The cross-channel insight imperative white paper

Why today’s hyper-connected consumer means having a cross-
channel consumer classification is more important than ever.
The cross-channel
insight imperative
An Experian Marketing Services white paper

2 | The cross-channel insight imperative The cross-channel insight imperative | 3
A changing consumer landscape
Over the last ten years the consumer landscape
has changed beyond recognition. In just one
decade the Internet has transformed our lives in
some quite extraordinary ways. Two things – social
media and mobile devices, have largely driven
this transformation. Both have enabled us to
connect with each other (and with organisations),
exchange ideas, buy products and services and
share information at any time, in any place and in
a multitude of different ways.
The emergence of the ‘always on’ consumer1
has probably impacted the way organisations
view marketing more than anything else. Not
only do you have the possibility of reaching them
anywhere, and at any time, but there is now also
a wealth of channels through which you can
connect.
For marketers however the new channels also
present problems. Customers should have the
same brand experience no matter which channel
they are using. It is therefore less about deciding
which channels to use to target specific customers
and more about ensuring that no matter which
one they choose, the quality of their interaction
with your brand is the same. This idea of ‘channel
convenience’ is further complicated by the fact
there are now so many devices through which
consumers access different channels – each
one posing its own particular challenges.
The rise of digital channels has not just affected
consumers in terms of how they interact with
brands; it has also impacted their expectations
for how brands interact with them. A large
segment of today’s consumers move seamlessly
between channels and in some cases may be
using more than one at any given time. The level
of sophistication has increased and with it their
expectations. What has significantly decreased is
their tolerance, especially when it comes to poor
marketing, siloed communications and anything
else that demonstrates that brands either don’t
care or just don’t know what they want.
So the marketer can no longer think, organise
their department, plan, execute and measure in
fixed channels. They have to think in terms of
the customer, or customer segment, rather
than the channel.
Did you know?
84%
74%
52%
76%
300%
25%
of people would walk away from
a company that doesn’t listen*
of UK homes are now connected
to the Internet*
would respond positively to
companies that understand them*
Mobile commerce is increasing
at a rate of over 300% annually**
of consumers would walk away from
a company that tried to sell them
something they weren’t interested in*
Over 25% of our online time is spent
on social media***
1 http://www.experian.co.uk/marketing-services/news-always-on-consumer.html
* http://www.experian.co.uk/assets/marketing-services/infographics/scv-infographic-final.pdf
** http://www.cbi.org.uk/infographics/vital-statistics-british-retail/
*** http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/social-media/9998328/Proportion-of-time-spent-on-social-media-slips.html
The evolution continues
One of the most difficult things for marketers is
that the digital (r)evolution hasn’t stopped or even
slowed down. If anything the pace of change is
speeding up. In the last two years we have seen
mobile devices taking centre stage in our lives as
the platform of choice for shopping, consuming
all forms of media, engaging on social networks,
gaming and even banking.
The evolution is also very apparent when
you look at just how comfortable people are
moving from one channel to another or utilising
different channels to interact with organisations
in different ways. Let’s take the example of
banking. ONS figures released last year show
50% of us now bank online and one in five of us
make payments via a mobile device. But, use
of customer contact centres remains high and
while the number of bank branches in the UK is
declining most of us will still use our local branch
from time to time to deal with more complex
banking needs.
The way each customer will use the different
channels will vary considerably and
understanding the nuances of this is critical
when considering how you communicate with
them. In addition to this the bank has a duty
to ensure that its interactions with customers
are both relevant and fair. Factors like age,
location, marital status, propensity to borrow
or to save (and ability to do either) become
key considerations. These are what you might
consider underlying factors. And in the rush
to ensure that they are making the most of the
mobile and digital revolution organisations need
to make sure they are not ignored. In fact they
are critical if you want to build strong, long-term
relationships with the customers that are most
valuable to your business.
New platforms,
new opportunities
In addition to the huge changes the digital
revolution has brought to the way consumers
interact with brands; it has also created a
platform for a raft of disruptive new tools and
technologies that enable brands to engage with
their customers in totally new ways.
Take for example the arrival of AdSmart from
Sky. For the first time brands have the ability
to decide which viewers get to watch which
ads. This convergence of advertising and direct
marketing segments means that organisations
now have the ability to target viewers based on
their location and profile (the platform feeds
viewing data back as viewers watch enabling
Sky to continually build out and improve their
profiling) but it also means smaller businesses
who can’t afford national campaigns can now
roll out less expensive regional or segment based
campaigns. It’s unsurprising then that brands
including Tesco, RBS and Audi2
have already lent
their backing to the new service.
AdSmart is just one of the raft of new tools now
arriving in the marketer’s toolbox that will make
delivering the right message, to the right person,
in the right way and at the right time, much easier.
However there is one tool in the toolbox on which
almost every other depends on, and that is data.
Without the insights that data provides into
customer lifestyles, preferences and behaviours
these technologies are effectively useless. Indeed
the data itself is of little value unless you are able
to derive insight from it.
2 http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/01/15/sky-adsmart-launch-backed-tesco-rbs-audi-and-others

