How to use Customer Data to win the Hearts of Shoppers this Valentine’s Day

Online searches for ‘Valentine’s gifts’ have increased by 200% since 2013. Data like this might be interesting but how useful is it? What’s more interesting is the opportunity lying in your customer data. We discuss how to utilise this customer data and eventually create a single customer view to sweep your customers off their feet this Valentine’s Day.

Online searches for ‘Valentine’s gifts’ have increased by 200% since 2013. Data like this might be interesting but how useful is it? What’s more interesting is the opportunity lying in your customer data. We discuss how to utilise this customer data and eventually create a single customer view to sweep your customers off their feet this Valentine’s Day.

Using Data to Target Promotions More Intelligently

Mobile promotions are becoming more popular and account for location, store interaction and buying habits. Which of these is more useful – receiving an email for ‘25% off premium chocolates’ while you’re at work, or receiving a push notification for ‘25% off premium chocolates when you buy in-store today’ as you’re walking through the shopping centre?

While using data to serve a customer an offer based on a previous purchase is useful, what’s more intelligent is contextual data. Digital promotions platforms leverage the power of mobile location data to serve shoppers tailored offers as they interact with your business. Through analysis of collected data, you can also use digital messaging software to serve shoppers offers and coupons based on a previous Valentine’s purchase – such as 25% off caramel truffles, specifically.

Segmenting customer data to offer personalised promotions

Today’s technology allows you to target customers at a micro level by segmenting data in the following ways:

Behavioural data: Related to how a customer interacts with your business, when and how often they shop, which locations they shop at, and how receptive they are to promotions.

Look to reward your most active customers with ‘thanks for being VIP’ messaging. Consider creating a tiered loyalty program to send more valuable rewards to your most valuable customers. Research from eMarketer found that, aside from free products and discounts, customers want elevated status, exclusive access to sales, and higher service out of a loyalty program.

Transactional data: Covers purchase history, frequency, average order values and types of products purchased.

You’re likely to end up with a segment of customers that haven’t shopped with you in a considerable time. Why not send them a Valentine’s ‘we miss you’ message via their preferred communication channel teamed with an incentive to win back their affections?

Demographic data:
Depending on how much data you have, drilling down into your customer’s occupation, marital status and hobbies can inform relevant offers. Transactional data can also allow you to make intelligent assumptions, for example frequent purchases of baby food can indicate that the shopper is a parent with young children.

Creating a Single Customer View with Eagle Eye

Less about singleton customers than the name suggests, a single customer view is essentially holistic marketing. As we discussed in our 2017 Loyalty Trends and Predictions post, there’s a trend towards data-guided decisions based on a single view of online and offline activity across multiple channels.

A single customer view is using data to paint a full picture of your customers in order to track and recognise individuals as they interact with your business across multiple touchpoints. The obvious benefits include vastly improved customer service, greater customer retention and loyalty, and increased revenue.

Using a single customer view this Valentine’s Day is all about sharing the (data) love. With our digital promotions platform your data is delivered in real-time to external systems, such as your CRM, to unify data from every channel to make a data match made in heaven. From here you can go beyond customer segmentation to communicate hyper relevant messages to individual customers.

Imagine a customer purchased a gift voucher from you around Valentine’s Day last year. A single customer view will indicate interactions this customer has had with your business ever since, in-store and online, to allow hyper-relevant and contextual marketing. The same customer abandoned their basket a few months ago? No problem, remind them of the products they expressed interest in and make a romantic gesture to win back their affections in time for Valentine’s Day.

Want to find out more about creating a single customer view? Discover Eagle Eye Promote.