New advances in marketing technology mean that marketers no longer have to rely solely on their strategy, luck, or gut feeling when planning campaigns. The sheer volume of data that consumers produce with any online movement allows marketers to get a detailed picture of their interests, preferences and behavior.

Theoretically, it should be easy to understand consumers’ needs and catch them at the right moment of the buying process. However, that is easier said than done as studies prove. The challenge is to translate the ever growing cloud of dynamic and unstructured data into a unified panoramic view of the consumer.

Although, for instance, the majority of marketers in retail indicate that a unified view of the consumer is most important in building a successful omnichannel business, only a minority stated they believe to be a able to accomplish that.

So, how can marketers exploit the wealth of data to anticipate the wishes of consumers and provide a future-oriented experience that meets their needs? Let me give you some guidelines:

Perceive real-time as baseline

In our age of excessive networking, consumers are no longer impressed by a real-time response. The ability to deliver targeted and relevant information on the basis of real-time data is simply expected by the consumer. The more worrying it is to know that companies increasingly struggle with the rapidly growing amount of customer data that has to be unified and analyzed before receiving highly personal customer insights.

Tag management is here the most suitable technical basis for the standardization and processing of data from multiple sources. It puts marketers immediately in a position to address customers effectively across all digital touchpoints. Companies have to see and act in real-time, hence, personalization has to be based necessarily on current and not past events before more complex marketing techniques can come into play.

Speak to permanently networked consumers

Awakening the interest of the audience with the right message at the right time is more important than ever, especially since technical advances mean that each time can be the right time for modern consumers. Prior to digitization, opportunities to attract the interest of consumers were few and far between, but the proliferation of digital devices and channels has heralded the era of permanently networked consumers. Marketing strategies have to harness this permanent networking and approach consumers exactly when they are most receptive for marketing messages and advertisements - no matter when. If the message is then even relevant in the context, the chances are high that there is some action.

Be always one step ahead of the consumer needs

Once marketers have mastered the basics of real-time reactions and permanent crosslinking, they can take the next step and reach the customer by atmospheric marketing more proactively. This means that companies do not just wait for the action of the consumer before reacting, but are one step ahead of the real-time, anticipate consumer needs and deliver messages that meet those needs before the consumer is even aware of them.

With technologies such as tag management and visitor-centric customer data platforms, marketers can learn from the past experience of the customer and make recommendations that are getting more and more accurate the higher the volume and the quality of data. For marketers, it's time to accept this new age of data and to be ahead with massive amounts of real-time information to meet customers’ needs before they come true. 

To create magical moments, where wishes come true before they are even pronounced, has long been the goal of marketers. Using available technologies and platforms can effortlessly make it reality now

By Daniela La Marca