Securing First-Party Data, and Three Great Ways to Use It

If one thing is true of the changes that have taken place within the marketing industry, it is that data is now currency. In today’s blog, I’ll be diving into one of the most valuable forms of data, how you can obtain it, and how your business can leverage it in your campaigns. First-party data refers to data derived directly from your customers, or your audience. This data can be collected in two ways primarily, from your CRM/customer database, and from data providers. Let’s dive into how you might leverage the data from your CRM. Let’s say that there are a certain number of potential customers that have engaged with your business, but never purchased. If you have the emails of those potential customers that you’ve collected through a newsletter, consultation, or contact form, most CRM’s will allow you to segment that list of individuals in some way. Viola, you have some first-party data that you can now leverage in your marketing campaigns. You can imagine there are several other applications of this. But what if you do not collect this type of information from your customers directly? This is where data providers come into play. These are firms that allow you to purchase lists of individuals based on specific parameters such as job title, geography, interests, income, etc. There are some important things to remember when engaging with data providers, such as the validity of the data they provide. At Corkboard, we work with firms that we know have a strong vetting process so we know that the data we purchase to guide our client’s campaigns is as accurate as possible. Let’s talk about how one might use this data in their marketing.