For many marketers data is now the most valuable
resource that they have at their disposal. One of the
most significant impacts of the digital revolution has
been the sheer volume of data that is now available.
Understanding what is valuable, identifying and
capturing new streams and trying to figure out how
you extract value from the mountain of information
we now sit on top of has become a huge area of
focus for organisations large and small.
The focus on data capture has for many meant an
inevitable increase in the number of databases and
CRM systems – many sitting in unconnected silos
across the business. Bringing these together to create
a Single Customer View (SCV) will enable you to move
towards the elusive single source of truth – one view of
your customer across the whole organisation (for more
on this read our whitepaper From Concept to Reality:
Achieving the Single Customer View).3
So harnessing your own customer data is a critical
step in the road to a truly effective marketing strategy
but what about other consumer information? Your data
will tell you a lot about how your customers interact
with you but not a huge amount beyond that. To be
able to really engage with your customers and to be
able to build a strategy about how you might engage
with them in the future, you need to know more.
The data platform
3
http://www.experian.co.uk/assets/marketing-services/white-papers/wp-scv-from-concept-to-reality.pdf
Segmenting your customers into different groups
in order to be able to communicate with them more
effectively is certainly not new. Traditionally this
has been done using information gathered at the
point of transaction. This told you who they are,
what they bought and where they bought it and
perhaps some information about where they live.
As new channels came into being – mail order,
call centres and later online channels, more and
more data became available but in many cases this
meant multiple customer profiles – one for each
channel they use.
So the vast majority of organisations are now
interacting with one customer over multiple
channels and are usually running separate
marketing campaigns on each one. Traditional
consumer classification – either campaign based
or channel based – means the same customer
being profiled in different ways at different times.
With so much data and differing views of
consumers flying around within your organisation
it’s very easy to become highly reactive, only
focusing on targeting when someone has done
something else. It becomes difficult to see the
wood for the trees for example…
• Which of your customers are likely to
be high value?
• Do some want different types of products/ offers
or services?
• How do you drive effective traffic to your website
i.e. the right profile of people who are likely to
not only convert but go on to become high value
consumers. Your digital and search strategies
should be aimed at these.
• How do you then use the same insights to
understand the types of offers and products, they
may be interested in so you can build out the
right messaging?
• Where is there headroom in your current
customer base? Where are your true growth
opportunities and how do you target them
across channels?
You can’t answer these types of questions with
disjointed segmentations or behavioural triggers.
To get a firm understanding, which allows you
to plan across channels and change the status
quo, you need a classification framework that
stays consistent over time and is identifiable at an
individual level – individuals are allocated to the
same segment if they come to your store, engage
on Facebook, register on your website or respond
to an email programme.
Cross-channel consumer classification means
that the profiles that are created are the same
– no matter which channel the customer uses.
This foundation means that organisations can
better understand their customer base and
their behaviours to run effective cross-channel
marketing campaigns that are based on who the
customer is rather than the channel they are using
or the product being promoted. It enables you
to take into account the fact that each customer
behaves differently, and absorbs information
differently, depending on which channel they use,
but also to understand if they are more likely to
be high value in the long term and the types of
products they are likely to be interested in.
We’re not saying that organisations need only need
one type of segmentation or targeting approach
there are specific use cases for many – however a
cross-channel classification allows an organisation
to plan strategy consistently and measure the
impact(as it can be linked to individuals and
behaviours).
The need for cross-channel
consumer classification
Did you know?
2.5
90%
Exabytes of data are created
everyday
of the world’s data was created
in the last two years
Sources:
– http://hbr.org/2012/10/big-data-the-management-revolution/ar
– http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2013/01/15/big-data-get-
ready-for-the-2013-big-bang/

