Page 14 - Engagement-Strategies-Mag-ESM18.2

ENGAGEMENT

UNLOCKING

big data

for smarter

CONVERSATIONS

By Eric Holtzclaw

n today’s many-to-many world, users group themselves largely based you what; it’s not untl you know why that you’re in the much stronger
on values, interests and aspiratons, not according to traditonal positon of knowing what truly maters and what to do about it. Your
Isegmentatons like sex, race and age. You must understand these consumer understanding needs to extend beyond preferences in color,
consumers at their core – that is, what drives them and how they act previous buying behaviors and brand afnity for the sake of brand.
(and want to act) within certain contexts. As an example, many of our studies uncover consumer clusters
The big secret is that the core of a consumer rarely changes; it that prefer to receive company-branded content, because they trust
takes a life event, not a life stage, to dramatcally afect the consumer’s the company to provide the informaton. On the other hand, there will
basic drivers. Companies that expend the tme and efort to truly be clusters that prefer to resolve an issue or learn about new things
understand this core instead of guessing or assuming are the ones that by fnding content provided from third partes. For some clusters, a
win. Once you understand the core, you view every product, marketng, third party could be an expert – Consumer Reports or a movie critc, for
or experience decision from the point of view of the constant: the example. For others, it’s another person “like” them; not a company
consumer’s DNA. representatve or a so-called expert, but someone that they relate to
and trust.
Today’s connected consumers demand more from companies
than a reliance on demographics, segmentaton, or other big data will When we run tests with the same exact content, but brand one to
reveal. They have very specifc expectatons of brands to provide them the company and have a third party provide the other, the content tests
with a product, service or experience. The recent dramatc disruptons more or less favorably depending on the group that we’re querying.
in the buyer journey mean that companies can no longer rely on This means that marketng needs to distribute their content in many
previously proven models of reaching their consumer audience or diferent ways – whether it’s via the organizaton’s traditonal channels
expect these consumers to follow the traditonal path from identfying and/or through third-party resources that have the opportunity to tell
a need to making a purchase. the story. The company needs to support the clusters’ core desire and
The purpose of this book is to discuss the paterns of consumer allow them to share the informaton the way they wish.
behavior that are truly important – what I call consumer DNA – and This is equally important for providing support to your consumers.
to understand how to capitalize on it to deliver successful products, A consumer who doesn’t trust the company entrely will spend tme
services, experiences and marketng messages. on third-party sites trying to resolve their issue before reaching out to
a support channel. Meanwhile, a more trustng consumer may spend
NOT JUST THE NUMBERS substantal tme on company-sponsored propertes trying to fnd the
It doesn’t mater how much big data companies collect on their answer on their own.
customers. Collectng numbers is a desperate atempt to return
to tmes gone by – a tme when the mere collecton of data and If the company providing support to the end consumer can
comparison of data to data led to a revelaton that magically presented identfy these consumer paterns in their big data, then they
itself. This simply doesn’t happen any more without a deeper immediately know how to speak to the end consumer in a way that
understanding of the consumer. It’s very likely that a company will fts their core behavior or desire. But if a brand fails to consider
determine a false positve or miss out on additonal opportunity by this possibility, they run the risk of making assumptons about the
making assumptons based only on data they’re collectng. consumer and infuriatng them during the support process, despite
the company’s best atempts in trying to resolve the problem. The
Companies that fail to use a lens or key of consumer behavior to company may end up recommending content that a consumer cluster
go beyond what big data alone indicates as a patern will contnue to will immediately discount and ignore because of the source.
build products and messages that miss the mark. Big data only tells

14 engagement strategies Vol.18 Issue 2