Consumer Identity Strategy could be key to cloning Best Customers
Every interaction builds a persona, not just an audience model
The full-service advertising company AMP Agency has announced its proprietary 'Consumer Identity Strategy' (CIS) that it says can influence customer behaviour online, in-store, and throughout purchases, along with the publication of a white paper detailing the untapped power of behavioural analysis.
The white paper, entitled 'The Power of Behavioral Analysis and The Consumer Identity Strategy', was published in a bid to help brand marketers to leverage already-owned behavioural data - from website analytics and CRM to in-store foot traffic - to see how consumers are actually interacting with their brands across their various properties, both online and offline.
At the same time, the company says that its new CIS offering is unique in that it is not simply based on audience modelling techniques. The agency's analysis enabled it to move beyond self-reported consumer data to build better personas and journeys using real behavioural data, instead augmenting that information with details of how consumers actually behaved, both online and offline.
No faulty assumptions to trip over
For example, AMP worked with a fashion brand known for its laid-back 'SoCal' (Southern California) style to build and expand its customer base. Traditionally, marketers have to make a number of assumptions about their brand's audience by building surveys and assembling focus groups.
But AMP Agency didn't need to make so many assumptions about the client's customers, and consequently eschewed costly legacy research. Instead, the agency built a proprietary version of 'doppelgangers' - that is, personas based on existing shoppers and their known behaviours.
How they cloned the customer
AMP Agency's media team geo-fenced each of the brand's - and their competitors' - physical locations so they could observe the behaviours of real shoppers on a large scale. They were also able to create more perfect personas, identify underserved target consumers, build new shopper profiles, and weed out low-value customer types. By doing this, the client's budget could go significantly further in areas where it counted most.
By layering in this real-world behavioural data, the agency discovered a number of fairly profound insights that changed the client's pre-conceived ideas about their consumer targets.
For example, instead of mainly seeing shoppers from the US Midwest, as expected, the client's actual shoppers were much more likely to be from coastal states. And while the expected audience was a "35+ stay-at-home mom or teacher", only 4% of shoppers were seen in school zones, while the majority were observed working in corporate office buildings. There were also a significant number of younger shoppers browsing, but not buying - yet. This finding alone hinted at a whole new audience segment for the brand to target later.
Strategies that would have been missed
These discoveries, along with many other detailed behavioural data points and insights, shaped a new marketing strategy for the brand - one that simply could not have been developed purely by using traditional research methods.
And by using a custom CIS in conjunction with physical location data to identify media opportunities (e.g. where to place out-of-home 'OOH' media, or where to conduct a consumer-focused event), the agency's work also had a significant effect on the brand's real-estate and investment decisions.
"Using behavioral data to create a Consumer Identity Strategy is no longer for the Amazons, Walmarts and Googles of the world," said Greer Pearce, vice president of strategy at AMP Agency. "It's for every retail brand that has a physical, digital and mobile presence. Those brands that don't focus their marketing budget on Consumer Identity Strategies right now will find themselves playing catch up in the years to come."
The full white paper supporting the agency's approach and successes has been made available for free download (name and email address required), here: https://www.ampagency.com
Sources: AMP Agency / The Marketing Factbook.
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