Creative strategies to capture quality first-party data

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First-party data is undoubtedly among the most valuable assets for a brand’s marketing efforts. However, just like any high-quality information, this type of data is fairly complicated to acquire. Furthermore, it’s safe to argue that poor data quality doesn’t just cause campaigns to be inefficient, it often leads to bad business decisions, poor sales forecasts, and unsatisfactory customer experience. 

In this article, we’ll look into various ways brands can creatively capture first-party consumer data and ensure its quality while they’re at it.

Why is this issue so pressing?

Some recently published studies report on how widespread the phenomenon of inaccurate first-party data appears to be in the current business environment.

A study conducted by Experian, states that a whopping 91% of companies suffer from data-related issues, such as outdated, incomplete, and inaccurate information provided by their customers.

Furthermore, another report presented by Veeva indicates that 66% of respondents consider that a complete and real-time view of the customer is a top priority for their customer reference data. Additionally, the same study suggests that companies lose about 12% of their revenue to inaccurate customer information.

How can brands collect accurate data?

When it comes to collecting first-party data efficiently, brands have lots of ground for experiments. First off, they can use their main websites to obtain information from their customers, along with using social media for collecting information from their audience. 

A great percentage of internet users can be considered digitally-savvy, meaning that we need to inquire for their information in a more interactive manner. Simply asking for their data is no longer a viable strategy, it’s essential to entertain and engage. 

Creative approaches to data collection

Social media is a great place to obtain accurate information. For example, Instagram stories a highly efficient medium for incorporating links to forms in exchange for certain value to the customer — anything from unlocking special content and participating in giveaways to coupons for products and services.

Another option is to gather user-generated content via social media platforms by hosting contests that require photo submissions, polls, and flock-to-unlock mechanisms that have proven to increase audience engagement considerably. 

SMS Tactics to capture first-party data

SMS short codes are another increasingly popular way of collecting highly-accurate customer data. Essential information like email addresses, postal codes, sex, age, and others can be obtained via SMS short codes. 

There have been reports that by just sending out three messages via SMS can increase conversions threefold

Now that you have a better idea as to how it works, what are some ways that brands are using SMS to build their email lists?

1) Radio and Podcasts:

Radio promotions and podcasts especially are really popular forms of advertising as you have the listener’s attention. Normally, brands simply use a 10s spot to promote a product and then provide a confusing coupon code that can only be redeemed at an equally confusing web url. Instead, brands are cleaning up their voice ads to include promotions like “text ‘JOIN’ to ‘55055’ to get 5% off your next purchase.”

2) Brick and Mortar (In Store):

Instead of asking people for their email addresses at the cash, brands are asking customers to subscribe to eNewsletters or activate a promotion by texting and registering to receive marketing promotions. As you can see in the image above, in-store Interactive Signage is the best way to display these promotions. Plus these promotions can be placed anywhere in the store.

3) Direct to Consumer Flyers:

When you receive a flyer in the mail not many people like to pull out their phone, open a browser and start typing in a confusing 30 character URL to get a promotion. It’s a lot easier to have people text-in a keyword to short code to get started.

The takeaway 

Despite being the most efficient type of customer information, first-party data is still prone to being inaccurate. 

Businesses now need to ask for their customers’ information by using more interactive mediums. This is why brands need to look into more creative approaches to motivating their audience to share their data and user-generated content, like using social media and SMS. 

And we’re here to help you with that.

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