• Jill Harper, at Freelance Content Writer


• 28.11.2022 06:00 pm
undisclosed

Consumer data is critical to your business for various reasons. It serves as a bridge between your company and target audience and provides the means to improve the customer experience throughout the buyer journey.

Data is the lifeblood of every marketing and decision-making strategy. Business leaders collect consumer data to upgrade the interaction with the target audiences. However, this effort depends on determining the types of consumer data you gather.

Since there are many different consumer data types, you need to opt for data that will provide actionable insights according to your business goals. For example, healthcare professionals rely on health data marketplaces to gather patient data and clinical insights from multiple sources to upgrade practices and improve patient outcomes.

The accuracy and relevance of the data you opt for must be without precedence. Since different data types serve specific purposes, let’s discuss how to collect high-quality consumer data relevant to your business.

Consumer identity data

This data type refers to identifying information about your consumers. It includes details such as:

• Name and birthdate;
• Gender and address;
• Phone number;
• Email address;
• Job information.

These details provide basic insights into approaching your consumers to expand your customer base by understanding your audience and its preferences.

The intelligence you gather on your customers helps fuel your marketing campaigns and tailor your strategies according to their specific needs.

It allows you to personalize your marketing approach and create meaningful connections with consumers to send them further down the sales funnel. 

Quantitative data

Quantitative data represents measurable insights that help you analyze how your consumers approach your business and which channels they choose for interaction. There are five types of quantitative data:

• Customer service and support information;
• Communications;
• Online activity;
• Social media activity and preferred channels;
• Transactions (subscriptions, returns, purchases, etc.).

These insights allow business leaders to tap into customers’ behavioral patterns and understand their needs.

That knowledge helps them to tailor marketing campaigns according to those needs and further enhance customer experience with every interaction.

For example, if your target audience makes most purchases through social media channels, you may want to invest in social media and content marketing strategies.

Descriptive data

Descriptive data provides additional details that allow business professionals to get a deeper understanding of their target audience, especially regarding what they look for in a brand. It includes family information, lifestyle insights, and career details.

The descriptive consumer data defines your target consumer outside your business and allows you to leverage that knowledge when tailoring your marketing campaign according to individual customers. Aside from selling, you can also deliver recommendations for products and services they would be interested in and direct your ads, texts, and emails in that direction.

Qualitative data

Qualitative data provide a sneak peek into how your customers think and perceive brands online. It includes:

• Customer interactions;
• Customer reviews, opinions, and testimonials;
• Their attitude toward your brand.

This information is critical to your marketing, customer experience, and decision-making as it allows you to make real-time adjustments on the go.

Knowing how your target audience feels about a new campaign helps you impact consumer satisfaction by handling problems as they arise to ensure a top-grade experience with each interaction with your brand.

Top consumer data collection methods

Let’s discuss the best data-gathering methods for personalizing the consumer journey and developing a data-driven business strategy.

Consumer data marketplaces

Consumer data marketplaces provide businesses with insights that give them numerous advantages, such as getting ahead of competitors, data-driven decision-making, increasing ROI, enhancing productivity, improving risk management, and expanding into new markets.

More importantly, these marketplaces allow businesses to monetize their data and turn it into actionable business growth insights, ensuring steady sources of extra income, making smarter investment decisions, and more.

According to a recent survey, over 95% of companies use data marketplaces for purchasing consumer data. These data sources help you make the most out of the data you have at your disposal.

Focus groups, interviews, surveys

Asking your target audience for the data you need is an excellent way to get the wanted information and engage with your consumers. Focus groups, interviews, and surveys allow you to identify the insights by asking the right questions.

Aside from getting a better idea of your customers’ needs, reaching out directly to them helps your brand create meaningful connections by allowing your consumers to voice their opinions. In return, their honest responses can help improve customer loyalty, brand awareness, consumer engagement, etc.

Online tracking

Tracking consumer behavior online is critical to establishing a relevant and up-to-date data pipeline for fueling your business, improving the customer journey, and launching consumer-centric marketing campaigns.

Each interaction between the target audience and your website is an opportunity for data collection. You can gather data on potential prospects, use it to convert them to loyal consumers, invite them to subscribe to your newsletters or emails, provide product/service recommendations, reduce abandoned cart rates, and more.

Conclusion

The internet holds all the data you need to take your customer experience and business marketing to the next level. Data is the new currency in the digital business landscape. It holds the keys to all the doors of opportunity for countless brands.

However, collecting data is subject to an increasing number of regulations that make staying compliant challenging. Ensure your customer data is safe by following the latest data privacy rules.