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This image was published in November 2019 and was created by Damco. It is meant to demonstrate the uses of data collecting and how it is useful to both customer and company because it helps the customer get what they want more easily and it helps companies gain extra profit from sales.

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This picture was make public in march of 2016, it was made by the corporation Deloitte. This picture is a graph of a survey they did where they asked people if they"re willing to let businesses collect their private information. As you can see out of the five thousand people they surveyed in 2016, around fifteen percent said that they are willing to share information to companies for website activities while twelve percent are willing to do the same in social postings.

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What consumers really think about sharing personal information ...

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Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. Images What consumers really think about sharing personal information ... www2.deloitte.com Images may be subject to copyright.

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This picture was created in february 2020 by the company QuestionPro. The purpose of this picture is to show the different ways companies collect information on you, this picture supports my point because three out of the five ways of collecting information are either given to them by the person (surveys and interviews) or are collecting it from what you make public (looking through someones social media counts as observation).

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Five methods used for quantitative data collection | QuestionPro

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Please click here if you are not redirected within a few seconds. Images Five methods used for quantitative data collection | QuestionPro questionpro.com Images may be subject to copyright.

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This picture was made in August 2020 by the company Progressly. This picture was an attempt to show people that the collection of data is not a bad thing, this pertains to my topic because it shows how data collection has more positives than negatives.

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The picture was created earlier this year by Steve Greenburg. He was trying to showcase what happens when people have data collected but showcased it poorly.

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This video was uploaded to Youtube in the year 2015 by Xtalks Webinars. This videos states how collecting data can help hospital and clinics with aiding their patients, this supports my claim that data collection has more positive outcomes than negative ones.

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Benefits and ROI of eCOA Data Collection in Clinical Trials

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This video was published in the year 2019 by Kimberly Rogers, in it the person discusses the positive and negatives of data collection. In the video he states more positive than negatives which also helps my claim that data collection has more positive outcomes than negative ones.

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Joe Quinn, Benefits and Drawbacks of Data Collection with Qualtrics Panels

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The article was created in May 2018 made by Sarah Steimer, a former news editor. She claims that companies like Twitter and Facebook are breaching privacy illegally by collecting data and personal information and should be stopped. This was published to try to warn people of what corporations can do

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Marketers can lead the way in a post-Cambridge Analytica world, where data collection rules are murky and consumers are creeped out

Facebook changes its policies frequently, like a child switching up the rules to a game of his own making: a sly update when it's personally beneficial, a knee-jerk pivot when in trouble. Everyone else-the platform's users and advertisers-is left scampering and contorting to comply.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal shed a light on the social platform's inner workings perhaps more than any algorithm or design update prior. The Guardian a​​nd The New York Times found the data firm paid to acquire Facebook users' personal information through an outside researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, who created a data-harvesting personality quiz app that told users (in fine print) that it was collecting the information for academic purposes-a claim Facebook did not verify and was not true. Although only 305,000 people participated in the quiz and consented to having their data harvested, their friends also had their profiles scraped, bringing the estimated number of those affected to 87 million.

Facebook rescinded the ability to obtain data from friends of consenting users without their permission in 2015, but it's unclear if companies that engaged in this sort of data collection deleted the information they pulled before the access was denied. The old policy was part of Facebook's open platform style, which saw CEO Mark Zuckerberg inviting developers to build their apps on the website.

Cambridge Analytica's ability to circumvent the rules left consumers feeling uneasy (even though most marketers were well aware of this practice already). What followed was a cascade of realizations about Facebook's fast and loose policies. For instance, apps like the personality quiz aren't the only way that companies harvest user profiles: In April, Facebook's Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer told Slate that he believes most users on Facebook could have had their public profile data harvested by third parties through contact information. The comment was related to a Facebook feature that allowed users to search for other users via phone number or e-mail address, a practice that Facebook says was abused by hackers who scoured Facebook using lists of contact information to locate and grab users' public profile information. The feature was subsequently disabled, but Schroepfer said, "we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way."

The ability to collect more granular data continues to grow, sometimes faster than guidelines can be written. In a blow to Facebook's freewheeling practices, Zuckerberg was called to Congress. Europe handed down its own set of data collection rules, too. As Facebook policies continue to morph, marketers are mulling over whether the social platform is still the golden child of online ad targeting, or if guidance and filtering could help Facebook reach its potential.

Facebook-Advertiser-User Codependence

Facebook needs advertising to sustain its business, advertisers need Facebook users to sell their products, and Facebook users need the platform to remember their aunt's birthday. It's Facebook's codependent world, and we're all just living in it.

Users' reliance on the platform hasn't been monetized (for now), but advertisers and Facebook itself can put a dollar sign on their relationship: In its first quarterly earnings report since the Cambridge Analytica news broke, Facebook reported $11.8 billion in advertising revenue, a 50% increase since the same period last year.

On the marketing side, Facebook remains a great deal for advertisers. The cost per thousand impressions on Facebook is $5.12 (compared with LinkedIn at $16.99, Instagram at $4.20, Pinterest at $3.20 and Snapchat at $2.95), according to data science and martech firm 4C's "The State of Media Q1 2018" report. Facebook also yields the highest click-through rates at 1% (compared with Pinterest at 0.48%, Snapchat at 0.37%, LinkedIn at 0.25% and Instagram at 0.17%), making its cost-per-click of 48 cents the most efficient when compared to other social media platforms. The accuracy of its ad reporting, however, has recently been questioned. Facebook' has admitted to measurement issues, including miscalculations of average watch time of videos, organic reach of posts, video ad completion rate, average time spent on instant articles and referral traffic from Facebook to websites and mobile apps.

