As marketers we all struggle with how to connect to our customers. How do we get them to hear our message through the noise and the clutter of their already overcrowded inboxes? The first step to a better connection - is knowing as much as possible about our customers - so we know what to say that will resonate, hit home and more importantly - get them to buy.

But how? The best way is from the customers themselves - through something called first party data. This is the information you collect directly from your customers through things like direct ticket sales, WiFi marketing, on-site manual sign-ups, website engagement, online orders, app users, etc. Using that first-party data you can develop enhanced customer profiles - with accurate information. A customer profile is a way of describing a consumer categorically so that they can be grouped for targeted marketing and advertising.

Online stores – until recently – have had an advantage in collecting customer profiles. E-commerce sites can easily collect customer profile information using the billing details from online sales along with customer feedback, and tools like Google Analytics.

For off-line businesses, however, customer data can be much more elusive and expensive to collect. While customer profiling has been around for decades, new ways of collecting the data – like WiFi Marketing software – are leveling the playing field, allowing brick-and-mortar businesses to take advantage of gathering the same information that comes easily to e-commerce sites.

Without a rock-solid understanding of who your customers are, you’re relegated to using the “throw everything at the wall” approach to marketing, blindly sending out non-personalized, generic messages. This can be costly and ineffective.

Interested in learning more? We wrote a white paper detailing the advantages to using first-party data to build better profiles. Check it out and let us know what you think.

At SocialSign.in we’re passionate about WiFi Marketing, the capabilities of the software and what it can do for businesses. If you’re interested and want to learn more - you can contact us @ info@socialsign.in.