Next-best-action marketing has been around for a long time. But as we are waking up to the importance of being customer-centric to achieve our business objectives, it’s never been more important. Key now, in our heavily data-driven world, is mining and making sense of that data to determine what that next-best-action for your customer is.
What is it?
Traditional, direct marketing operates on the premise: “I’ve got this product. How do I sell more of it?” It’s product-centric. In the new world of marketing, the paradigm has shifted. Now, it’s: “I have this customer. What can I do for them next?” Enter customer centric next-best-action marketing.
A next-best-action strategy aims to amass information about individual customers and capitalise on that data to work out your options for approaching them – whether you want to:
- make a sale
- retain the customer’s business
- determine if it’s no longer worth while trying to engage this customer.
In each case you identify and choose the next-best-action. It’s a dynamic approach that’s in the best interests of both your customers and your business. It should take into account the behaviour, desires, and needs of your customers, plus your own sales and marketing practices and goals.
Make sense of the data
More and more companies are making the switch to customer-centric approaches. And often, they do have a good idea of who their customers are, but not what to do with them next. Again, this takes customer-centric thinking.
It’s not about “I’ve got this data – what can I do with it?” It’s more about what we can be doing – and doing better – for our customers. It’s about knowing what to collect on them and how different technologies work together to collect it. That’s where your digital partner comes in.
The right digital partner will help you do a better job for your clients. They will help you increase the value of what you offer your customers by making it:
- Easy to access that value.
- Enjoyable to access that value.
Further, your digital partner can be collecting data from multiple sources, merging that information, and arriving at insight on your customers that you didn’t already know.
So what’s your next-best-action?