Even if users' attachment to Facebook can't be financially quantified, perhaps the fact that they didn't peel themselves off the platform after the Cambridge Analytica story is illustration enough. Facebook lost about 2.8 million U.S. users under age 25 last year, but it still boasts more than 1 billion daily active users. And despite the momentary media commotion, the #deleteFacebook movement didn't catch fire. A Reuters/Ipsos survey of 2,194 American adults following the Cambridge Analytica news found about half of Facebook users said they did not recently change the amount that they used the site, and another quarter reported they were using it more. Only the remaining quarter said that they were using it less, had stopped using it or deleted their account entirely.

The codependence among all parties may be one reason why the ethics of data collection have become murky. Though Cambridge Analytica's data-gathering might have been a shock to users, many in the marketing industry were well aware of the practice.

Alexandra Samuel, an independent technology writer and the former vice president of social media for Vision Critical, wrote an article in The Verge about the siren song of shady data-gathering tactics, such as those used by Cambridge Analytica. She wrote that Facebook's "generous access" to friend data was known to many marketers and software developers, as was the tactic of disguising data-mining as fun apps, pages or quizzes.

"I don't think we can generalize about whether, when and why specific companies or marketers venture into unethical or ethically nebulous territory when it comes to data collection and targeting," Samuel wrote in an e-mail.

She says a marketer's willingness to dive into these waters can depend on their business model; whether they're working in a company or industry with clear guidelines around how data is collected and managed; their level of tech knowledge (that is, do they know what kind of data is available or have the skills to collect and use it?) and their own personal ethics.

In her Verge article, Samuel wrote that it may be difficult to reform the industry of data collectors and marketing shops, which have grown to maximize the amount of data collected and the precision of ad targeting. "Social networks and other advertising platforms may set up various processes that notionally screen out data aggregators or manipulative advertisers, but as long as these companies run on advertising revenue, they have little incentive to promote transparency among data brokers and advertisers," she wrote.

Facebook Reels It In

One of the only controls on shady user privacy practices may be the fear of bad publicity, Samuel says.

"At this point, the real check [would be] the availability of competitive platforms that behave better," she says. "There certainly is a market opportunity for a social media platform to build a user base on the strength of respect for privacy, though so far none of those efforts have really taken off. I do believe it's just a matter of time before that happens. The fear of that alternative may motivate Facebook and others to make some real changes."

Whatever the motivation, Facebook has moved to take some interest in user privacy. There were rumblings, prompted by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, of making a paid version of Facebook where users would not see ads. More immediately, Facebook tweaked its advertising program.

Marketers on Facebook could traditionally leverage three types of data streams for ad targeting: data gathered by Facebook, which could include information on users' habits and usage of the platform, web browsing history and cellular location; data that advertisers collected themselves and uploaded, such as names and e-mail addresses of the customers who visit their stores; and data provided by third parties. This final source, from companies known as data brokers, includes insights gleaned by firms such as Acxiom, Oracle, Epsilon and Experian. These companies build profiles by gathering data over a period of years from government and public records, consumer contests, warranties and surveys and private commercial sources (namely, loyalty programs and subscription lists).

At the end of March, Facebook made an unusual and succinct announcement​: It plans to shut down "partner categories," a product that "enables third-party data providers to offer their targeting directly on Facebook." "While this is common industry practice, we believe this step, winding down over the next six months, will help improve people's privacy on Facebook," the statement read.

The decision centers around the idea that Facebook has less control over where and how third-party data aggregators collect their data, which is risky. This wouldn't have stopped the Cambridge Analytica debacle, but the development could have major repercussions for the broader digital advertising ecosystem. Should others in the industry follow Facebook's lead and distance themselves from data brokers, it could also mean an increase in transparency into their work with personal data.

Kristen Walker, a marketing professor at California State University, Northridge, cautions that this move may be less privacy-oriented and more lip service from Facebook.

"If they were really concerned about ending this service to improve people's privacy, they'd explain how it violated people's privacy," Walker says. "And how does it violate people's privacy? Is it the storage, the use, the rental? Maybe the real concern for Facebook, beyond meeting [General Data Protection Regulation] guidelines, is maintaining people's trust with illusions of transparency and concern for their privacy. And, really, isn't Facebook a data broker, anyhow? The entire distribution system and access to consumer data is undergoing a change. Whether it is an improvement for privacy or not is still a question."

Walker says ending partner categories doesn't necessarily mean that Facebook won't use these partners or access their data to boost targeting; it may just mean that marketers won't have visible access to that information.

"It actually could mean less transparency at a certain level for marketers who may be interested in the source of Facebook data they use to target consumers," Walker says. "Marketers want access to consumers and data broker info can help, but this service makes Facebook less of a dealer and more an intermediary. Nothing's stopping them from buying the data and repackaging it as theirs for marketers to utilize."

In another move to improve customer privacy (feigned or otherwise), Facebook is also changing its "custom audiences" policy by adding a tool that will require advertisers to verify that they gained consent to use e-mail addresses uploaded to the platform. Custom audiences allow advertisers to target users on the site by uploading e-mails, phone numbers and other information and cross-referencing it against Facebook user profiles. The permissions tool Facebook is developing will require an advertiser, along with the agencies or other organizations that obtain the information, to confirm that the third-party data in a custom audience has been responsibly sourced.