Once you are able to view your customers across
all the channels they exist on you then have the
platform on which you can start to deepen your
understanding of the factors that might influence
the way a customer behaves. This goes above and
beyond the data that you might hold in your systems.
Your data can tell you a huge amount about the
way your customer interacts with you but to be able
to create a really effective framework for planning
across-channels you need to understand not just
how the consumer behaves now but how that
behaviour might evolve. That insight doesn’t just
help with planning marketing campaigns – it also
informs the business more widely – from where you
might locate branches to the products or solutions
you decide to develop in the future.
This is where tools like Experian’s new Mosaic
come into play. Mosaic is a consumer classification
tool that benchmarks the UK population on over
450 data variables. It incorporates a range of high
quality data including the findings from the most
recent census, deep dive demographic information
from ConsumerView (www.experian.co.uk/
consumerview), specifically commissioned research
findings and raft of data from Experian’s digital tools
– including Hitwise (www.experian.co.uk/hitwise).
And most importantly of all it is enabled across
channels – this means a classification of consumers
which is underpinned by Mosaic is truly
cross-channel.
Fusing customer behaviours with Mosaic as the
foundation allows organisations to create their
own bespoke classification, which can be linked to
marketing tools to enable the insights to become
actionable. This makes Mosaic-based classifications
extremely relevant to the cross-channel world.
Classifying consumers effectively
Mosaic is a consumer
classification tool that
benchmarks the UK
population on over 450
data variables.
So the need for effective cross-channel consumer
classification is clear. Not only does it enable you
to see your customer in the same way they see
themselves but, combined with internal data, it
creates a framework for planning your marketing
strategy across multiple channels. But how do you
ensure that the classification tool you use is going
to deliver the benefits you need:
1. Is it customisable?
Most organisations have a wealth of customer
data at their disposable and any good cross-
channel segmentation tool needs to enable them
to take advantage of that data so they can identify
the segments that are most valuable and most
relevant to them or even create new segments
unique to them.
2. Is it dynamic?
The speed with which consumer trends are
changing is accelerating and any effective
segmentation tool needs to be able to keep up.
The key is to maintain a balance between creating
a stable baseline to help you identify where the
value is and having the flexibility to track customer
trends over time.
3. Are the insights it delivers actionable?
Insight is only valuable if you then have the
capability to do something with it. There are a wide
and growing variety of tools available to enable
marketers to deliver relevant content to the right
people through the right channel. From automated
email trigger tools to targeted online advertising
platforms. The ability to integrate segmentation
data into marketing tools ensures that the insights
you gain are fully actionable.
4. How rich and how accurate is the
data it’s built on?
As we have noted before any marketing tool is
only as effective as the data it is based on.
To create really rich, accurate profiles the
segmentation needs to be based on as wide a
variety of data as possible, from as many different
sources as possible.
5. Is the methodology for extracting key
insights sound?
With so many different streams of data coming
together the methodology used to bring these
together to create meaningful insight is critical.
This includes the use of interpretive data that
enables you to understand what the data is
telling you.
6. Are the profiles representative of
real customers?
Segmentation is only really valuable if it provides
insights in real customers. Once your profiles
have been created the ability to test them
against real examples is critical. They need to be
representative of real customer behaviours rather
than theory.
7. Do you have a platform for effective
cross-team collaboration?
For many organisations the digital revolution has
meant a fragmentation of the marketing team
with separate teams handling different channels
and different aspects of the marketing mix. Digital
marketing execution for example can sit very
separately from CRM. For a truly cross-channel
marketing strategy to exist and for cross-channel
profiling to be most effective there needs to be
effective communications and collaboration
across these groups and conversely, cross
channel classification will actually encourage
better collaboration between different marketing
functions.
8. Do you have the means to collect and
incorporate feedback to ensure
continual improvement?
Profiling is the means to an end not the end in
itself. To understand how effective it is you need
to be able to analyse the impact of the cross-
channel campaigns that the profiling enables. This
‘feedback loop’ is as important a stream of data to
consider as any other and will enable you to adjust
your profiling as new trends emerge.
Eight critical success factors

