Once you understand the importance of customer value, you will want to get your hands on all the data you can about your customers, to help you decide how best to serve them. However, beware: Not all customer data is equal. This week you will learn about the importance of balance. - Balancing how easy it is to gather and analyse against its relevance to your business. +-Balancing the relevance/importance of data you could or should be gathering against the cost of obtaining that data. Finding the balance between relying on the types of data you’ve always used against the promises made about data obtained by digital means. Working out how to weigh up the relative usefulness and importance of disparate types of data.

Unless you’re working for a large multinational firm, it’s highly likely that the cost of gathering and analysing the optimal amount of relevant customer data is more than you can afford. However, there are many cloud-based, software as a service (SAAS) tools available that make robust analysis achievable. This week we will explore the types of tools used by both large and small businesses for customer data and analysis and identify which questions will help you determine which ones are most relevant to you.

Once you have decided which types of customer data are relevant, achievable and affordable, and then gathered all the information on customers that you can, how do you turn it into something useful (for both you and your customer)? This week we explore how to combine different forms of data to create a meaningful picture of your customers. Using the customer-centric frameworks developed earlier in this unit, we consider how to best understand your customers, what they want, and how you can re-tool your business to meet their needs.

The biggest problem with data and analytics is that it’s all backward-looking; you’re reviewing what’s happened in the past. How do you use your deeper understanding of your customers to develop and innovate? Here’s where the creativity comes in. This week we look at how to blend the insights learned about your customers with other information to create solutions that help bridge the gap between your customers’ current and aspired selves and unlock growth in your business.

Some experts have said that customers are now all online, so brands need to move all their promotional effort from traditional media to digital media, particularly social media. Despite the growing numbers of online/social media users and declining audiences for traditional media, it’s not that simple. People go online for different reasons and while consuming tools such as social media, they’re less receptive to brand messaging. Following on from everything we’ve learned in this unit, this week we will focus on how to use digital media to optimise customer value, as opposed to engaging in interruption marketing.