There's a strong chance that these moves were at least hastened in response to Cambridge Analytica and GDPR, the latter of which restricts how personal data is collected and handled and focuses on ensuring that users comprehend and consent to the data collected about them. The European Union rule requires companies to spell out why data is being collected and whether it will be used to create profiles of people's actions and habits. Consumers in the EU have to opt in, not search for ways to opt out; and they have a right to access the data companies store about them, to correct inaccurate information and to limit the use of decisions made by algorithms.

Whatever the reason for change, it's not entirely clear whether these policy shifts increase transparency. It may be up to marketers to come armed with flashlights in the social media swampland.

The Argument for Draining (or at Least Straining) the Swamp

It's not easy convincing marketers that not all data is worth gobbling up and storing, but Cambridge Analytica and GDPR may be enough to urge marketers to consider the quality of what they collect and their ethical responsibilities.

"Millennials grew up in digital, meaning they had to learn all the things the hard way about what you should and shouldn't put out in the public space," says Jessica Best, director of data-driven marketing at Barkley. "We're in that space on the advertising side right now, where we actually have to think about what we should and shouldn't do morally, ethically in data. We're going to start to take some responsibility. There's a lot of excess data being stored in unsecure ways right now in vendor databases and company databases. We're going to have to be a little bit more responsible, and I think that's going to be a good thing."

Although the trend has been toward increased personalization in marketing, there comes a point where the environment begins to feel creepy to the customer. There's a difference between seeing ads from a company you previously purchased from and receiving targeted communication that speaks very directly to your lifestyle from a brand you never interacted with.

There's precedent for this, Best says. "People have not liked being marketed to since about two years after marketing became a thing. The difference is that the scalable level to which we're able to use and activate data has become alarming. [...] What's scary is the level to which somebody can cultivate a profile of me and understand my 'why,' or the algorithm can construct this fairly accurate representation of what will motivate me. That's where we're not accustomed to it yet: We've scaled past the comfort level of those on the receiving end. It's become creepier faster than it's become acceptable."

In theory, any marketer could spend time on Facebook learning about users and their interests, but technology has allowed this to happen on a much larger scale, and faster. In this way, the data becomes almost weaponized-especially if used in a manner that could cause harm.

At Cal State, Northridge, Walker's research has explored the difference of shared data and surrendered data, advocating for controls on the amount and type of information that social media users provide. The amount of data coming down the pipeline is too much and not always accurate. Placing some sort of filter or slowing the trickle of information could result in more robust and appropriate targeting.

"What if we asked consumers what information they'd like us to know?" Walker says, "because I can guarantee you that if I know what you want me to know, that's going to help me address and serve your wants and needs."

Not only could marketers see their dollars go further, but consumers would likely appreciate seeing ads that are relevant to their lives. When Facebook made it possible for users to access the list of advertisers that uploaded their information, it was clear that not all marketers may benefit from such gratuitous access (this author included, after finding the vast majority of political groups or candidates with my information weren't remotely relevant to me in location or ideology). When marketing works well, it works for the advertiser and the consumer.

Regulating the Flow of Data-in Plain Sight

No one is expecting consumers to take the lead on how their data is collected, stored and used, as the nature of technology is to help them multitask more and move faster. In short, they're too busy and too overwhelmed to stop and read paragraphs of technical language before downloading an app that provides a few minutes of mental escape. The onus falls on marketers to guide data policies.

The industry is defensive of its ability to self-regulate, and most marketers in the U.S. hope to continue on this route, even as overseas legislation is enacted. Sentiment among Americans differs from their European counterparts: Privacy is viewed as a privilege in the U.S. and as a right in the EU. As such, marketers in the states have been freely roaming the information highways.

Yet this isn't the first time that advertisers have grappled with issues of audience deception. To potentially avoid legislation in the U.S., digital marketers may want to focus on increased transparency and ethical behavior as it relates to personal data. In fact, advertisers can serve as guides for the relatively young technology industry.

"It's going to require demanding quality data," Walker says. "Then it's going to require someone to stand up and say, 'We can help you with this.' Marketers understand that we're supposed to avoid deception, and we see a lot of newer industries learning that the hard way."

Despite the new policy guidelines set by Facebook, experts caution against expecting the social media giant or others in the tech industry to lead the way on data regulation. Marketers will need to play the role of middleman, filtering the rivers of customer data that pour through social media and choosing what is quality and how to use it ethically. Being transparent to consumers will be a balancing act: Data collection must have consumers' approval, but to avoid the "ick" factor of seemingly creepy ad targeting, the curtain can't be pulled away completely to reveal all of marketing's tricks.

Best cites a greeting card company as a theoretical example for striking an appropriate balance. Based on a consumer's buying behavior (e.g., purchasing a "Congratulations on your new baby boy!" card), the company would know if a household has a young child. Rather than speaking directly to that knowledge ("Here's a perfect onesie for 3-month-old Timmy!"), advertisers can simply show appropriate products. The ads are relevant, but not invasive.

"I believe this entire conversation has really been about the marketer self-regulating," Best says.

As marketers use data to create segments and personas, it's their job to regulate just how much information is collected and be transparent about the ways it's used.

Thinking Like a Market Researcher

Market researchers are quick to point out that Cambridge Analytica is not a market research firm, but the data-driven industry's principles may be worth a review by digital marketers.

A core tenet of market research ethics is transparency. Firms like Forrester, Nielsen and Kantar follow guidelines that require researchers to be up-front with subjects: providing interviewees with clear descriptions of their work, keeping recorded conversations classified and generally withholding all personally identifiable information. These are ethics that allow for segmentation, not personalization.

Julia Clark, senior vice president of public affairs in the U.S. for Ipsos, emphasizes the need in market research for informed consent, in which research participants provide information with knowledge of how that data will be used and by whom.

