Relationship marketing allows marketers to create meaningful connections with consumers by putting them at the heart of the strategy. In the first part of this series on unlocking Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) relationships in CPG/FMCG, we talked about ways to start turning unknown customers into known purchasers and how to offer a value exchange for customers’ preference and purchasing data. The next steps to forging strong and lucrative D2C relationships involve taking that new data from consumers and creating a single view of the customer, in order to extract a meaningful single source of insight. Yet, even when the data is collected, meaningful communications created and sent — brands still must continue to be innovative to meet the new and ever changing expectations of customers. Marigold Engage+’s Engagement Data Platform gives CPG/FMCG brands a robust and full-featured tool to cultivate customers’ journeys from initial communications to loyalty programs and more.
Narrowed & focused: Bringing together a single view of the customer
Without a single customer view and real-time insights, organizations struggle to deliver the quality experiences that customers are looking for. In fact, more than half (58%) of enterprise CX leaders agree that lacking a single view of the customer and customer journey is the number one challenge to effectively measuring the customer experience. When you consider that 40% of data is inaccurate — in addition to the legacy systems, disparate silos of data, huge martech stacks, and numerous sub-brands and territories with unique KPIs, it’s clear these brands are up against a litany of problems.
That’s why achieving a single customer view is so important. It provides a narrowed and focused insight into consumers, allowing brands the ability to analyze past behavior, better target, and more directly personalize future customer interactions by knowing who customers are and what they are looking for.
When executed correctly, this looks like:
- Unifying customer data across all internal systems, brands, and territories
- Capturing each customer’s activities across all channels and devices
- Personalizing this data to engage with each customer across digital channels
Meeting & exceeding new customer expectations
Digital consumers have evolved and will continue to do so, but the marketing they receive has not always been congruent to their expectations. Digital advertising budgets continue to increase year-on-year, exceeding 23.47 billion British pounds in 2021, but more sophisticated targeting has not led to better experiences for consumers.
Some brands continue with the status quo of blindly squandering resources on an approach that yields a conversion rate lower than 0.1 per cent, but CPG/FMCG brands like P&G are slashing ad spending altogether and turning to data-driven solutions. Understanding that consumer behaviors, attitudes, and motivations continue to change, brands need to meet consumers in the right place, at the right time, with engaging content to create a truly seamless and engaging experience.
Consumers want more access, more personalized content, more connected products, and more customer service. While a wealth of CPG/FMCG brand’s products live under the same umbrella and complement each other (e.g., toothpaste, mouthwash, floss, toothbrushes), such products are not always fully united by the brand — and if the brand doesn’t connect its products, the consumer won’t either. The only way to deliver on consumer expectations is to maintain control of the customer experience from beginning to end. By shaping D2C relationships, CPG/FMCG brands can meet customer demands and build personal relationships with customers — the basis of relationship marketing — that help ensure future stability and longevity in a crowded industry.
Get real results from Marigold Engage+
CPG/FMCG brands have the ability to create a single view of their customers on Marigold Engage+’s Engagement Data Platform. Doing more than just bringing all the data together, it provides marketers with a single, accessible, and actionable view that can be used to drive meaningful engagement with consumers.
Marigold Engage+’s Engagement Data Platform allows CPG/FMCG brands to create meaningful interactions that drive customers to the next stage of their purchasing journey. In the Marigold Engage+ platform, customer data is integrated in real-time and housed in a single view with unparalleled analytics, insights, segmentation, actions, and intelligence. From there, marketers can deliver relevant, targeted emails, as well as mobile, web, push, in-app, social, mobile wallet, and point-of-sale messaging. The Engagement Data Platform provides marketers with the ability to drive consistent brand experiences and immersive cross-channel interactions to their customers. In the saturated CPG/FMCG industry, brands are using Marigold Engage+ to stand out amongst their competitors, keep their customers engaged, and continue to cultivate new and evolved communications.
