforms
Historically, unifying customer data across systems and channels has been a major technical challenge. Legacy marketing platforms were built for specific functions (CRM, ESP, web analytics, etc.), with little thought to how data would be shared between them.
Stitching together these disparate systems has required complex, time-consuming integrations that are difficult to maintain as channels and data sources evolve.
Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) have emerged as a key solution to this problem. CDPs provide a centralized hub to ingest, unify and activate customer data across all touchpoints in real time. By serving as the connective tissue between systems, they enable brands to finally achieve the elusive single customer view needed for omnichannel success.
With a CDP in place, marketers can finally put unified customer data at the center of their omnichannel programs. Instead of grappling with disconnected systems and silos, they can harness the full power of their data to deliver the right experience to the right customer at the right time.
Strategies for Omnichannel Success
Implementing a CDP is a major milestone on the path to omnichannel excellence, but it’s just the beginning. To fully realize the value of unified data, organizations must also align people, processes and strategies around the customer.
Some key principles to guide your approach:
- Adopt a customer-centric mindset: Omnichannel success starts with putting the customer at the center of everything you do. Think in terms of customer journeys, not channels or campaigns. Align KPIs and incentives around customer metrics like CLV, NPS and retention. Foster a culture of customer obsession across the organization.
- Connect online and offline experiences: Don’t think of digital and physical channels as separate entities. Customers crave seamless experiences that blur the lines between the two. Use unified data to link online behaviors to in-store interactions and vice versa. Empower associates with customer intelligence to deliver personalized service at every touchpoint.
- Embrace real-time personalization: Customers expect brands to engage with them in the moment with relevant, value-added experiences. Use real-time data and AI to deliver high-impact personalization at scale. Anticipate customer needs and automate relevant messaging across channels. Test and optimize relentlessly.
- Orchestrate cohesive journeys: Don’t think about omnichannel as a collection of disparate touchpoints. Focus on designing and orchestrating holistic customer journeys that flow smoothly from one interaction to the next. Use data to understand the key inflection points in the journey and proactively guide customers to their desired outcome.
- Measure and optimize continuously: Omnichannel success requires continuous measurement and optimization. Use unified data to track customer behaviors and outcomes across the entire journey. Identify the moments that matter most and the experiences that drive the biggest impact. Rapidly test and iterate to improve results over time.
Concluding Thoughts
As customer expectations for seamless, hyper-relevant experiences continue to rise, omnichannel excellence has shifted from nice-to-have to must-have. Brands that fail to connect touchpoints and deliver cohesive journeys risk losing relevance and market share in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Unified data is the key to unlocking omnichannel success. By breaking down silos and putting the customer at the center of everything they do, brands can finally orchestrate the personalized, high-impact experiences that drive long-term engagement and loyalty.
But omnichannel excellence is a never-ending journey. Customer preferences and behaviors are constantly evolving, as are the touchpoints through which they engage. Brands must continuously work to adapt their data, insights and experiences to keep pace.
This is where a flexible, scalable CDP can be an invaluable asset. By providing a unified data foundation that can ingest new sources, connect emerging touchpoints, and enable real-time insights and activation, a CDP future-proofs your omnichannel strategy. With the right data capabilities in place, you’ll be well-equipped to meet the needs of today’s customers and tomorrow’s.
So if you haven’t already, now is the time to put data unification at the top of your omnichannel agenda. Your customers will thank you, and your bottom line will too.
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