"The first thing I think of when I think of ethics in research is the ethical responsibility we have toward participants and respondents," Clark says. "That means protecting their information and data and utilizing the best data control protocols. It also means not stressing them out. You don't want to administer a survey that's going to leave them with a real sense of unease or ask them questions that are going to make them so uncomfortable they want to stop."

GDPR seems to take a cue from these guidelines and gets at the heart of a modern challenge for market researchers: how to ensure that people do not suffer adverse consequences as marketing relies increasingly on secondary data, defined as information collected for another purpose and subsequently used in research, versus primary data collection (surveys).

"One stream is useful but messy," Clark says of secondary data. "The other (primary data) is very clean but probably not as comprehensive and loose. Navigating between those two is at the crux of all of this."

Reg Baker, executive director of Marketing Research Institute International, says the industry is working to expand the ethics that cover primary data to also address secondary data. He says it is essential that no one is harmed related to the use of data, whether obtained in person, on the phone, through Facebook posts or via Amazon transactions.

The International Chamber of Commerce and European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) revised its International Code in 2016 to account for this concern, adding a new article addressing secondary data. The code defines harm as "tangible and material harm (such as physical injury or financial loss), intangible or moral harm (such as damage to reputation or goodwill), or excessive intrusion into private life, including unsolicited personally-targeted marketing messages."

This last point, perhaps appealing to advertisers, is what market researchers want no part of. It's one of the industry's historic principles, and it has no plans to change that in the digital era.

"We don't deliver data to clients that allows them to identify individual data records and associate them with a person," Baker says. "As part of the research, we may develop a profile on a whole bunch of people whom we have information on, but that remains protected and confidential, and it's not what we would deliver to a client. We're here to help companies make decisions, a bet based on the information about the marketplace. But we're not in the business of actually giving them the weapons to go at individuals so that they can change their behavior or sell them something."

That's the business Cambridge Analytica was involved in. The company mined users' data and created profiles, then used those profiles to reallocate advertising and other communications. It was a full feedback loop. This is compared with market research where the data are used to create segments. Individuals whose data were used in the research might receive the segmented marketing communication, but never in a personally targeted manner.

"We (market researchers) are capturing the information, but we are not deploying that directly back to the person we captured it from," Clark says. "It's being aggregated, it's being anonymized." ​

​General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
What is it?
The regulation is a new set of rules from the European Union that are designed to improve individuals' control over their personal data. The rules replace the 23-year-old Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC, and aim to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe.

GDPR affects organizations located within the EU, but it also applies to organizations located outside of the region if they monitor the behavior of EU data subjects. It applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of subjects residing in the EU, regardless of the company's location.

Under the regulation, personal data is defined as any information related to a natural person or "data subject" that can be used to directly or indirectly identify the person. It can be a name, a photo, an e-mail address, bank details, posts on social networking websites, medical information, a computer IP address or a host of other identifiers.

Parental consent will be required to process the personal data of children under the age of 16 for online services.

How are marketers affected?

Organizations need to pay attention to the rules: Penalties could lead to fines as high as $24.6 million or 4% of global annual revenue, whichever is larger.

GDPR limits the amount of data that marketers can collect on European consumers, who have more options about what data companies can see about them. Customers must be able to give consent, and implied consent is unacceptable. The consent must be informed, specific, unambiguous and revocable. That means consent may not be within long-winded terms and conditions that use complex legal language. The customer is also given the right to remove their consent at any time.

The type of data collected must be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the intended purpose of collection. Information may not be used in a way that would be incompatible with the intended purpose for which it was collected. Data may not be shared or transferred to another organization without consent from the person to do so.

Customers also reserve the right to be forgotten, meaning they may request that their personal data be removed from any database or cookie pool. Marketers will need to have processes that can erase collected data should a user submit a request for withdrawal. Users also reserve the right to correct or update any data.

Additionally, the data that an organization obtains from a consenting user must be protected. Any data breaches must be reported within 72 hours to all consumers and respective bodies.​

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The Murky Ethics of Data Gathering in a Post-Cambridge Analytica World

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Facebook changes its policies frequently, like a child switching up the rules to a game of his own making: a sly update when it's personally beneficial, a knee-jerk pivot when in trouble. Everyone else-the platform's users and advertisers-is left scampering and contorting to comply.

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This article was created in June 2013 and was created by George Rodriguez, an entrepreneur who has ran many businesses. This website supports my claim with information the relates to my topic because this site is explaining the benefits of collecting data from the store owners perspective and nothing he states could harm a person.

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Home Business, Start a Successful Home-Based Business

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Excellent customer service is key to the success of a small and home-based business. In fact, a superior customer service is your primary weapon against giant retailers and big businesses like Wal-Mart.

To be able to offer excellent customer service, however, you first need to know and anticipate what your customers want. You should know how to reach, satisfy and track your best customers. And the best way to predict what your customers want is if you have an accurate history of their purchase history.

Information about your customers can significantly help shape your business and marketing decisions. Specifically, the benefits of gathering and analyzing customer information to your business are:

1. Maximizes revenue and profits.

Getting new customers can be expensive. Marketers have found that it is five times easier and profitable to retain current customers than generate business from new customers. Analyzing information from your existing pool of customers allows you to identify your best current and potential customers and allocate resources strategically to maximize returns to the company. You can shift your resources from expensive new customer acquisition strategies to the less expensive customer retention strategies.

