In today’s data-driven world, making informed marketing decisions based on your customer’s behavior is essential to create a viable product. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) offer a powerful solution that allows your team to collect, integrate, and analyze customer data from various sources. And there are plenty of sources.
Customer data can live everywhere and anywhere, especially if you’re a legacy financial enterprise. But not all of it is relevant to your business goals. Without a CDP, guesswork becomes the basis for all your decision-making, and the customer will feel it by way of a disjointed customer experience.And you already know that an inconsistent CX is bad for business.
On the other hand, an effective data strategy amalgamates all relevant data sources into your CDP, creating a single view of customer (SVOC). With a single view, marketing teams can make more informed choices in their marketing strategies, as well as more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns.
Even if we don’t necessarily need to convince you about the value of CDPs, you may still be curious as to how to build one that’s beneficial to your marketing strategy. Here we’ll explore the key features of the most valuable CDPs for any data-driven marketing strategy.
Key features of an effective CDP in financial services
Your CDP is measured by its data integration capabilities, scalability, and security. Here are the ways you achieve all three.
1. Single View of the Customer (SVOC)
An SVOC is a critical feature in implementing a CDP. Most likely, you have multiple entry points into the customer journey. And you need to know all of them to understand the end-to-end experience and eliminate redundancies and inconsistencies.
For example, customers shouldn’t have to enter their information repeatedly when using different platforms or devices. Their data stored in your Salesforce platform should communicate with your other data systems. This way, your customer can experience your financial product with as little friction as possible.
Other discrepancies that can rub your customer the wrong way? Inconsistent pricing, promotions, or product information from channel to channel. If your customer receives inconsistent messaging, or the product experience isn’t as it was promised in the marketing funnel, those frustrations can ebb away at your customer’s confidence in your product.
Your SVOC does more than improve your CX — it builds trust and brand loyalty
Without a single view, you’re not just gambling with your customer’s confidence, you’re risking your brand’s reputation. As any successful fintech will tell you, customer trust is the backbone of a successful product. Multiple data platforms without an SVOC can result in inconsistencies in the customer experience, and those inconsistencies build up. Basically, if a customer experience is frustrating, customers will question the efficacy of the product — not to mention its safety.
And that’s a legitimate concern. If your customers’ data is housed in multiple places, it creates more opportunities for security breaches. Conducting a data audit is the first step toward building an SVOC and building customer trust. If the customer journey is seamless, they’re more likely to become loyal users.
2. Personalization
CDPs allow businesses to personalize customer experiences based on their profiles, preferences, and behavior. For example, you can create a personalized promotional code in a CDP for visitors that check out a product multiple times. A personalized promotion demonstrates that you know your customer and can fulfill their needs at every stage of the journey.
3. A/B Testing
A/B testing capabilities allow businesses to harness data for informed decision-making with targeted experiments that yield measurable results. Instead of shooting in the dark to figure out which strategies have the most impact, you can test strategies against each other. That way, you can confidently invest resources in initiatives that have proven successful. Rooting your strategy in data is the best way to know which marketing efforts will produce the most ROI.
4. Segmentation
CDPs allow for targeted marketing campaigns and tailored content that resonates with specific customer segments. These segments are based on specific criteria, such as location, demographics, or preferences. You can create tailored products, offers, and experiences that are tailored to each individual group.
Challenges of adopting CDPs
Implementing CDPs can be overwhelming, but it can be done through a systematic approach. First, consolidate your business objectives and identify all potential data sources that can help meet those objectives. Not all data is valuable, so identifying the sources that are most relevant to your company’s goals is crucial. Establishing effective processes for data collection, storage, and analysis is also important.
And don’t forget your customer’s goals. Analyzing user needs and target audiences helps pinpoint gaps in data collection and how to fill them. For example, you may want to track specific user journeys or flag particular conversions to extract the most valuable insights. These insights can help you shape the most valuable products for your customers.
Securing proprietary data
Adding to the complexity of building a CDP are security concerns. Meeting regulatory requirements is nothing new in the financial services industry. Still, companies are particularly skittish about data privacy and integrating new tech features these days — and understandably so. Open source data platforms don’t always protect proprietary information.
Find an expert in O3
Identifying a tech team to help with CDP implementation for financial services isn’t easy. There’s usually a knowledge gap to contend with when you deconstruct a siloed data architecture. Few people are familiar with the complexities of finding the right-fit CDP.
O3 has stepped up to bridge the gap in CDP knowledge and assist organizations in realizing their full marketing potential. Curious how your marketing strategy might structure its own CDP? Reach out to us.