How to turn customer data into smarter CRM
Great CRM starts way before you hit ‘send’. In fact it starts before you build any emails at all.
Meaningful customer relationships are built on insight; What makes your audience tick? What matters to them? What keeps them interested? We've recently been exploring exactly that with our client, family-owned British jeweller, F.Hinds.
As part of our work, we've carried out an analysis of F.Hinds' CRM activity and customer data, exploring how the brand currently communicates with its audience and where opportunities might exist to build stronger customer relationships.
It's tempting to jump straight into campaign ideas, but as we looked into the data, our starting point became much simpler: we just needed to understand more about the customer.
Beyond click-through rates
Open rates, CTRs and conversions are all important measures of CRM performance, but they’re definitely not the full picture.
The real value comes from looking at what those numbers reveal about customer behaviour. Customer preferences, purchase history, browsing behaviour and engagement patterns all build a richer picture, and the more you understand, the more communications can be tweaked and personalised to create a more relevant content journey.
At The Content Emporium we follow this simple plan:
Capture the data
Understand why
Personalise the journey
Rather than treating everyone in a database the same way, brands can then use customer insight to create communications that reflect individuals.
For example, with F.Hinds, a customer may have just bought an engagement ring. With the right communications this could lead to a wedding ring purchase and then – if you capture the wedding date – tailored anniversary gift reminders and suggestions each year.
Connecting the experiences
However, customer relationships don't begin and end in the inbox.
Someone might discover a brand on social, browse its website or – as is often the case with F.Hinds – pop into a physical store. Each touchpoint tells us something about the customer, creating opportunities to better understand their needs and build stronger relationships.
From there it’s all about building personalised email journeys and relevant website content as well as social campaigns and print communications. Customer insight can – and should – shape the entire brand experience. The trick is making sure every channel is working together, rather than each one doing its own thing.
At The Content Emporium, our expertise spans CRM, social, web, editorial and creative, so we're able to look at the whole picture and craft a joined-up, multi-channel approach.
“One of the things I've really enjoyed about working with F.Hinds is being able to take a proper step back and look at things from a fresh perspective for them. It's been really interesting to dig into what they're already doing, challenge a few assumptions and spot opportunities that might have been missed. There's something really satisfying about joining the dots and seeing how relatively small changes could make a big difference.”
Emily Gwilliam, Director of CRM at The Content Emporium
Using data to make CRM more effective
Ultimately, effective CRM isn't just about collecting the data, It's about how well you understand it and then, what you do with it.
Whether it's a personalised email, a well-timed campaign or a connected experience across multiple channels, the principle remains the same. Good CRM isn't necessarily about communicating more, but communicating exactly the right message at exactly the right moment for your customers.
