Nowadays, customers are expecting that their brand experience be frictionless across touchpoints. And let’s be honest, knowing that customer’s data is typically spread across a myriad of platforms, that is probably the nightmare of any marketer. Here is where a Customer Data Platform, otherwise called a CDP (read the basics), comes into play.  

Actioning upon your CDP is definitely a long-term project, closely tied to the overarching roadmap of your organisation. While there are many strategies that your CDP will help support, there are some ‘low-hanging-fruits’ you can rapidly implement to be data-centric and drive return. We selected three easy-win strategies for you.

Know your customers

In the first phase of standing up your CDP, you will start seeing all your customer’s data come together. That unified customer profile becomes your Holy Grail for the months to come.  

“But I knew my consumers before!” Yes, you did, in a siloed way. Let’s pretend you are a women clothing company. In a pre-CDP world, you knew how your audience reacted to your New Arrival campaign on Facebook. That they visited your site and spent more time on the Sales pages. Or maybe what collection sold the most in-store. But none of this was synced together. What you did not know is that she – not them, she – first saw an ad on Facebook; signed up for your newsletter, which drove her to visit your site – looking in depth into the Sales section; came back again, this time to look at the New Collection; and finally ended up buying something from your New Arrivals in store and has been buying from you ever since.  

A CDP helps you tie all the dots together to gain a 360 view of your customers and their touchpoints with your brand. Those insight allows you to get a holistic understanding of your customers and inform how to be more efficient at talking to them, while staying in their trust circle.  

Automate and Personalised

Another easy win is to automate that little push in the back some customers need to take action.  

Automation has two folds here – transactional and marketing emails.  

At first, all transactional email triggers can be automated from or by your CDP. Remember you are still a women clothing company. All your order confirmation or receipt emails can be directly set up as triggers, instructed from your CDP, and pushed out in real-time.  

• Confirming her email after she signs up for your newsletter 
• Sending an order confirmation right after processing it 
• Giving a shipping update on an online order  
• Sharing the in-store receipt directly after purchase 

Those little tricks will allow you to tap into the moment to drive incremental brand love and build trust.  

On the other end, marketing emails too can be automated to inspire, remind or up-sell your customers.   

Inspire	She has a propensity to buy certain pieces of clothing from your new collection based on her prior purchase behaviour		Target her with customized offers featuring those items to encourage the purchase
Remind	She started the checkout process but ended up leaving the site without buying		Remind her to continue the process, with some additional incentives based on her behavior and or offer she has the propensity to reach to
Up-sell	She just bought a white skirt in store. From other customers and advanced AI, you know this skirt is typically bought in combination with a blue shirt.		Send her tailored recommendations to fit her recent purchase with the goal of increasing her basket size

Control their experience

With a unified view on your customer, you have no more excuse to ensure their experience is controlled for across all touchpoints.  

Let’s go back to our pre-CDP world. When she bought that skirt online, you may have assumed she would be more likely to buy similar clothes in the future. This resulting in sending her related offers via email or social media. What you did not know, is that she returned the skirt in store immediately after buying it. But yet, you continued sending her emails with similar style – a style she is not attracted by.  

Another example is that you have been retargeting her with cart abandonment messaging, while she did buy the item in store a few days after visiting your website.  

Having a holistic view on all touchpoints, from marketing to sales to customer services, in one place can prevent you from making those simple mistakes. This lets you, not only be more efficient, but also build a robust relationship with your customers by showing them you know and care about them.

In Conclusion?

There are many more you can do with your CDP but at first, adopting those “low hanging fruits” strategies will drive your organisation to be much more customer-centric and quickly see the return on investment on your new tool.  

• Gain more insights into who your customers are and how-to best approach them 
• Offer them personalised and real-time communication, taking into account their purchase behaviour but also what customers who look like them liked 
• Talk to them with not only digital marketing engagement in mind but also in-store sales, customer services and other brand interactions 

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