Could marketers view historical customer data like an archaeologist?

Could marketers view historical customer data the same way archaeologists view excavating a historic site? It may sound daft but we believe that the answer is a decided yes!

Archaeologists view a site that they are excavating as a series of layers. With each layer representing a distinct historic period –  this dating approach is known as stratigraphy.  They use this to associate different items of evidence with each other and can, for instance, differentiate Bronze Age pottery from Iron Age by how deep they find it in the ground at a particular site.

But the preservation of remains and artefacts within a layer tells much more. For instance, petrospheres are now known to have been used for smashing large bones to extricate the marrow. This is because these spherical stones and the broken bones have been found together in the same layer of Palaeolithic sites in the Middle East.

So, we marketers can look at historical customer data in a similar way. We can see what customer behaviour has taken place in each time period, in response to what stimuli, and learn vast amounts from that.

For this to work we need to make sure that our ‘stratigraphic’ customer data has been carefully collected and maintained. Clients need to ensure that all transactions, contacts and customer attributes [such as their source of recruitment and demographics] have not been discarded along the way.

What will this customer data tell us? What Tutankhamen can we expect to uncover?

If we take a group of customers recruited in a specific time period, we can look at the order value they on average provided in their first, second and third year from recruitment.  This will the help guide us to understand how much we can spend on recruiting them.
historical customer data acquisition chart

Now some of these customers will have only purchased once, and others will have purchased more often. Having uncovered the different groups we can start asking what differentiates them.

historical customer data retention chart

Often the source or channel of recruitment is the biggest factor in determining what their future value will be. Will a Facebook derived customer be worth more or less than one that comes from Google PPC? Their age at time of recruitment and their geodemographic can be of great significance.

Looking at the different customer layers we can start to ask questions about how the external environment has impacted their behaviour. Customers recruited in 2008 and 2020 cannot be expected to behave like customers recruited in more normal years. And when the economy shrinks, we can look to see whether demand has just been postponed or lost forever.

Could marketers learn a trick or two from archaeologists? Historic customer behaviour data sets are a gold mine if used properly.  To extract the value you will need both the customer data store, and the data archaeologists who can uncover the buried secrets.

In marketing we call these archaeologists data scientists.

We have developed our company UniFida along the lines of an archaeological dig; we collect and store our clients’ customer data (protected by UKFast, UK-based data centres ISO certified, PCI DSS compliant and secured to UK government IL4 standards) in our cloud-based technology, and we then deploy data scientists to extract meaning and learnings from that.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are sitting on a customer data site that needs careful ‘excavation’.


UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Our data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed, and our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.


Will there be an avalanche of consumer demand after lockdown?

It’s most likely that there will be a massive surge in many areas of the economy after lockdown, including consumer demand. So now is the golden moment for companies to prepare for this.

We know first-hand that many companies are putting infrastructure development projects on hold at present, when logic suggests that they should be doing the opposite. So when the bounce-back happens they are fully capable of taking advantage of it.

Often the reason for delay is cash flow, as this is also a time of unprecedented financial stress for many companies.

So if you are thinking about getting your technology for marketing upgraded to be ready for when consumer demand picks up after lockdown, we can make an offer that could help substantially.

If your interest is in getting hold of a fully serviced cloud-based customer data platform (CDP) at a moderate price, then we can offer you a substantial license holiday of at least three months if you can place an order in April or May. The free period will continue until the lockdown is over so it could be extended.

A CDP is capable of supporting B2C marketing in many different areas including:

– customer message personalisation that is based on a complete view of online and offline customer activity
– multi touch order attribution that tells you how in combination all your online and offline channels are performing
– customer value and customer retention dashboards so that you can confidently calculate how much you can afford to spend on recruitment
– dormant customer reactivation based on propensity models that tell you who is most likely to respond
– one click campaign results reporting to give you up to date news on how your different contact strategies are actually performing
– automated outbound campaigns responding to online and offline triggers

We can also help you with making a decision about whether or not to invest by helping you build the business case for a CDP at no charge, even if you do not proceed to purchase one from us when the work is done.

The last two business cases we developed for B to C companies showed a return on UniFida technology of between four and eight times the cost.

Please do take a look at how our clients have benefited by using UniFida, and also email us with a time that would work for you for an initial call to see how we could help.

 


UniFida logo

UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Our data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed, and our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.