We have all heard the term ‘data-driven marketing’, the catch-all phrase defining a marketing strategy informed by quantifiable metrics. Today, marketers have access to a wide array of marketing technology to support data-driven decision making. However, marketers often make decisions based on a limited view of the consumer journey - one focused solely on online behavior. With 90% of all commerce still taking place in the physical world, it’s important for marketers to understand consumers’ offline behaviors in order to make better business decisions.
Uncover Consumer Insights
The modern-day consumer expects a seamless and personalized experience across all touchpoints. In order to deliver these experiences, marketers need to know who their consumers are. By analyzing real-world behaviors, marketers are able to build a more well-rounded picture of consumers. Offline insights can uncover unique behaviors such as time spent in stores or popular visitation days to specific store locations, by region. These insights can also showcase how seasonal patterns impact dwell time and frequency of visits, ultimately allowing marketers to use the data for the purposes of planning, targeting, attribution, and more. By understanding consumers’ offline behavior, marketers can deliver experiences that are more meaningful and relevant.
Learn Where to Show Up
There are a handful of channels to choose from when executing a marketing campaign. Using physical-world data, marketers can identify where their audiences go in the real world and use that information to inform which channels are right for them. With offline insights, marketers can identify trends that highlight the types of activities consumers engage in prior to - and after - visiting a specific location. Say you own a health and wellness shop and uncover that a large percentage of your visitors come from the gym. You may want to think about activating an OOH campaign surrounding the gyms nearby or an audio ad campaign targeting people who are at the gym listening to Spotify. These decisions are made possible when marketers have a deep understanding of their customers’ visitation patterns.
Make Sense of the Consumer Journey
Capturing a comprehensive view of consumers' path to purchase is complex because there are multiple touchpoints that consumers engage with before making the decision to make a purchase. This is why multi-channel personalization is more important than ever before. Whether it’s scrolling through the mobile app, visiting the website on their laptop, or going to the store at the mall, marketers need to ensure they provide a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints without assuming that those experiences should mirror one another. Knowing if consumers in Florida demonstrate different behaviors than those in Washington can be a powerful indicator when trying to get the right message in front of a particular audience. Understanding these behaviors helps determine which specific audiences are prime candidates to advertise curbside pick-up, mobile app installs, coupons, and more. Consumers expect a personalized experience regardless of the channel they are engaging with and uncovering trends from offline insights helps marketers cater to that.
Drive Operational Efficiencies for Improved Customer Experience
The job of marketers doesn’t end once the consumer becomes a customer. To retain customers and differentiate amongst the competition, marketers must always be looking for new ways to improve the customer experience. For a QSR, knowing there has been an increase in customer dwell times over the last month might indicate that they’re short-staffed or that efficiencies need to be made. Knowing this information before it becomes a problem is key. Offline insights are not only great for attaining new customers, but there are major benefits for retention as well.
See the Full Picture
While today’s use of the term ‘data-driven marketing’ may feel like a buzzword, the power of a data-informed strategy can’t be ignored. Marketers who leverage both online and offline consumer insights will have a more comprehensive view of the entire customer journey, ultimately leading to a better customer experience across all touchpoints.