Each platform has its own job-to-be-done

An ERP is fine for capturing order and customer information, but for Sales it contains too little data and interaction capabilities. A CRM, on the other hand, is fine for tracking Sales leads, but again limited for Marketing in campaign management and data that can identify new leads. An email tool delivers perfect emails, but is again limited in data and segmentation capabilities and of course only focused on one or a few channels. So how do you select the data and campaign platform that delivers the most ROI and efficiency to your organization?

The 4 essential goals for data-driven marketing

Organizing your customer data consists of the processes below. The last two determine how the first two should be handled. Not the other way around. In many organizations, they are picked up one after the other as IT projects. The result is business frustration, a lot of discussion and a lot of project management. Therefore, always organize these 4 processes together and make sure that each process is flexible. Preferably separate from your operational processes, so that changes can be implemented quickly for a better customer approach and experience:

• Data collection: every platform collects customer data. Personal data, market data, product and order data, behavioral and response data. It is essential to be able to merge all these data collections together for data-driven marketing purposes.

• Data integration: for integration with other customer data and automation, sources can be accessed in multiple ways. The right data linkage and the ability to flexibly model and manipulate customer data are key criteria for marketing.

• Data intelligence: the better you can segment, combine and transform customer data into 1-to-1 communication with well-timed, personalized content, the higher the ROI and efficiency.

• Data activation: being able to communicate and personalize in multiple channels in real-time is the proof-of-the-pudding. Everything in between -limited tools, intermediate links, AND competing (internal) interests- muddies the outcome.

What can platforms do with customer data?

In the table below we compare capabilities of different customer data platforms: Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Email Service Provider (ESP), Customer Data Platform (CDP). Marketing Automation (MA), and Customer Data Experience Platform, like Ternair a combined MA + CDP.

What can you do with it? What does it provide?

• Order/Customer History - the complete order history allows for well-segmented retention, cross and upsell campaigns

• Contact/Touchpoint History - ensures that you are using all customer signals, from customer service, shop, the website and emails

• Lead Management - recognizes and activates potential customers at the right time, based on interest

• Data Mapping - makes data sources available, without having to import data into the system/platform

• Single Customer View - creates a central customer view by bringing all data together into golden records

• Segmentation - selects -without technical knowledge- customer data from all available sources

• Data Transformation - user edits data for own market segments with no impact on operational processes

• Customer Value Calculation - takes into account customer type and return per customer (CLV)

• Omnichannel Activation - aligns content for each channel from a single platform

• Delivery - delivers without intermediaries securely, secure and direct communication to clients, in high volumes

• Automation - automates the execution of recurring campaigns based on schedules and triggers in the data