How customer data management systems drive marketing success

Highlights

You’ll learn how robust customer data management systems elevate your marketing.

• Break data silos: Customer data management systems centralize information across touchpoints, ensuring better organizational cohesion
• Drive personalization: Unified customer profiles enable real-time, tailored experiences across channels, boosting engagement by up to 40%
• Streamline operations: Automate data collection and integration, freeing teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than manual processes
• Proven results: Industry Dive increased CTR by 40% while Land O'Lakes saw 38% higher conversion rates after implementing a real-time CDP

Transform your marketing with a robust customer data management system like Contentstack’s real-time CDP.

Many businesses struggle with disjointed systems, inconsistent customer interactions or compliance risks from using multiple CMSes or legacy systems that do not support integration.

Customer data management systems like a CDP were built to address these issues. They centralize data, enabling businesses to eliminate silos and streamline their marketing strategies. 

What is customer data management (CDM)?

Customer data management is an approach that allows you to collect, manage and use data. It enables you to make the most of the vast data points your business generates daily.

While tools like a real-time CDP and CRM platform are part of the setup, customer data management is “an approach” that integrates multiple data sources to provide a holistic view of customers.

The case for customer data centralization

Data silos are an all too common problem. An IDC report states that the global economy loses up to $3.1 trillion to it, while 69% of businesses struggle with siloed data. Here are some reasons why you should centralize data.

• Breaking down silos: When you centralize data, you have managed to break down silos. This ensures that your teams and departments have access to the same accurate data at all times.
• Ease of decision-making: It gives you a centralized view of customers, like a single source of truth. This promotes cohesion as different teams share data. It also eases decision-making, given that all the insights you need are in one place.
• Enhancing personalized customer experiences: Centralized customer data also enables you to visualize the customer journey, so that you can then craft tailored content that aligns with their needs.
• Avoiding the risks of fragmented data: When you have customer data in fragments, you can miss out on opportunities. It also opens you up to outdated insights and security issues.

How does a customer data management system work?

As stated, it collects, organizes and stores data from multiple sources. It then uses its built-in features to clean, integrate and segment the data to create a unified customer profile that marketers can act on. 

A typical CDM strategy relies on integrating several key tools, such as:

• Customer data platforms (CDPs): A customer data platform (CDP) gathers and consolidates first-party data from multiple sources, giving you access to real-time customer insights.
• CRM systems: CRM systems manage and analyze customer interactions and support sales management.
• Analytics tools: They provide real-time dashboards to visualize insights and make informed decisions.

Components of effective customer data management

When building an efficient CDM system, these are the components to focus on:

• Data collection and storage: You want a system that automates data collection and storage. That allows you to consolidate the data from all customer touchpoints. This automated process saves you the time that may be wasted on manual data collection.
• Data integration: It unifies customer data from multiple sources. This ensures data accuracy and consistency across the board.
• Data analysis and reporting: A CDM transforms data into insights using ML algorithms. With that feature, you can identify industry trends and customer behavior patterns with which you can make or adapt marketing strategies.
• Data governance, security and compliance: A CDM also provides built-in tools and protocols to secure data and manage compliance, ensuring customer data safety.

Benefits of customer data management systems in marketing

The most successful brands have found a way to make their data work. CDM makes a difference in many ways, some of which are: 

• Enhanced customer engagement: It provides real-time insights that enable you to personalize customer interactions and deliver omnichannel experiences. This leads to higher engagement rates. 
• Streamlining workflows: It integrates tools like a real-time CDP and CRM platform, eliminating the need for manual data collection. This saves time, as marketers can then focus on more strategic initiatives.
• Enhanced scalability: A customer data management system automates data integration and updates. This allows you to optimize resource allocation and scale marketing campaigns across larger audiences and channels.

How Contentstack helps you manage customer data

Contentstack offers customer data management and automation tools that make a difference in your marketing.

