Why SMBs Need Customer Demographic Data

Companies big and small need to cater to their customers wants and needs. But don’t fret – customer demographic data is accessible, inexpensive and makes a big impact.

Let’s understand why even SMBs need customer demographic data.

Customers Expect Personalized Experiences

Customers are busy, and attention comes at a high premium cost. They are multitaskers, hard workers, parents, travelers. They are constantly hit with marketing messages everywhere: in their inbox, on social media, on websites, on television, in their mailbox and outside.

Don’t bombard customers with messages. Instead, make the marketing content about the customer. When content is personalized, it shows that you value your customers’ time by making shopping more convenient, and helps guide customers smoothly down the buyer’s journey.

According to a study by AgilOne, 80% of US customers expect personalized, people-based marketing experiences, whether it’s from Netflix, Amazon or your small business. On all platforms, customers receive personalized recommendations on what to watch, buy, read and listen to. Why would they expect anything different from your small to midsize business?

Compete With the Big Players

Big retailers and ecommerce giants know their customers. They have the resources to collect loads of data on their customers. Plus, they have the money to install large datasets from providers – something out of reach for most small to midsize businesses.

Here’s the rub: as we established earlier, customers expect personalized experiences from all businesses. Customers don’t necessarily care whether you have the same resources as Amazon, Target and other giants. They just want good service and relevant messages.

But by collecting good data and working with SMB-friendly data providers, SMBs can gain the insights they need in order to better personalize content and serve up useful messaging.

Win Customers

Personalization makes customers happy. And happy customers are more likely to be repeat buyers. Better yet, they might spread the word about your brand.

According to research by Facebook, brand loyalty is based on emotion. 77% of customers return to the same brand again and again, and 37% are brand loyalists.

But on average, customers are only loyal to a couple of brands. That’s why it’s so important to leverage strong data to power personalization. Personalized experiences win customers and forge brand loyalty.

Get started

Ready to get started personalizing your content with customer demographic data? Here’s how:

1. Collect your own data: Let customers self-report data when they sign up for your website using form fields. These could include age range and gender, along with other preferences. Remember: Don’t ask too many questions or it could discourage users from signing up or completing a purchase.

2. Know what data you need: What data are you missing? What would be valuable for you to know about your customers? This will vary based on the nature of your business. A high-end boutique might want to know a customer’s household income, while a cookie company might want to know a customer’s interest or purchase intent around food.

3. Purchase only what you need: Work with a vendor that is accessible for SMBs and purchase only the data you need – not an excessive dataset.

4. Use your data to personalize and segment: Upload the data to your CRM or marketing platform and use the new information to create customer segments and personalize content.

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Test out our Email Intelligence customer data today for free on InstantData.