The removal of third-party cookies is bound to transform the digital marketing industry. So, if you are marketing your construction business online, you must reassess your data strategies and current approach to privacy to gain an edge and succeed.
This is where first-party data enters the story. Today, many marketers rely on first-party data—valuable information that can be directly obtained from customers. This data allows you to deliver targeted campaigns and guarantees a privacy-first environment.
This blog will help you understand first-party data and its benefits. We will also provide tips on making the most of it and tailoring it to your marketing strategy.
What is First-Party Data Anyway?
First-party data is information or data sets a company obtains from its customers. This specific data is being collected via the company’s digital channels, with the consent of the users to have their information collected.
Compared to second-party and third-party data, first-party data is generally considered the most trusted and reliable because it comes directly from the customers or website visitors. This information includes gender, age, location, and even income level. Other data reveals customers’ behavioral data, such as website visitors, and psychographic information, such as their values, interests, and lifestyle choices.
Sources of First-Party Data
As your construction business collects first-party data from different sources, it is crucial to understand what these sources are and where to find them. Below are the places where you can most likely get first-party data.
- Website: Your construction company can track transactions, visitor behavior, and any actions your web visitor takes. This data can help your business create more targeted retargeting campaigns that deliver a personalized experience to your visitors.
- Mobile applications: If your construction business has a dedicated application, getting information from your target audience is easier. This is where you need to define user events that are helpful and meaningful to any user.
- Mobile web: Your website’s mobile version can collect valuable information from its users. This information can be used to easily track user behavior and other meaningful user interactions.
- Emails and SMS: Email data can help you segment your audience and curate targeted campaigns for people with different interest levels. On the other hand, SMS data allows your construction brand to interact with customers more intimately, becoming a powerful tool for driving audience interest.
- CRM and point of sale: Customer relationship management (CRM) and point of sale enable you to better know your customers. Your brand can deliver targeted messaging to the audience that resonates with their main preferences and interests.
You can gain insights and leverage your customer and business data with these sources and channels.
Why First-Party Data is Important for Your Construction Business?
For a business owner like you, using a first-party data strategy offers many benefits, especially when understanding your customer base and offering data privacy and protection. Here are the many benefits first-party data can bring to your construction business:
- Deeper customer insights: You will have solid first-party data gathered directly from your construction clients. You will know their interests, concerns, and pain points, which will help you provide better solutions and services for them. Also, first-party data are much more accurate and reliable, which helps you deeply understand what makes your customers tick.
- Targeted advertising campaigns: First-party data enables you to create better data-driven marketing campaigns for your ideal customer segments. It also allows you to retarget web visitors with ads for the services they just viewed.
- Data-driven decisions: Using first-party data, you can better track the status of your campaigns and their effectiveness. You can also measure ROI and ensure that every single investment delivers a solid return.
- Strong customer relationships: By obtaining and using customers’ data with more privacy, you show respect and give value to their inputs.
- Customer journey optimization: A well-defined first-party strategy can transform the customer journey. By fully understanding your customers’ needs and preferences, you can tailor every touchpoint, from product/service recommendations to customer service interactions and more.
How Do You Create a First-Party Data Marketing Strategy?
1. Define top priorities
If you do not clear your priorities, a first-party data marketing strategy may be ineffective in the long run. When it comes to setting the main priorities, the privacy-first web is a concept you need to adhere to. This concept’s three pillar priorities are loyalty and trust, a single source of updated information, and a holistic approach.
These three pillars are essential in protecting user data as well as creating strong privacy protocols:
- Trust and loyalty: Today, people are becoming increasingly aware of the possible risks associated with sharing their personal data. Also, everyone has high expectations for the security and privacy of customer data. Not prioritizing it may lead to losing your client’s trust and may put your construction company’s reputation on the line. If you want to leverage first-party data, make “privacy “a top priority.
- A single source of updated information: Most companies and businesses do not incorporate first-party data in their digital marketing strategy, which is a disadvantage. Using reliable platforms like Google Analytics, you can have a go-to source of information that is accessible anytime and anywhere. A platform like this can help you make better decisions and give you better customer insights.
- A holistic approach: By prioritizing important goals and implementing cross-functional collaboration, your business can have a better chance of succeeding and emerging stronger.
2. Determine your goals
When you are about to create your first-party data digital marketing strategy, it always starts with understanding what you want to achieve. In other words, what do you want to accomplish with the data? Do you want to increase customer loyalty? Do you want to build stronger brand awareness? Driving more sales? Enhancing customer experience?
Having clearly defined goals can help you guide the rest of the journey and process and ensure all your marketing efforts focus on what matters most for your construction business.
3. Create a comprehensive system for data collection
Once you finally know what data types will prioritize reaching your goals, it is high time to begin collecting them. In this stage, you definitely need to create a continuous process or a system for collecting and evaluating data. You also need to include all the methods you have for storing and protecting the data safely.
Make sure to invest in automated programs and apps that have the best features and capabilities. These programs should be capable of helping you gather insights from huge amounts of semi-structured and unstructured datasets.
4. Analyze your data
Let’s say you already have a lot of valuable information. What should you do next?
The next exciting part is data analysis. The data you just obtained must be analyzed. It is very important to analyze the collected data to determine whether it is helpful in your decision-making or can be a great tool for enhancing your business operations and customer relationships.
With the rise of artificial intelligence and other machine learning algorithms today, data analysis is made easier and seamless. These advanced tools allow you to easily and accurately determine correlations and patterns between multiple data sets.
5. Invest in personalization
Your construction clients and customers are different from one another. They are unique and somehow lack real-time personalization. So, you have to do something.
Use all the information you gather – from website visits, purchase history, location, interests, preferences, etc. – to showcase your ads to the only people who pay attention to what you are selling and promoting. Monitor what is working and what is not, and make your advertisements more effective. In this way, you can connect with your target customers deeper and show them that you understand their needs.
6. Consider legal and ethical risks
Another important consideration is the legal and ethical consequences of handling first-party data. First-party data is quite sensitive and should be handled carefully, so it is vital to ensure your systems are aligned with updated regulations and policies.
Keeping up-to-date with these strategies early on and becoming more mindful of possible risks in handling this type of data is the backbone of a successful first-party data strategy and understanding your consumers.
Partner with ConstructionMarketing.io
Now you know what a first-party is and the strategy you can devise when leveraging it. First-party data is complex, and developing a strategy is not easy. However, it is worth taking the time to get it right.
It always starts with your customers. The future of marketing belongs to those who fully understand their customers. How far can you go to understand your customers even better?
If you lack some skills in this area, you can take the first step by partnering with our agency.
We are ConstructionMarketing.io – a trusted construction marketing agency always at your service!
We designed marketing campaigns built on first-party data. Our approach to marketing is designed to stand up to the landscape of data protection, privacy changes, and media disruptions. Our online marketing solutions guarantee richer opportunities for your construction business, driving more value and offering rich opportunities.
Here’s a complete list of what our agency offers:
Get in touch with us today! Let’s start leveraging all that data you have!