Real-time CDP

The real-time CDP enables you to activate first-party data, personalize interactions and orchestrate customer journeys in real-time. It also offers real-time identity resolution, advanced segmentation, audience targeting and personalized omnichannel experiences.

Automation

With Automate, you can sync, transform and manage data across different tools and systems using a no-code interface. It is an integration tool that simplifies your workflow, eliminating the need for middleware. It automates updates, approval and publishing as well as tracks automations with audits and extension logs. It also offers built-in OAuth support for data security.

Case studies

Industry Dive

Industry Dive was unable to centralize customer data, making it hard to track their customer journeys. Opting for Contentstack's real-time CDP allowed them to integrate customer data. That change allowed them to personalize customer journeys and increase customer engagement by 40%.

"Our editors really see the value of Lytics. They’re using it every day to shape their editorial content." Robin Re said.

Keep reading to see how Industry Dive increased CTR by 40% with Contentstack’s real-time CDP. 

Land O'Lakes

After extensive market research and RFP, Land O'Lakes opted for Contentstack’s real-time CDP. This allowed them to integrate customer data and deliver tailored experiences to their various audience segments. As a result, CTR went up by 29% and conversion rates by 38%.

Steve Rude said. "Impressions are the metric of a failed marketing campaign…If you’re not getting the conversions, it means you weren’t hitting the right audience. You may not reach a million people, but we’re going to reach the right people with the right message. And that’s where Lytics helps us."

Read more on how Land O’Lakes increased the conversion rate with a CDP.

Best practices for centralized customer data management 

To fully leverage your CDM efforts, follow these best practices:

• Establish data governance policies: Create clear guidelines on handling data. That way, you can maintain data quality and adhere to data security and privacy laws. 
• Choose the right tools: Evaluate your business needs and opt for tools like a real-time CDP that can integrate your customer data and support your current marketing workflow.
• Set a regular schedule to validate and cleanse data: Focus on data quality. Ensure you set specific schedules to audit data quality and take corrective actions when relevant.
• Commit to data privacy and security: Implement relevant measures to keep customer information safe. This can include encryption, access control, regular security audits and more.

Optimizing your marketing with centralized data insights

Here are ways to optimize your marketing with centralized customer data. 

• Real-time personalization: With access to dynamic data updates, you can respond instantly to change. Here is an instance. If a customer abandons their cart, you can push an email reminder within minutes. That would nudge them to complete the purchase.
• Leveraging data-driven decisions: You can apply AI algorithms to centralized data to predict customer behavior. You can also use it to segment audiences more effectively. So, if your analytics show that a specific customer segment prefers email communication, you can prioritize email campaigns for them.
• Uniting teams around shared data: When marketing, sales and support teams collaborate using shared data, the customer experience becomes consistent and cohesive.

FAQ section

What is a customer data management system?

A CDM system is a tool that allows you to collect, consolidate and use customer data for personalized campaigns.

What is a real-time CDP in marketing?

A customer data platform is a tool that activates first-party customer data from multiple sources, enabling you to deliver real-time personalized experiences.

How is data management used in marketing?

Data management simplifies marketing processes and workflows. Given that it is an automated process, marketers will not need to collect and organize data manually. It will also ensure that marketers can access data from a centralized repository, making it easy to make decisions.

How can consumer data help marketing?

Marketers can use customer data to segment audiences, create personalized content and deliver targeted marketing campaigns. They can also use it to create omnichannel experiences across platforms.

Learn more 

Customer data management systems centralize data and automate workflows. By doing so, marketing and other supporting departments have access to a single source of truth to make decisions. That cohesion ensures that you can deliver consistent and personalized omnichannel experiences.

Contentstack’s real-time CDP is one of many critical tools to have in your customer data management system. By activating first-party data, you can orchestrate customer journeys, access advanced analytics and segment your audience. This enables you to create engaging experiences that customers demand. Talk to us today to get started.