The great benefit of digital technology is not in the tools and buzzwords, but in the ability to bring factors such as beliefs and behavior patterns together and so they are more than the sum of their parts, “taking these disparate things and bringing them together to create better experiences,” said Marcus Collins.
Marketers are seeking to create experiences in order to connect emotionally with consumers and build loyalty for their business, but in spite of having more data than ever before, their ability to get the necessary insights from it is not keeping pace, said Collins, SVP of social engagement at Doner Advertising.
“I haven’t heard very many CMOs saying ‘my marketing is killing it because of all this data.’ It leads to this idea that we have all this information about people, yet we don’t really know people,” Collins told Velocitize Talks. “We confuse information for intimacy.”
Marketers have been relying on a “blunt instrument” of demographics to analyze consumers. “I keep remixing the same song: We have to understand people. Until we get there, the marketing will be random,” said Collins.
Tomorrow’s marketers will have to be students of behavior. “They’re already thinking about how people are wired … but most importantly, they’re empathetic,” said Collins.
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Gypsy on
So true. I’ve long since said something similar; that all sorts of professions were lacking the knowledge of human behavior. Businesses often purchase the search information about people and are following the assumption that whatever that person is searching for is something that the person views in a favorable light. They seem to have left out of their equation that people do let others use their computer and so the information they receive is about their mom, dad, or sisters interest, for example. Likewise, speaking for myself, I often search for things that I’m curious about, but view in a distasteful light; like cults for instance. I may have done a month long study on cults, and a buyer of my search history may erroneously assume that I somehow favor cults and those who belong to them. This could prove disastrous if a dating site got a hold of this information and selected for me a potential partner based on the premise that items searched frequently by this person are viewed favorably by them, and as a result, they dish out a person who is part of a cult, wants their partner to be open and willing to join the cult, and unfortunately for the business, it runs the risk of losing two potentially long term, satisfied customers; and both daters are losing hope that they will ever find someone who truly understands them and is interested in their likes and wants. So yaay to this company who is finding ways to better understand human behaviors and true interests more accurately than measures taken in the past.