episode 2: define customer segments using a data-driven approach

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A data-driven approach to personalization


Agenda

– What does it mean to be data-driven?

– How to become a data-driven organization

– Types of data to collect

– Identifying persona segments


Background

– Product Manager, Acquia Lift

– Been at Acquia 2.5+ years

– Previously worked in enterprise consulting


What does it mean to be data-driven?


Data-drivenness is about

building tools, abilities, and,

most crucially, a culture

that acts on data.


Attributes of a data-driven culture

– Decisions are based on tangible and measurable attributes

– This increases visibility with regard to why decisions are made

– Increases likelihood of organizational buy-in by removing subjective bias



– Organizational goals are clearly defined, understood, and measurable.

– Poor example: A goal to increase sales

– Good example: A goal to increase sales 20% this quarter over last quarter



– A data-driven organization will be continually testing and have a continuous improvement mindset.

– Failure / unintended results are part of the process providing they were rooted in the facts available at the time


Building a data-driven organization


Data-driven organizational characteristics

– Data collection

– Data access

– Data analysis


Data collection

– Need to be collecting the right data

– The dataset has to be relevant to the questions you are trying to answer

– Data needs to be timely, unbiased and trustworthy


Data access

– Joinable from other sources

– Shareable across the organization

– Searchable for anyone looking for specific information


Data analysis

– Reporting alone is not sufficient to be data-driven

– Reporting tells you what happened

– Analysis says why it happened

– Example: my goal of increasing sales 20% QoQ


Types of data to collect


Customer identity data

– Examples:

– Email address

– Account names

– Merging of historical data is key to understand a customer’s entire journey - not just from the point they identified themselves


Demographic data

– Age

– Gender

– Income


Geographic data

– City

– State

– Country


Firmographic data

– Company name

– Industry

– Company size


Audience behavior data

– Click-paths

– Formfills

– Purchases


Implicit data

– Assumed based on the information you have collected such as interests or preferences

– Example: Content interests


Explicit data

– Any data directly given to you

– Examples:

– Job role field on a case study form

– Survey completion


Identify persona segments


Segmentation

– Knowing what your segments should be is challenging

– Good segmentation usually balances size with specificity

– Examples:

– All people within the US

– All people in the US who are on my newsletter mailing list


Testing segmentation

– Testing segmentation is just as important as testing content, especially when the best segmentation strategy is unclear

– Create a number of segments, some of which can even be overlapping and begin to see how your customers fall within them.


Mapping Segments to Personas & Content

– For organizations which have defined personas, the objective should be to map your segmentation to these personas.

– Mappings begin with the simple exercise of defining the attributes of your persona and how the data you are collecting can inform those attributes


Mapping Segments to Personas & Content

– Example: Buyer persona of a Director level or above individual within the IT/Tech department of their organization.

– Job Level: Director, VP, SVP, EVP, C-Level

– Department: IT/Technology

– Company size: Enterprise


The key to good segmentation is timely and

accurate data collection


Recap


Recap: Data driven personalization

– Data-drivenness is about building tools, abilities, and, most crucially, a culture that acts on data.

– A data-driven organization will be continually testing and have a continuous improvement mindset.

– Data-driven organizations:

– Collect data

– Have open data access

– And analyze data to understand why outcomes occured


Recap: Data driven personalization

– Good segmentation usually balances size with specificity

– Testing segmentation is just as important as testing content, especially when the best segmentation strategy is unclear

– Collecting timely and accurate data is key to a successful segmentation strategy


Make sure to register for our next episode!

Episode 3: How to Execute a Persona-based Content Strategy at Scale

September 12, 2017 - 1:00PM ET

Check out the Resources sectionto register!


Questions?