The Missing Piece of the Customer-Centricity Puzzle
Beyond Data Capture
Large investments in enterprise data warehouses and business intelligence systems are important and valuable to any marketing organization, but they lack the ability to support real-time online marketing execution.
A universal profile management system serves as a direct digital marketing data mart, capable of supporting real-time, data-driven marketing campaign execution. It is not designed to replace existing database investments, but to deploy alongside existing environments for real-time targeted marketing.
In many ways, a universal profile management system is the missing piece marketers are searching for to achieve effective and efficient customer-centric marketing -- and the time is right for marketers to reprioritize their data strategy.
Capturing data is still important, but marketers have more than enough data to improve marketing communications. The objective is no longer simply to get as much data as possible, but to organize it better and put it to better use -- the two primary strengths of a universal profile management system.
Existing database investments support linear, traditional online marketing. It is pretty straightforward to pull a list for an email campaign, for example, then leverage that data into a carefully planned out and executed campaign. But most current marketing database ecosystems are not able to, in real-time, adjust and switch up website content according to consumer changes.
Real-Time Adaptability
Consider an example of using a universal profile management system to power a relevance-based onsite targeting strategy. "Tim" has a profile within the universal profile management system that identifies him as a single male who is a big spender -- valuable information that is captured by business intelligence systems. However, unexpectedly, on Tim's next visit to the website he does a search for baby formula and diapers.
Sophisticated back-end data tools -- like the aforementioned enterprise data warehouse -- lack the ability to adapt to Tim's latest profile development in real-time on the website. A universal profile management system can recognize the new search, immediately transform the website experience to accommodate Tim's newfound needs -- before Tim's next click -- and then feed that new data back to the appropriate internal systems.
