The Customer Journey and the Role of Data

A typical buyer’s journey moves through distinct phases starting with Awareness, continuing on to Consideration, Purchase, and Onboarding/Post-Purchase, and hopefully ending in Advocacy. Much of the journey is carried out digitally – up to 67%, according to some estimates. Data breadcrumbs are left behind along a digital path, as people search online, sign up for activities, open emails, buy products, and post reviews. Each of these signals tells a story.

But how can marketers make sense of the story? That takes skill – and a helping hand from modern technology.

First, marketers do what they can to encourage customers to keep moving forward. They do this by feeding the types of content customers crave based on where they are in their journey. Each interaction gives marketers a chance to collect and interpret the digital signals – and the more signals, the better. As they pull mounds of data from all the different channels, apps, and information sources, marketers consolidate it into a single profile – often referred to as a 360-degree view of the customer. Once the resulting event table is established, organizations can respond more strategically with the appropriate message at the appropriate time in the right channel.

A Data Platform Enables That 360-Degree View. It integrates data from all sources and puts it in one place. This allows analysts to explore what’s there to ferret out patterns and trends. The insights generated can be put to good use, such as predicting buyer behavior, preventing churn, or recommending meaningful offers. This turns a run-of-the-mill customer experience into a positive engagement, personalized for each buyer’s journey.

Still, a data platform doesn’t just enable a 360-degree view – it opens up a whole new landscape for marketers. While customer data platforms, or CDPs, offer a view of the customer, a data platform like Actian gives you so much more. The same people, the same investment, the same data, and the same processes can be used to analyze other sets of data. This allows marketers to review other types of data – everything from financial to supply chain to support – and use it to enhance the customer experience.

The Actian Data Platform helps companies understand where customers are, and where they’re going. Using sophisticated analytics, companies can better interpret customer sentiment and intent when interacting with your brand and/or products, which can also be a valuable asset for other parts of the organization. Better insights can fuel product and service development, improve customer service, and make financial planning more efficient.

At Actian, we’re focused squarely on customer experience. We provide that integrated, 360-degree view that enables you to know your customers and respond to them in the most strategic way possible. With Actian Data Platform, you not only understand the customer journey, you make it memorable.

About Jennifer Jackson

Jennifer Jackson is CMO of Actian. Known as JJ, she leads Actian’s global marketing strategy and team. With 25 years of branding and digital marketing experience, she takes a data-driven approach that stems from her background in chemical engineering and as both a user and marketer of data analytics technology. She engages in initiatives to optimize customer experience, transition to a SaaS model and expand the partner ecosystem. JJ previously served as VP of Digital Marketing and Strategy at Teradata, where she led digital, strategy and operations for web modernization and strategy execution.