Customer reward schemes
Customer reward schemes are an
increasingly popular marketing technique
for retailers in the UK. Not only do they
enable them to reward loyal, high value
customers, the data feedback loop they
create helps them to more effectively
understand those customers. For one such
loyalty scheme, analysis of the data also
revealed that customers who redeemed the
points they had accrued against high value
rewards also tended to be the most loyal
and most valuable customers.
To try and increase the number of these
high value customers the internal
marketing team used data from Experian
alongside their own internal data to
create addressable customer segments
built around particular types of high
value reward. This enabled them to target
these segments consistently across
channels – including digital display, TV on
demand, SMS, email and direct mail – with
information about the high value rewards
they were most likely to be interested in
based on their lifestyle, behaviour, likes
and dislikes.
The result exceeded all expectations.
The campaign exceeded its customer
redemption target by over 50%.
The result exceeded
all expectations. The
campaign exceeded its
customer redemption
target by over 50%.
While effective cross-channel classification is
clearly an important tool in the marketing mix
today it is going to become even more vital in the
months and years to come if current trends are
anything to go by.
From a retail viewpoint for example understanding
the complex relationships that exist between
customer behaviours through different channels
is becoming a key goal. Trends like showrooming
(looking at products in store and then buying
them online – often on a mobile device while still
in store) and reverse showrooming (researching
online before buying in store – again often while
located within the store) are changing the way
retailers approach their channels. The ability to
deliver information and new deals to the right
people, on the right device and at the right time
is the critical success factor here. The ability
therefore to understand customer behaviours
on and offline and predict which groups are
most relevant is a big advantage.
In addition to the increasing interdependencies
between different channels you also have the
growing awareness of the value of marketing
attribution – the ability to understand how
marketing affects the whole sales cycle and
optimise across it. Being able to attach value to
each customer touch point and pick out the right
path to purchase for high value customers is the
next big marketing goal. Being able to benchmark
performance against a stable baseline of data rich
customer profiles will allow you to more clearly
identify where the value lies.
Looking to the future
Being able to benchmark
performance against a
stable baseline of data
rich customer profiles
will allow you to more
clearly identify where
the value lies.

That the consumer landscape is changing is
indisputable. In less than ten years we have seen
the creation and rise of digital platforms that
have transformed the way we, as consumers,
interact with the organisations we do business
with. We have become so used to a multi-channel
environment that we rarely stop to consider which
channel to use – it has become almost instinctive.
This shift in behaviour has had a significant
impact on the way we expect organisations that we
connect with to deal with us. Not only do we expect
them to be just as comfortable with cross-channel
interactions as we are but we expect them to
understand who we are, what we want and how we
expect to be communicated with. And if they don’t
we move on pretty quickly.
Consistent consumer classification across all
channels enables marketers to be truly customer
focused, to build an accurate understanding
of their customer base and even to begin to
understand how customer preferences may
change in the future. Not only does this level of
insight help drive competitive advantage it also
enables you to ensure that you are treating your
customers fairly and effectively with intelligent
interactions, every time.
In summary
In less than ten years
we have seen the
creation and rise of
digital platforms that
have transformed the
way we, as consumers,
interact with the
organisations we do
business with.
About Experian Marketing Services
Experian Marketing Services is a global provider of integrated
consumer insight and targeting, data quality and cross-
channel marketing. We help organisations from around the
world intelligently interact with today’s dynamic, empowered
and hyperconnected customers. By coordinating seamless
interactions across all marketing channels, marketers are
able to plan and execute superior brand experiences that
deepen customer loyalty, strengthen brand advocacy and
maximise profits.

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Intelligent interactions.
Every time.
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