Targeted customer marketing: it’s missing the mark actually

An illuminating new survey report reveals than more than four in five consumers believe at least half of the targeted marketing they receive to be no more than spam

The survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of Featurespace shows that British consumers still perceive the majority of targeted marketing to be impersonal and irrelevant to their specific needs. Furthermore, consumer attitudes indicate that even if a marketer has succeeded in targeting their communications appropriately, the number of potential conversions will still be limited. 

The survey, which questioned 2,057 consumers in Britain, was carried out to determine consumers’ thoughts and attitudes towards targeted marketing and its effect on future purchasing decisions.

The vast majority of consumers, a significant 82%, consider at least half of all types of targeted marketing they currently receive to be spam; a staggering statistic which should be cause for concern for marketers, who may be undermining the very customer relationships they seek to improve. Indeed, more than half of the respondents (54%) agree that the majority of targeted marketing is in fact entirely mis-targeted: presented to them at the wrong time with irrelevant offers or promotions.

Most marketers today tend to rely on traditional sources of customer information to make their campaign decisions, building market segments rather than focusing on the individual. Even with a small segment, this aggregated approach inherently shows generic customer behaviour, blurring any potential insight into what individual customers need or desire.

Shockingly, only 42% of consumers would actually be ‘more likely’ to buy a product after receiving targeted marketing that is of relevance to them. This clearly highlights to marketers that a huge proportion of their budget is currently being wasted on those unlikely to ever respond to communications or promotions. However, it also represents an opportunity for marketers; look to identify this 42% of consumers and ensure a more efficient and cost-effective marketing spend.

“Evidently, traditional methods of insight are insufficient to build reliable understanding of customer motivation and allow pinpoint targeting,” says David Excell, founder and CEO of Featurespace. “Deeper, granular, personalised insight which is constantly updated in real time is required to create and maintain a true picture of every customer. Great creative will always be required to deliver the provocation and persuasion, but organisations need to be much more effective at predicting interactions at an individual level.

“It is also clear that businesses need to be able to act faster on what they learn – seizing opportunities before their competitors do.  In a digital context, marketers need to change their perception of a campaign from a fixed-point-in-time, single push-button activity, to a dynamic, stream of personalised communications, tailored specifically to the needs of the individual and delivered using the correct channel at exactly the optimal moment.”

The commercial benefits of deeper insight were clearly expressed by the respondents in the YouGov research.  Although it is easy for dissatisfied customers to find alternatives and shop elsewhere, the consumers interviewed suggest there is an opportunity for companies to enhance customer loyalty and encourage repeat business. 63% of respondents agree that companies could increase customer loyalty significantly by understanding the needs of their customer and communicating the most relevant offers and promotions in the right format at the right time.

“These results are a wake-up call for marketers,” continues Excell. “If businesses are to minimise campaign waste and have a real impact on their customer base they need a new, smarter approach to marketing insight. Using detailed, accurate and real-time intelligence of customer behaviour – especially online - enables companies to differentiate from their competitors because they are able to truly understand what motivates their customers to spend more and can adapt marketing campaigns to individuals’ needs.

“Our predictive analytics software also self-refines - ‘learning’ over time - which means the intelligence continuously becomes more precise. It’s this comprehensive level of insight that gives businesses a robust foundation on which to base important marketing decisions. This is ever more pertinent today as marketers are under pressure to deliver quantifiable evidence of how their marketing expenditure is helping to drive sales,” concludes Excell.

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