Data key to tailored messaging

Good marketing planning is a never-ending cycle that doesn’t depend solely on the calendar or on your various channels. Instead, it focuses on customer needs and preferences. The key to this, says Louise Robinson, Sales Director of CG Consulting, is data.

“Getting in step with the customer’s heartbeat will help you stay on track. In doing so, you’ll leave behind planning that has a bogus foundation—one built on specific channels. Considering the popularity of digital and social media platforms, it can be tempting to become a slave to certain channels. But that can be dangerous because it shifts attention away from how customers regard those channels and how they prefer to get their information,” she points out. “It’s like happily arriving at the door with a plate of peanut butter cookies—when the person you’ve been dating has already mentioned eating nuts could kill him. Doing it right—bringing nut-free brownies instead, or starting out with good data—is just the start of engaging with prospects.”

A big challenge for marketers and advertisers, and one that’s become a must in the age of algorithms, is how to engage with customers. In being too channel-driven, many run the risk of missing the nuance of what customers want. For example, they might use one channel, such as e-mail, for awareness; another, such as search, for consideration, and yet another, such as a landing page, for purchase. It is therefore essential to plan for these interactions, and then manage the channels.
The first step, therefore, is research, research and more research. “Gaining a complete understanding of the target customer is the only way to turn your marketing in a customer-centric direction. Good research provides predictive insights into your customers and prospective customers, allowing you to map out customers’ needs, points of pain, emotional and rational drivers, and channel utilisation habits,” Robinson says. “However, good research rests on good data, so obtaining the correct data is essential to obtaining solid research results.”

In fact, she points out that all marketing rests on using good data wisely. Whether it’s an ad campaign targeting specific customers, an event requiring the right delegates, or the right mailing list for promotional materials, an effective, clean database providing qualified leads is essential to the success of any marketing campaign. “It’s about adding insight, not just data, so you can contact customers on their terms.”

Purchasing clean, qualified data from a specialist service provider like CG Consulting is the simplest way to embark on this route. In addition to providing tailored databases for all business-to-business marketing initiatives, the company also provides customer satisfaction surveys as well as research services. CG Consulting’s years of telemarketing and database profiling have resulted in the compilation of the most accurate, up-to-date, and targeted databases available, including details for thousands of small, medium and large organisations across all industries and verticals in South Africa and across the African continent.

So ask yourself: can you afford not to buy the right data for your next campaign?