Personalized email is the top CX strategy — at least for advanced brands, according The Future of Personalization in B2C Marketing, a study by Acxiom, sponsored by
Sitecore.
Of the advanced B2C companies polled, 58% say personalized emails are a strategy for offering a more personal customer experience. In contrast, 45% of improvers and 38%
of late adopters say the same.
Advanced firms are also delivering personalized web experiences (57%), sending relevant product recommendations (57%) and offering
personalized product discounts (54%).
What defines advanced companies? The 49% that fit into this category show these traits:
- First-party data insights are well-established as the core driver of activities—63% say it has been a priority for several years.
- Using customer data and Martech
effectively and extensively to inform their marketing efforts
In contrast, improvers (41%) are using first-party data to inform future marketing, but want to do more. And
marketing driven by first party data is a recent development.
Of late adopters (13% of the total), 58% are using first-party data to inform prospecting.
In general, 59% of U.S. firms say first party data has been a priority for several years, versus 47% overall. And 39% say its importance has increased in the last two years.
That said, here
are the main sources used for collecting customer and prospect data:
- CRM data — 65%
- Social media — 63%
- Company Website
Analytics — 58%
- Ecommerce transactions — 55%
- Customer reviews — 52%
- Account information (ERP) —
50%
- Third Party Data Sources — 48%
- Website Forms — 39%
- Personal Loyalty Cards — 39%
- Intent
Data — 34%
- Website Chat — 25%
- In-store Transactions — 24%
- Store Cards —18%
Their
primary marketing challenges include:
- Developing our marketing technology strategy — 21%
- Identifying the best marketing technology
to meet needs — 19%
- Retaining and growing existing customers — 19%
- Improving the digital customer experience —
18%
- Acquiring new customers — 16%
- Understanding consumer/in market trends — 16%
- Increasing brand
awareness — 16%
- Demonstrating around ROI to support marketing investment — 16%
- Becoming more data driven in marketing
efforts — 15%
- Building customer engagement — 14%
- Acquiring more first party (customer) data —
14%
- Supporting on pricing/price optimization — 9%
- Increasing share of voice (SOV) — 8%
Overall, 83%
expect their budgets for technology resources to increase over the next 12 months, and most say these hikes will be up to 10%.
Acxiom surveyed 400 senior marketing
decision makers in the U.S. and Europe in March and April 2022.