In addition, knowing key information about customers can make help you develop marketing strategies more attuned to your current and potential customers' need. As a result, you can increase the frequency (number of times a customer buys), range (cross-selling of additional products), and value of customer purchase (pushing more expensive product lines to customer). You make better-informed decisions about your customers; hence you market and operate smarter, faster and more cost effective than your competition. This in turn improves customer loyalty and contributes to a better bottom line.

2. Improves customer relationship.

Businesses who are able to meet the needs and interests of their customers are more likely to develop lasting relationships with them. Understanding your customers is the first step to ensuring a loyal base of customers. If you know the who, when, where and how of your customer, you are will be able to personalize communications, offer a more individualized customer service, or direct specific promotions targeted to exceed customer expectations, which in turn could further cement the customer/business relationship.

3. Maximizes the value of customers.

Your goal is to ensure that your customers keep coming back to you again and again. You can achieve this by identifying continuity and cross-selling opportunities to keep them reigned in to your business.

If you are running a subscription-based web site, for example, you want your members to continue their subscription year-after-year and purchase your other products (e.g. books, downloadable e-books, etc.). If you are selling men's clothing, you want the buyer to purchase a tie in addition to the shirt already purchased. If you are a web designer, you want your client, who originally asked you to create their web site, to also purchase your search engine optimization services, create their advertising creatives, or other ancillary services that you offer.

Keeping track of your dealings with your customers will allow you to identify the "one time only" triers, the repeat purchasers, and the loyal customers. Your goal is to be able to convert your single transaction customers into a regular, and hopefully, loyal customers in the long run.

4. Lowers your costs.

A better understanding of your customers allows you to craft the right marketing and customer communication programs. Customer data can give you information about your customer's habits and needs allowing you to better tailor your marketing campaigns, including timing and frequency of promotions. You will be spared with the expense of trial-and-error campaigns and ineffective marketing efforts resulting from inadequate customer information.

Read the following articles on knowing about your customers:

Recommended Books on Getting Information About Customers:

Similar Posts:

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Benefits of Getting Information About Your Customers

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Excellent customer service is key to the success of a small and home-based business. In fact, a superior customer service is your primary weapon against giant retailers and big businesses like Wal-Mart. To be able to offer excellent customer service, however, you first need to know and anticipate

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The website was published in late July in the year 2019 by a company known as Korona. is this website they explain more on the corporate side of data collection and explains the different forms of data. This information is important to my point because it shows what collecting data does to a company and how without data collection business would crumble because of how important data collection is in business.

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At its heart, customer relationship management is simply an effort to better market your products based on shoppers' preferences. Collecting basic customer information and data allows businesses to reward loyalty, stay in direct communication, remarket, and gain valuable feedback.

Of course, the internet and the big data revolution has given retail CRM a more insidious reputation. Indeed, some of it is creepy. And a couple of the big players have in part ruined it for the rest of us. But in reality most efforts by businesses to collect customer data are mutually beneficial: it increases your business's sales and improves the shopping experience for your customers.

So let's break this topic down into three parts:

1. The type of customer data that businesses should collect

2. A few of the ways that SMBs can collect the information

3. Benefits of gathering customer information and building your CRM system

Types of Customer Information Your Business Should Collect

The array of valuable customer data out there is surprisingly broad. Again, it's basically anything that shows you what your shoppers want and how they engage with your business. Secondary effects of gathering this data enable you to run strategic promotions and target your marketing, but it all stems from this starting point.

Like many aspects of business operations, the internet has made a massive impact on this field. Not only does it make data collection much easier, but consumers are also just spending more money and time shopping.

But with such a glut of data available, it's important to determine which pieces are the most critical to gather and examine. After all, you want the data to provide valuable insights into your business, allowing you to make better decisions. So let's examine a few important categories of customer data.

1. Purchase History

Gathering shopper purchase history allows you to know what items they buy and how frequently they buy them. Like most of these data points, individual shopping histories are most valuable when paired with other information.

For instance, it would be useful to know when certain customers of a specific demographic are shopping with you. If you have a coffee shop or bakery, you may want to change the menu on certain days of the week or times of the day. For general retail, this information could help you set up promotional pricing or in-store event planning. There are thousands of ways that this information could benefit your store's operations.

2. Multiple Lines of Communication

Adding customer contact info, like phone number, email address, and mailing address opens the door for different lines of communication down the road. And it's great to diversify your marketing channels. Email marketing is a valuable resource, for example, but many younger consumers rarely use the service. Reaching these potential customers through SMS marketing would be more productive.

Another way to foster more passive communication is by getting customers to follow your social media accounts. Incentivize likes and follows on any relevant accounts and use this avenue as a way to touch base with past customers and remind them to come back.

Gather information as basic as a name and phone number also allows you to reach out to customers to make sure that they are satisfied with their purchase. Most shoppers won't complain, so it's good to be proactive to be sure you can remedy the situation if they are unhappy.

3. Shopping Preferences

Knowing more in-depth data into your customers' preferences will help guide your ordering, pricing, promotions, and shelving. These are integral aspects of running a smooth business so giving yourself an upper hand will go a long way. Here are a few things to consider:

4. Basic Demographics

Knowing some of the basics on your customer base is quite helpful. Your staff can enter the information into your POS system or the shoppers can self-report. You never want to pry too much, but painting a fuller picture is a great way to boost your CRM system. Below are a few categories worth adding to your customer data:

While it's not a great idea to pry too deeply, add data that is appropriate and useful for your business.

5. Keep an Organized Record Through Your CRM

With all of these, keeping a detailed, accessible, and organized system behind it is the most important step to building your customer data.

