• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, August 13, 2013

A new study by Yesmail Interactive, in conjunction with Gleanster, finds that 80% of consumer-facing companies don’t understand their customers beyond basic demographics and purchase history. The report, "Customer Lifecycle Engagement: Imperatives for Midsize-to-Large Companies," reveals that marketers think they know their customers well, but they lack the deep data insights that would enable them to send personalized, relevant campaigns. The research shows that mid-size and large B2C companies are struggling to achieve customer intimacy, and many marketers lack the data and technology they need for more effective segmentation.

B2C Marketers Insights (% mid to large B2C companies claiming “excellent understanding” of customer areas; August 2013)
Customers…	% of Respondents
Past purchase behavior	53%
Most valuable	43
Demographic makeup	42
Wants, needs, likes, interests	35
Demographics & psychographics	32
Online profitability vs. offline	29
Most likely purchases	29
Household composition	27
Cross channel profitability	26
Purchase channel preferences	21
Social media participation	20
Source: Yesmail Interactive/Gleanster, August 2013

Michael Fisher, President, Yesmail Interactive, says "… The battle for market share… rests on building customer relationships… not simply a promotional coupon approach… “

According to the survey, marketers lack understanding when it comes to relationship-oriented customer data. Yet 88% of respondents still consider their customer engagement strategies, including knowing the optimal message, channel and time to send to each customer, to be effective. This suggests that marketers are limited by what they perceive to be successful legacy tactics. Among the report’s key findings:

• When it comes to transactional data, 53% of marketers say they have an excellent understanding of customers’ purchase history, followed by 42% for basic demographic information such as gender and age
• Fewer marketers have an excellent understanding of relationship data, including customers’ level of participation in social media (20%), channel preference (21%) and household composition (27%)
• The top two sources of customer data used for segmentation are transactional: CRM data (67%) and point-of-sale data (56%)
• Less than half of marketers use data from sources that provide better targeting, including web browsing history and online behavior (41%), social data (38%), and third-party behavioral and attitudinal data (36%)
• While 40% of marketers use customer transactions such as purchases to trigger automated campaigns, only 21% use life-stage triggers such as birthdays or having a baby

86% of the marketers surveyed said they could do a better job with segmentation if they had better customer data. When it comes to the top challenges that stand in the way of personalized customer communications, the respondents blamed:

• Limitations in marketing tools (42%)
• Fragmented marketing systems (34%)
• Poor data quality (34%)

Ian Michiels, Principal & Managing Director, Gleanster, concludes "… brands must build one-on-one relationships with their customers… but marketers don’t know how to get there… this insight (must be) based on relationship customer data rather than just transactional data…”

For additional information from Yesmail, please visit here.