Move to Modern Marketing with a People-Based Approach

Marketing the Old Way

Prior to the internet and the era of mass connectivity, advertising was a broadcast game: messages were delivered through wide channels and consumed by an audience of passive participants. The advent of digital media quickly changed this landscape. Rather than deploy ads to large, generic groups, digital advertising enabled marketers to target specific audiences on their computers, tablets, and phones. The concept of personalization at scale quickly evolved as a result; unfortunately, marketers today still often struggle with their personalization efforts.

There is a root cause for this. At their core, personalization campaigns to date have relied heavily on either cookie or device IDs to identify personas. Consider our fictional customer, Bob, for example. Bob has a work email, ProfessionalMan43@work.com. He also has a personal email, SkaterDude78@home.com. Bob’s digital footprint is completely different at work than it is at home. In turn, Bob’s work computer will never show him ads for skating equipment despite his interest in such products. Typical device-based digital advertising does not enable this information.

The People-Based Marketing Approach

Fortunately, there is a simple way to build and scale a truly relevant personalization strategy that accounts for the multiple devices used by individuals. To do so effectively and increase relevance, smart marketers can utilize data to build complete 360-degree profiles of their prospects and customers.

People-based marketing knows that ProfessionalMan43 and SkaterDude78 are the same person, Bob, regardless of the individual activities associated with each email address. Further, if Bob provides his phone number when he makes a purchase at a brick-and-mortar store, that store now has the ability to understand who Bob is in real time and have a more meaningful conversation with him at the register. The seller can connect Bob to his email addresses, interests, and hobbies to readily understand his needs and connect him to relevant experiences and offers.

Consumers increasingly have grown to expect relevant, personalized experiences to the extent that they will often reject anything less. The delivery of real-time customer insights enables marketers to segment and tailor marketing efforts with immense precision. The challenge most modern marketers face, however, is the ability to ensure their segments are accurate and up-to-date.

Enter: Identity Resolution

The driving force behind an accurate, people-based approach to marketing is identity resolution. Identity resolution analyzes contact data fragments from multiple first, second and third party data sources and publicly available information to determine that ProfessionalMan43, SkaterDude78, and other identifiers all resolve the same person.

People today live highly fragmented digital lives. According to industry research giant Statista, the average number of Internet-connected devices per person is expected to rise to 6.6 by the year 2020. Laptops, tablets, work phones, mobile phones, desktop computers, video game consoles, and registration-based television streaming platforms are all increasingly common, and each one captures a different view of the same individual user. An effective identity resolution solution creates a cohesive picture of the person behind all of those fragmented devices.

With identity resolution, marketers can now successfully connect Bob’s social media interests with his work interests in unique and privacy-compliant ways. In doing so, marketers can deliver on the personalized level of service that Bob has come to expect. With data-driven identity resolution as its foundation, people-based marketing is finally able to fill its promise of delivering highly targeted ads and relevant experiences to customers.