A robust customer relationship management system is the key behind this. Your POS system should provide a user-friendly platform to enter customer data with each transaction. Not only will it automatically track all transactions with date and time, amount, number of items, promotional pricing, and location, but it can prompt your staff to enter additional information into customer profiles.

For more robust options, your point of sale should be able to integrate with third-party CRM systems.

6. Collect Reviews and Shopping Experience

Reviews online and in-store customer feedback provide several benefits to businesses.

As we've covered before, building a base of reviews is important for your online reputation. Strong reviews increase your brand's awareness and trustworthiness.

But reviews and feedback also allow you to better cater your business toward existing customers. If you hear that shoppers are regularly demanding certain items or complaining about a price, use this information to make any necessary changes.

Businesses can also use feedback to encourage customers to leave additional data, like basic contact information or demographics.

7. Find Out How New Shoppers Found Your Store

Your CRM is meant to help you both improve the shopping experience for your existing customers as well as attract new customers.

A great way of doing this is by asking shoppers how they found you. Most businesses have varied marketing channels and spend different percentages of their budget on each. In order to allocate this budget most effectively it's important to know which outlets work best.

You can also tie this data in with future perspective on lifetime value of customers. Perhaps certain channels are bringing you more reliable, long-term shoppers that boost their overall value.

Ways for Businesses to Collect Customer Data

So now that you have an idea of some of the types of data that are worth collecting, let's look at some of the best ways to gather the information. It's important to pursue a cohesive strategy but equally critical that you don't annoy or upset customers by being too invasive or aggressive. As mentioned above, the first step to building your CRM system is through your point of sale.

Every point of sale system should come with a built-in customer relationship management system to help you get started. The POS is the final point of contact a business has with the customer. It's also an unavoidable point of interaction - unless you offer self-checkout - between the guest and an employee. So it's important to take advantage of this part of the shopping experience. Make sure that your point of sale makes it easy for associates to enter and store customer data. This should be tied to your loyalty program, too. KORONA makes these easy with a point-based loyalty program and fields for demographic and contact information. These will be automatically tied to customer profiles and all data will be compiled as they shop with you over the years.

For businesses that require more robust CRM systems, your POS software must integrate with third-party CRM systems. KORONA integrates with several, including bLoyal. bLoyal offers a powerful loyalty solution for various business niches including wineries, breweries, hospitality, travel, and health and wellness. They are highly customizable to provide the best fit for your business.

Running email surveys or asking for easy feedback on eCommerce channels is another great way to build your CRM. Leave open-ended questions to give your a deeper look into the customer experience. You can even go a little old-fashioned and put out a suggestion box or cards. Some shoppers will still appreciate the gesture. While it's not as convenient as digital options, the data can still be inputted into your system.

Gathering as much information as possible is also aided by your employees. They need to ask the right questions and do it in a friendly manner. Go through adequate training with each new staff member to ensure that all efforts to gather customer data are done in an appropriate and friendly manner.

The Benefits of a CRM System for Small Business

So what's the point of going through all this trouble? After all, it takes a lot of work to compile substantial information about your customer base. But it will pay off in the long-run with increased sales and a more successful business. Here are a handul of most important benefits of CRM systems.
Build Loyalty
Successful loyalty programs are a crucial aspect of keeping your customer coming back often. They're fun, interactive, and rewarding. Plus, they often incentivize shoppers to spend more with each transaction. Weather you're just creating a simple point loyalty program or offering a more powerful solution, a great loyalty program will boost your store's business.
Increase Lifetime Value of Shoppers
It's always more ideal to keep an existing customer than constantly have to attract new ones. Marketing can be expensive and using your CRM to draw back lapsed shoppers is much more cost-effective.

By doing so, you will also increase the lifetime value of each shopper. Such long-term data is important to consider when planning your budget.
Improve Your Marketing ROI
Likewise, a CRM system will make each marketing dollar spent go a little further, meaning you'll help your return on investment. Many marketing avenues are expensive, so it's important that they bring your business money. Taking advantage of your customer relationship management system will add to each shopper's value and make your marketing efforts more worthwhile.
Learn More About Your Products
Use your CRM and customer feedback to learn more about each of your products. It's a great way to analyze your inventory and figure out what sells well and when it sells well. Additionally, you can gain insight into items that pair together, helping you figure out promotions and rewards down the road.

Get the Right POS for Your CRM System

Your CRM will only go as far as your point of sale allows. Make sure that your POS includes a basic management system, but also ask to see that it integrates with more powerful options. To learn more, give us a call at KORONA. We'll walk you through our system and show you how it can improve your business. Just click below to learn more about our point of sale and register for a free trial so you can see for yourself.

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Benefits of Gathering Customer Information: How to Build Your CRM

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At its heart, customer relationship management is simply an effort to better market your products based on shoppers' preferences.

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This article was published in May of 2019 and the publisher is Allan Stormon, a content marketing manager at a large company. This information helps me support my topic because this article explains the benefits on the customers side including that businesses could find them better deals for the customer and help them save money.

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When consumer data is in the news, it's usually because of a security breach, fraudulent activity, or a privacy violation. These things occur often enough that they can skew people's perceptions to the point where they only view consumer data collection negatively-and that puts us digital marketers in a precarious position. After all, digital marketing is built on data; and the ethical, safe, and authorized collection of it.

So, how do we convince our friends, family members, and peers that data collection isn't always the conniving villain lurking in the shadows and that there's more to it than the negative headlines we see every other day? We can start by reminding ourselves of all the benefits that come into play when data gets into the hands of creative marketers.

