Today’s reality
The way we live and work is not the same as it was three years ago. More individuals are working remote or have hybrid working arrangements, big box stores have shifted to e-commerce only, and even the way we do business has changed. We have to evolve the ways we reach our audience.
Our professional and personal lives have never been more intertwined. Even as we’ve moved out of the pandemic, its effect has shown to shift individuals’ mindsets of what the future of work looks like. According to a Gartner study, 55% of employees say that whether or not they can work, flexibility will impact if they will stay at their jobs. That’s a big deal. The world has shifted, and it will continue to shift so it’s important to stay ahead before it’s too late.
Historically, when trying to engage or better understand their customer, marketers and business professionals were forced to choose – business or personal contact information. Am I able to leverage where they work, their business email and title, or their personal email and home address?
Today, marketers and business professionals require new data sets and approaches that can enable them to connect and understand people as they fluidly slip between their professional and personal personas. For example, Lily is a mom of two and is also the CMO of a major retail organization. Catching her to think about a new SUV isn’t necessarily considered unwinding from the day. She might be prepping for a big meeting the next day after she puts her kids down for bedtime. Either way, understanding the mindset of Lily in the moment can make or break the customer journey.
On the other hand, let’s meet Kam. Kam is a small business owner that wants to lease a new building for his bakery. As he approaches insurance organizations for a quote to protect his business, he fills in his information on an online form using his personal name, email, address, and phone number. Insurance underwriters are going to want to understand who Kam is but also more about his bakery – like how many people will be working there, what the shop’s operating hours will be across the week, etc. Having a full view of Kam and his bakery is critical for the insurance underwriters to determine accurate measures of risk.
So, how can you address these challenges in today’s blended work-life reality? How can you leverage a unique blend of business and consumer information? The answer is B2C Link. Data Axle’s B2C Link can offer a unique view into individuals and businesses from multiple angles and perspectives. You can segment audiences based on both firmographic and demographic characteristics. This means you can see whether individuals are managers, C-level execs, or own their own business – all while analyzing their family structure, lifestyle, and interests. There are 1.8 million profiles for small business owners alone.1 You can also see whether those small business decision-makers have kids, volunteer, and spend their free time hiking or traveling. When you have access to business and consumer data in a single view, you can target those small business owners and offer them products and services tailored to their specific interests. You can also use the data to create a compelling experience, determine risk or fraud, or make better decisions based on more information on the business or individual themself.
Quality data is a no-brainer for successful marketing initiatives but should also be considered for matching and identity resolution. Let’s say a financial services institution wants to identify customers who have a personal account and own a small business. Reports show that 60% of consumers prefer banking bundles, where they opt to sign onto additional lines of credit through their primary bank when it’s offered.2 Financial institutions can initiate campaigns down to customers who have personal accounts and own a small business as ideal candidates to expand business ventures, perhaps through equipment leasing and business lines of credit. As they narrow scope down further, they can identify small business owners with children and present low-risk opportunities to provide for their children’s futures. Their messaging will be more specific and nuanced to reflect their customer’s real life. Then, the financial institution can develop a multichannel approach to target these individuals through postal, email, and digital channels to create multiple touchpoints.
An internet provider may want to find business owners who work from home. When they have their audience segmented and these identities linked, the internet provider can show their customers ads for more robust internet speeds and packages that the business owner may need for their work. If they can find the business owner at the gym or at the coffee shop, then they can retarget that business owner on social media, and hone their message to one that fits the business owner’s needs. Again, it’s about personalizing your outreach.
Data allows you to create experiences, expand your reach, increase product penetration, and target more effectively. Personalizing and enhancing the customer’s experience continues to rule as a primary strategy for success. 50 % of customers would pay more for a better experience.3
For instance, Data Axle found out that managers are more likely to play fantasy sports than C-level execs and small business owners. With this insight, you might be able to create a ‘team-bonding’ system so that the manager’s department can band together in a way that used to happen around the water cooler, and now can happen virtually. Not everyone in the office will want to invest money in fantasy sports, and no one wants intense rivalries over a team bonding activity, so your product needs to be a little different than for a group of lifelong friends.
When you have a full 360 degree view of your customer, you can more precisely find managers at home and on their personal devices when they’re engaging in fantasy sports. Then you can connect with them about products and services their team needs to function smoothly. Data Axle’s B2C link contains persistent identifiers to link these relevant business and individual records. These allow us to manage data feeds, merge firmographics, match with third party providers and gather even more insights, all so you can understand your customer better. You can send better offers or offer products that fit a niche you didn’t know was there.
When you understand your target audience, you can analyze their behavior, their needs, and the ways in which they’ll use your products. When it comes time for your company to plan five or ten years down the line, comprehensive data on your customer base now is essential.
Because remote work is more possible than ever, customers can plan for everything from month to year long vacation and still maintain their workload.4 Hotels are already starting to invest in long-term stay infrastructures, where remote workers can find themselves traveling to work-and-play travel destinations. Travel companies are taking advantage of this as well, jumping to set up specific packages that cater to remote workers. Not everyone can take their work with them or leave their home so easily, so mapping B2C Link with the standalone B2B database will help you strategize and plan for niche audiences. When you are trying to figure out what your company will look like next year or in ten years, understanding your customer’s whole life is invaluable.
It’s no secret that our world is constantly evolving, and as the last few years have proved, change can happen fast. Just as fast as those changes are happening, so is the data you are leveraging. Now more than ever, it’s important to leverage a data provider who is staying on-top of the ever changing business and consumer landscape or you’ll be left behind.
When you have a trustworthy and diverse dataset as your foundation, you can shape new connections and stay at the forefront of impactful business decisions. Our personal and professional lives are not siloed the way they used to be, which means the pursuit of leveraging data can’t be either. Data Axle’s B2C Link provides an opportunity to identify and analyze critical audiences for sending hyper-targeted outreach, making decisions faster, assessing risk, and creating unique experiences with more confidence than ever before.
1 https://www.data-axle.com/resource/vanishing-work-home-divide/?download=true&id=5d7fab94-6aad-4c15-8b7c-4b242fdfdfda 2 https://www.pymnts.com/news/banking/2022/45-of-us-consumers-want-banking-bundles/ 3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2022/04/24/fifty-eight-percent-of-customers-will-pay-more-for-better-customer-service/?sh=67ccdb2513f1 4 https://www.remoteyear.com/
Jennifer Bova is an experienced sales and account management professional. Jennifer’s expertise guides Data Axle clients to achieve new heights of success through strategic data application. She has a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Administration and Marketing from Doane University and is working towards her MBA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.