The explosion of big data has given marketers more power than ever to connect and learn more about their customers on a personal level.

It is one thing to research or have an understanding of how satisfied customers are with their experience, but then how does that translate? Being able to measure and use data effectively is something many marketers are still grappling with. MAD Week speakers from brands such as Westpac, Sportsbet, Jetstar and News Corp share how big data can be used to strengthen marketing campaigns and improve customer experience strategies.

Elaine Herlihy, Head of Marketing and Brand at Westpac

For us it’s all about actionable insights. As a bank, we obviously have a lot of data, which we treat with great care because trust and security are the most important things to our customers and to us. Our customers have told us they want proactive and relevant contact from us, i.e. to use the information we have to make proactive, helpful suggestions that save them time or money. With our KnowMe CRM programme we’re doing just that via our Westpac Live online banking platform – so customers can just click and act on personalised suggestions. Our bankers are also armed with these insights so when a customer is in branch or calls us, the banker can offer a helpful suggestion based on something we’ve identified in our data.

Cath Stone, Head of Customer Strategy at Jetstar

Big data is a big phase we’re growing at the moment and learning a lot from. The important thing for us is that we measure customer loyalty based on a number of factors. We measure and understand our customer experience scores – so how satisfied they are with their experience. Across the markets we get some great data telling us customers are satisfied, but unless we understand their emotional connection with our brand; they can be as satisfied as they like but they’re not going to promote us. So it’s vital we have a comprehensive understanding of our customer using a range of customer experience data.

Cameron King, Head of Commercial Platforms and Products at News Corp

Everyone is going to try and be creepy for a little while. There is going to be an attempt to very literally translate the fact that an advertiser or a marketer knows a customer where they say ‘I know you, so I’m going to be very direct about the way I talk to you.’ But from a marketing perspective it needs to be slightly more subtle. The other cautionary tale we’ve seen around data is that niche is not necessarily great. Scale is fundamental to what we do as a mainstream publisher and the fascination with very niche targeting is of obvious interest but sometimes it’s done without a clear understanding of what the impact is going to be on a real business at the end of the day. Remembering scale is important and programmatic and the mobilisation of data allows marketers to do that because it’s like fishing in a large number of pools for customers.

Tony Gruebner, Head of Customer Intelligence at Sportsbet

Data gives marketers a better way to understand their customers on a personal level or individual level. In the last few years digitalisation has grown the range of different data sources we have available to us quite substantially. The range of different data sources we have tell us not just who our customers are or what they’re doing but tells us why they’re actually doing it. Once we know more about our customers, it allows us to improve customer experience.

 

Join Elaine Herlihy, Cath Stone, Tony Gruebner and Cameron King at MAD Week this year to explore the tools and strategies needed to engage the digital customer now and in the future.