Data collection happens everywhere―in marketing, advertising, and consumer goods and services, as well as in broader areas such as public safety, healthcare, and energy conservation. It's the reality of the digital-first, connected world we live in.

Maybe you're looking for a better response when someone questions the efficacy of your work, or you need a reminder of why you got into this industry in the first place. Whatever your reasons for reading this article, let's explore the positive side of an often polarizing issue.

The promise of consumer data: personalization, better products and services, savings, and more

The core promise of data collection is to improve the experience of dealing with businesses-whether through the advertising that consumers are served or the products and services they buy.

Here are five unique and forgotten ways in which data collection improves the customer experience and drives better outcomes for everyone.

1. Data that improves the ad experience

The advertising industry has collectively been talking about the notion of relevance and personalization for decades, and that's because its importance can't be discounted.

There's an inherent need to create experiences that consumers find engaging and relevant-without it, there's no point to advertising. If there's no chance that people will buy, interact, or raise their hands in any way, what's the point of advertising to them? Thanks to data, marketers now have access to more information than ever before; and they can use that to ensure they're only reaching those who are fit for their brand, product, or service.

Personalization serves two purposes here.

First, it helps businesses reduce waste by ensuring they're only investing in channels and ads that their audiences respond to, driving efficiency.

Second, it improves the experience for consumers by removing irrelevant ads from their online experience. With ad blocking more popular than ever before, and a broader societal revolt against advertising, marketers needn't make matters worse by serving ads that offer no value to consumers. Even the most hard-nosed, anti-advertising consumers can appreciate when advertisements for relevant products appear at the right time, in the right place.
UK Internet users attitude towards seeing digital ads reveals relevance and personalization does impact whether they like seeing ads or not. Source: eMarketer.
Consumer data fuels insights that enable personalization on the level that we're seeing today. While there's still work to do (hey, nothing is perfect), without the same access to data, marketers would be left with a one-size-fits-all, mass marketing approach. And consumers, already tired of advertising, would be forced to endure ads that have no meaning to them-a surefire way to add fuel to the fire.

2. Data that drives new product and service strategies

Personalization through consumer data also informs new product and solution development.

Today's advanced technology and vast media networks make it viable for businesses to assess and anticipate market needs for new products, line extensions, and service improvements so they can better meet consumers' wants and needs, at both the individual and the aggregate level.

For businesses, not only does this approach improve the chance of a sale, but it also reduces the waste of creating products with no market demand.

For consumers, the benefits are obvious. If business leaders and product strategists couldn't accurately assess their markets and how their products and services are being used, how could they improve and deliver on consumer expectations?

Data collection allows businesses to deeply understand the market so they can serve consumers in more innovative, intuitive, and creative ways-resulting in consumers whose needs, wants, and desires are met. Problem solved.

3. Data that helps consumers save money (yes, really)

Couponing and special offers are some of the oldest tricks in the marketing playbook, but data-driven, targeted advertising allows businesses to offer customers these savings when they need them most―while they're actually shopping. And this isn't confined to the retail and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industries.

Within the insurance industry, for example, consumer data allows carriers to more accurately price premiums and offer products and services timed to align with customers' changing circumstances, such as retirement or purchasing a new home.

4. Data that makes it easy for customers to do business

Customer-pleasing features such as one-click ordering and automatic payment processing are made possible through the marrying of data and technology, and they make business transactions much more efficient and convenient.

Automated prescription refills, upcoming service reminders, and product recommendations based on past purchases are other examples of how businesses are using what they know about their customers to make the path to purchase streamlined and more efficient.

5. Data that comes to the rescue

Data and technology together can even play the role of the hero in discovering "bad actors."

The internet has opened the door to invalid traffic (IVT) -misleading clicks and other activity that artificially inflate a website's or ad publisher's traffic counts.

This can be accidental, such as clicks from legitimate bots and crawlers, but it can also be used by malicious users to generate a count that deliberately misrepresents actual customer interactions. IVT can inflate an advertiser's budget and negatively affect the company's advertising expenditure, derailing ad campaigns that target legitimate customers.

The right data filtration and analytics tools can help advertisers detect and block this type of fraudulent activity so that the right ads go to real people.
DrainerBot - discovered by Oracle - is an example of when data helps consumers. Source: AdWeek.
In fact, consumer data analytics is used to prevent fraud in a number of industries, including insurance, financial services, and telecommunications. Consumers who are worried about their vulnerability to identity theft through data sharing are often unaware that their data is also a component in the fraud detection and prevention measures that the companies they do business with are undertaking on their behalf.

Anyone who has received a notification from their credit card company about a suspicious transaction is in effect being protected by the same data used to receive a discount on purchases. But that's not the only way data and technology combine to turn a potentially bad situation into a positive outcome.

Medical data analysis can literally save lives. As data collection and analytics increase in sophistication (think biometrics, sensors, and real-time alerts), healthcare professionals are able to intervene to avert numerous potential catastrophes―from making dosage adjustments in life-saving medications to preventing heart attacks and strokes, to recognizing and blocking a developing pandemic.

To learn more about invalid traffic, download our guide " How to Protect Your Ad Spend From Invalid Traffic".

Changing the paradigm for consumer data collection

There's no getting around the fact that we live in a data-driven world, and that's not going to change―nor should it. Gathering and analyzing consumer data has numerous benefits for individuals and businesses that collect information about them. Companies have a big stake in making sure that consumers view data collection and its use as a value-add and not as an intrusion or threat.

As marketers and business leaders, we all have a role to play in shifting consumer perceptions in a positive direction by providing clear and easily accessible policy statements that include comprehensive explanations about how consumer data is being used and protected.

