9+ Ways To Uncover Valuable Customer Data

Uncovering valuable customer data is truly a marketer’s treasure trove.

However, the volume of customer data being generated now is unprecedented, and its potential impact on business is staggering.

Therefore, to leverage it effectively, marketers need to shift their mindset and start viewing customer data not merely as a byproduct of online interactions, but as an indispensable business asset.

Let’s go on a journey to uncover the invaluable treasure trove of customer data.

Recognizing The Value Of Customer Data

To start, daily transactions, interactions, and digital footprints are creating an ocean of data about our customers.

This data contains the potential to deliver an outstanding customer experience, but it also holds the power to shape and transform your marketing strategies. No matter where you stand with data maturity, you’re sitting on a wealth of invaluable customer data assets waiting to be found.

Next, let’s look at potential data gold mines that might be right under your nose.

Where To Mine For Data

1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: This is your first stop on the data treasure hunt. Your CRM houses rich, insightful information about your customers, from their contact information to their purchase history, preferences, and engagement patterns.

2. Social Media Platforms: Beyond likes and shares, social media platforms can offer in-depth insights about your audience’s interests and behaviors. Helpful Hint: Create content that garners conversations and voice of customer data. Our free course can help!

3. Social Listening Tools: These tools use natural language processing (NLP) to scan conversations and trends related to your brand. These include conversations relevant to your company, competitors, and your industry, as well as sentiment analysis. I’ve provided an example of sentiment below.

4. Website Analytics: Your website isn’t just your digital storefront, it’s also a data goldmine. Analytics can reveal critical data about customer behavior, traffic sources, user engagement, bounce rates, and conversion rates.

5. Email Marketing Platforms: The data from your email campaigns—open rates, click-through rates, conversions, etc.—can provide a wealth of information about your customers’ preferences.

6. Customer Support Tools: Don’t overlook this one! Customer queries, complaints, feedback, and response rates can offer priceless insights about customer pain points, needs, and expectations.

7. Sales Data: Transactional data can provide vital insights into buying patterns, popular products, seasonal trends, and customer lifetime value (CLV).

8. Survey Responses: Above all, direct feedback from your customers is as good as it gets. Survey data can help you understand your customers’ needs, preferences, and potential areas of improvement.

9. Third-Party Data Providers: Finally, third-party data can supplement your internal data, helping you fill in the gaps and providing broader market and industry insights.

Remember, the goal here isn’t to amass more data. It’s to transform the data you have into actionable insights.

Seek Understanding, Not Just Data

Your first step is to understand that data alone isn’t the answer. Instead, it’s the knowledge that comes from studying and simplifying your data that holds the key. I like to call this ‘informed understanding.’ Which is really just to say you’re using your data to tell a story.

First, identify the key data points that could provide insight into your customers’ behaviors, preferences, and needs. Then, once you have a clear idea of what you’re looking for, it’s time to dig into the data. [If you need help with this we highly recommend the Data Science 101 for Marketers Workshop by our friends at Trust Insights.]

Finally, your goal is to transform data from raw numbers into actionable insights.

For example, taking the below chart ...

…and turning it into this:

Aim to show versus tell.

After all, your customer data isn’t just a collection of numbers; it’s the compass that points the way to improved customer experiences. And, ultimately, business growth.

Storytelling With Data

Picture this: Instead of presenting a spreadsheet filled with numbers and stats, you weave a story that brings your customer to life.

For example, let’s take ‘Jane,’ a customer whose data we’ve gathered from multiple touchpoints. Jane is a busy mom who enjoys healthy cooking, and our data shows that she visits our site mostly in the evenings, browsing healthy recipes and often purchasing eco-friendly kitchen gadgets.

We notice that Jane responded positively to our recent email campaign, which featured a discount on her frequently purchased items and, after adding those items to her cart, she also bought a new salad spinner that was suggested by our AI-driven recommendation system.

Therefore, instead of presenting this data as disjointed numbers, you should transform it into a narrative.

• First, you tell the story of how your marketing efforts are not just driving sales, but are making Jane’s life easier, saving her time and supporting her in her healthy, eco-conscious lifestyle.
• Second you highlight how your data-driven approach is helping the company cater to Jane’s specific needs. Thus, building a strong relationship, and turning a routine shopping experience into a personalized journey that keeps Jane coming back.
• Last, ensure you make the data human. By doing this, you make it relatable, understandable, and most importantly, actionable for everyone in the organization.

In essence, customer data can function as an intricate map, guiding us toward the hidden treasure. But, instead of jewels you should be seeking pearls of wisdom and an intimate understanding of your customers.

This is what enables the best brands to deliver unparalleled personalized experiences.

Deepening Customer Relationships Through Data

At its heart, marketing is about building relationships. The secret to nurturing these relationships lies in understanding your customers’ needs and delivering value accordingly. This is where the power of customer data comes in.

Likewise, it’s what fuels customer experience management .

