Know your customer. This simple, three-word maxim carries a freight of truth along with it, and with good reason. Nearly every potential customer out there is willing to buy nearly any good or service out there as long as the good or service in question can demonstrate, effectively, how it provides more value to said customer than keeping the money required to purchase same. But getting more out of the customer relationship, as discovered in a recent study from Teradata (News - Alert), can be as simple—if not necessarily as easy—as applying more data to the process to yield data-driven marketing.

Customers are already quite familiar with how many data sources said customers represent. 85 percent of surveyed customers said that said customers were quite aware that data tracking made it possible for retailers to know quite a bit about the customer's recent experiences. Since customers know that tracking is likely already going on, said customers are expecting the benefit of such an arrangement as well, specifically, the ability to provide a “meaningful experience” with the brand. 73 percent of customers actually want retailers to put all this data to work to make that meaningful—here perhaps better described as “relevant”—and 69 percent are willing to offer personal data if it means better service, so not doing so is letting a big chunk of the customer base down.

However, this is a development that many marketers are already moving toward. Instead of focusing on broad-scale campaigns, marketers are instead focusing on customers. 59 percent are already moving marketing efforts to put more on the customer rather than the campaign, and 85 percent are working on “cohesive marketing experiences” rather than single campaigns or single interactions. This approach actually has immediate payoff; 76 percent of customers were willing to pay fully five percent more for an item that comes with “...a superior customer experience.” Plus, there are reports that say customer loyalty sees a likewise increase, as the difference between relevant, planned offers and non-targeted campaigns is about 15 times the value. Planned offers have response rates of about 15 times that of the non-targeted variety.

The key takeaway here is clear: knowing the customer, and working accordingly, produces big results. Not only is there the immediate boost to revenue, but there's also a vastly improved shot at superior longevity. The old saw about wanting to go where everyone knows your name hasn't really changed since it was part of a theme song back in eighties television, and here, it's still very much alive. Customers by and large have stopped balking at the idea of losing privacy on some personal data, but expect return for that investment in the form of a better overall customer experience. Actually providing said experience is a significant competitive advantage, and one that gives the business who puts it to work plenty of extra firepower in the field. It's hard to turn down a measure that not only has so many points of return but also at least something like permission from the customers to use.

So the Teradata study makes it clear: know your customer. It's a maxim that's stood the test of time, and now has sufficient data behind it to make it truly worthwhile. Putting such principles to use should provide big results, and being ready to take advantage of new technology seldom goes unrewarded.