We can also help change minds through public relations efforts that drive awareness about all the positive actions that are enabled through consumer data analytics. On a micro level, we can share the above-mentioned benefits of data collection with our peers the next time the discussion arises.

The more that people realize how a connected society makes everyday activities more fluid, open, and accessible, the greater the chance that we can change the narrative.

There will always be bad actors who taint the practice of data collection and, in doing so, bring down the wider industry. But as long as companies and marketers protect and secure their consumer data, use it for legitimate purposes, and are transparent with consumers about how they're accomplishing these objectives, data will earn the good reputation it deserves.
About Allan Stormon Allan is the Content Marketing Manager at Oracle Data Cloud. He leads the content strategy and global content marketing program, producing content that helps marketers create and launch more effective campaigns with data.

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The 5 forgotten benefits of consumer data you need to know

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When consumer data is in the news, it's usually because of a security breach, fraudulent activity, or a privacy violation. These things occur often enough that they can skew people's perceptions to the point where they only view consumer data collection negatively-and that puts us digital marketers in a precarious position.

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This article was made earlier this year by the company truyo. This article states that collecting data allows for personalized items to be recommended to them making it easier for a person to find what they want. This supports my evidence because is showcases the benefits of having data collected.

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Roughly 2.5 quintillionbytes of data are generated every day -- and that unbelievable number is only going to continue to get higher.

No matter the industry you work within, the demographics of your target market, or the kinds of goods/services you provide, you know that collecting data about your customers helps you to improve nearly every aspect of your business.

And even though you may not be able to capture all 2.5 quintillion bytes of consumer data, you want to ensure that you put the customer data you do collect to the best possible use.

The types of data collected by companies can include information on a fitness watch, a user's IP address, past search queries, a user's location, and even the ads that someone clicks on online.

But what exactly are the benefits of collecting this kind of consumer data, and what are your responsibilities when it comes to collecting and storing customer data?

Keep on reading this post to find out.

1. Data Provides a Deeper Understanding of Your Market

Perhaps the biggest reason why so many companies collect consumer data is that it helps them to get a much better understanding of the way their consumers behave online, define their overall demographics, and identify the ways in which they can improve the overall customer experience.

Data makes it much easier for your company to understand what your customers want from your company, the specific products/services they're looking for, and even how they prefer to interact with your brand.

When you know more about your customers, you can tweak everything about your business to better fit their needs. You can also improve the ways in which you communicate with your target market, optimize your website to improve the user experience, and much more.

2. Data Collection Improves Your Consumer Database

We know that you're always looking for the most effective ways to grow and organize your company database -- and collecting customer data can certainly help to make that happen.

You'll be able to collect the IP addresses, email addresses, and even potentially phone numbers of the people who have interacted with your brand in some way.

This means you can reach out to them about future opportunities, improve your lead generation strategy, and better gauge the actual level of interest a consumer has in your company based on the way they act on your site or respond to advertisements in another way.

So, you'll spend more time, energy, and marketing money on quality leads.

You'll have the information you need to be able to send them SMS marketing updates, email newsletters, special offers, and much more.

3. Consumer Data Improves Your Marketing Strategies

Especially in today's world, your company's overall digital marketing strategy is more important than ever.

If you want to outrank your competitors, increase your conversions, and establish a sense of trust and transparency between your brand and your market, you need to do everything that you can to optimize your marketing campaign.

And the reality is that you simply can't do that without collecting data and using it to inform everything about the way you market your products/services to consumers.

Data will be able to tell you which of your marketing campaigns and tactics your target audience responds to the most and prefers, so that you can create more effective and targeted advertisements in the future.

You'll learn more about your average buyer persona, their preferred social media platforms, which products they're the most interested in, and much more.

Data can also help you to get a better insight into the overall customer path/journey on your website. This way, you can make the necessary improvements to improve the user experience and convince them to convert.

4. It Allows For Greater Personalization

Roughly 63% of consumers say that they expect personalization from the companies they work with when it comes to marketing and product suggestions, order confirmations, and any sort of communication between themselves and your business.

Collecting data allows you to meet consumer expectations in regards to personalized communications and suggestions.

Additionally, the more you know about the kinds of products/services your customers are interested in, the more likely you are to pitch them products they're the most likely to buy and close the sale.

You can segment your marketing strategies according to consumers who have similar interests, allow for the autocompletion of payment methods and other forms on your website, and even get a better understanding of the devices that customers prefer to use when accessing your website.

This goes a long way towards improving your ROI, shortening your sales cycle, and making the kind of expansion you've always dreamed of a reality.

Understanding Your Responsibilities

As you can see, there are countless benefits of collecting consumer data -- but those advantages also come with specific responsibilities.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) outlines guidelines that companies must follow regarding data collection and protection. For example, guidelines include not keeping data for longer than needed, ensuring that the data is kept secure, and, above all, responding to Subject Access Requests (SARs.)

Under SAR regulations, you are required to provide a copy of the personal data that your organization has collected about individuals (whether they're consumers, employers, or simply individuals who have visited your website.)

Most companies need help with automation, tracking, task management, and other issues regarding individual rights and privacy management.

Our software can help to make that happen.

Request your free demo from us today, and get ready to future-proof the way your company approaches privacy management!

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The Importance of Data: The Top Benefits of Collecting Customer Data

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Roughly 2.5 quintillionbytes of data are generated every day -- and that unbelievable number is only going to continue to get higher. No matter the industry you work within, the demographics of your target market, or the kinds of goods/services you provide, you know that collecting data about your customers helps you to improve nearly every aspect of your business.