Personalization is a perfect example of this. With the insights gleaned from your customer data, you can deliver personalized messages, offers, and experiences that resonate with your customers.

For example, here’s a video from Google on how their AI-recommendation tool works.

By focusing on personalization, you’re not only meeting customer needs but also exceeding their expectations.

Use personalization to continue fostering loyalty and deepening your relationship with customers. (And as a way to combat customer churn !)

A Look At Hyper-Personalization

Imagine this scenario: As the marketing lead for an e-commerce bookstore, you notice a recurring pattern in your customer data.

A customer, let’s call him Tom, consistently orders mystery novels from your store. Using this insight, you take a tailored approach.

The next time a popular mystery novel arrives in your store, you send Tom a personalized email, offering him a pre-order discount. Additionally, you tweak his homepage experience to prominently feature new arrivals or best sellers in the mystery genre.

This is not a shot in the dark. It’s a well-crafted, data-driven strategy.

Tom not only appreciates these personalized recommendations, he also increases his purchase frequency and becomes a loyal customer. All of which is fueled by the power of insights gleaned from customer data.

Most of all, focus on delivering personalized experiences that truly resonate with your customers.

The Power of Predictive Analytics

Certainly, the future of marketing lies in predictive analytics. By harnessing the power of AI and machine learning, predictive analytics can help marketers uncover trends, make forecasts, and even predict future customer behavior based on historical data.

Think of predictive analytics as your personal crystal ball. It cleverly harnesses the power of past data, picking up on essential patterns and trends, and uses these insights to map out possible future scenarios.

In essence, it takes your historical customer data and builds a mathematical blueprint. This blueprint isn’t just a reflection of the past—it’s a guidebook to the future.

By applying this model to your present data, it doesn’t merely speculate about what’s coming next; it recommends decisive actions that can steer your business towards the most favorable outcomes.

Predictive Outcomes Worth Exploring

• Pricing: Predictive analytics can help you pick pricing for your products. While choosing which price performs best, predictive analytics will show you if users are abandoning their shopping carts at a higher price. Or it may learn that by sending a follow-up email with a discount offer, abandoned carts are recovered.
• Cross-sell and upsell: Based on past customer data, an algorithm may alert you that gamers who buy a game in the first thirty days it’s released tend to buy custom skins, in-game costumes, or controllers. You may use this information to create custom items for this set of customers.
• Marketing campaigns: By using predictive analytics, you might see that people who arrive on a landing page from LinkedIn are more likely to download your white paper than those who come from Twitter. As a result, you might take that information and decide to invest more of your social media budget on LinkedIn.

Above all, predictive analytics can be invaluable in identifying opportunities and risks. And in enabling marketers to adapt their strategies proactively.

Data Privacy: A Non-Negotiable Responsibility

Finally, as we explore the vast ocean of customer data, we must remember our responsibility to safeguard our customers’ privacy. Data privacy is not only a legal obligation but also a crucial aspect of building trust with your customers.

Respecting privacy involves obtaining consent, using data ethically, and maintaining transparency about how you collect and use customer data.

Ensure you…

1. Have Data Awareness: Be crystal clear about the kind of data you’re gathering. Understanding is the first step to managing.
2. Adopt a ‘Less is More’ Approach: Only collect the data that’s crucial to your business needs.
3. Establish Clear Data Usage & Privacy Policies: Trust is built on transparency. Create and publicize an easy-to-understand policy that outlines how you use and protect your customer data.
4. Safeguard Sensitive Data with Encryption: Treat your customer data like a treasure chest that needs a sturdy lock. Ensure all sensitive user data is encrypted for an added layer of protection.
5. Are a Phishing Guardian: Protect your business from digital pirates. Stay vigilant against phishing scams and educate your team about the warning signs.
6. Stay Up-to-Date: Keep your software as current as your marketing strategies. Regular software updates are a non-negotiable element of data security.
7. Embrace Multi-factor Authentication: It’s like an extra security guard at the entrance of your data fortress. Implementing multi-factor authentication can significantly bolster your defenses.

Remember, the safety of your business and customer data is not a checkbox task. It’s an ongoing commitment; a promise to your customers that their trust in you is well-placed.

Incorporating strong privacy practices into your data strategy is an absolute necessity.

Who’s Ready To Hunt For Treasure?!

Uncovering valuable customer data is a thrilling adventure that, when navigated strategically, can lead to the hidden treasure of unparalleled customer understanding and deep, lasting relationships.

By leveraging the right tools, strategies, and ethical practices, you can harness the full potential of customer data. Similarly, this data will enable you to deliver exceptional experiences!

In sum, embrace the opportunity to explore, uncover, and utilize the potential that lies within your customer data.

Howdy! ??? I'm happy you're here. I mostly write about customer experience -- including acquiring & retaining customers -- through social media. ?? To see more posts like this, be sure to follow me here on LinkedIn or subscribe to our quarterly newsletter, From Lost to Loyal: How to Make It Right When CX Goes Wrong (same name, more in-depth content!).