Marketers Miss Personalization Edge of Social Data

Marketers are missing out on key opportunities to use social media data for multichannel personalization, reports Adweek magazine's SocialTimes blog, citing the "2016 Yesmail Channel Report." This is despite the fact that personalization has proven its value in response and conversion across channels. For example, marketers often fail to gather e-mail addresses, one of the most basic contact points, through social media. According to the report, 45% of marketers don't collect e-mail addresses on social media, and 70% don't collect e-mail from their own mobile apps. (Of course, an amazing 17% don't even collect e-mail via their own websites!) Even companies who build e-mail databases fail to then use freely collected social data points, such as demographic and location information, to effectively personalize e-mail communications. In fact, only 42% say they customize e-mail campaigns with the recipient's name, so it's no surprise that only 36% modify copy and just 34% alter images to personalize e-mail content. The problem stretches across channels: Only 50% say they modify any marketing materials based on easily collected demographic data from social channels, and just 36% use social media data, such as brand page likes, for personalized targeting. See the full article at http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/report-retailers-missing-cross-channel-personalization-opportunity/632710