Data management in B2B: When the website system becomes a marketing data hub.

In the course of many of today’s website projects, questions often arise regarding the collection, management and usage of data. Customer Data Platforms (CDP) and/or Master Data Management (MDM) can be very helpful in this matter. In this article, wob explains to you how these solutions work and elaborate on the typical B2B tasks that they can help you with.

CDP and MDM: What you need to know

In short, the primary focus of both solutions is the management of personal data or various other data fields – such as customers or product-related data – in a structured way in order to make it usable. If the focus of the collected data is on names, addresses and the like, it is called a “Customer Data Platform”. If it is specifically about address data, centrally used IDs and product information, you speak of a “Master Data Platform”.

All beginnings are difficult – and inconspicuous

If you want to embark on data-driven B2B marketing, your initial focus will often be to deal with simple tasks: for instance the personalization of the entry point of a website or the quick integration of a new form on it. Maybe the data from an email automation solution is to be connected with the web tracking. Or data segments are to be filled with reference to user behavior and later utilized via marketing automation. The list goes on and on.

However, classic content management systems such as WordPress or even large platforms like the Adobe Experience Manager do not offer such functionalities out of the box. Therefore, it is necessary to incorporate third-party systems or to acquire additional licenses. Data management products from specialized providers such as Marini Systems indeed offer some useful functions, but usually these solutions are not ideally suited for B2B marketing projects.

Here’s why Pimcore is our choice

As a B2B agency and customer-oriented business partner, we at wob have chosen a system with which we can offer our customers the best possibilities – in our case, that’s Pimcore. With its in-depth CDP and MDM capabilities, the Customer Management Framework (a free plugin from the Pimcore community) can be quickly put into operation, which offers sophisticated options for collecting, managing and ultimately using the obtained data. A simple use case for this would be to define a target group with just a few clicks (“All users who have logged in at least three times”) and then distribute certain contents to this particular target group (“Welcome back. These were your last visited pages.”).

CDP and MDM in B2B: How should you approach the subject?

Commonly, modern marketing is a matter of data and technology. That’s why customer data or master data from various sources serve as the foundation for more successful campaigns or brand touchpoints. Let’s take a closer look at this:

Integration: The usage of data from other systems (e.g. ERP, CRM, automation, address brokers) enables the merging of basic data and behavioral data into a “unified profile”. In these unified profiles, all collected data is neatly arranged and can be used by marketing and sales departments to target their contacts and leads.
Segmentation: Moreover, Pimcore offers the possibility to create dynamic clusterings of users, which are called automated segments. Not only does this simplify the evaluation – for example, through the option to display all conversions of a certain user type – but also through the distribution of more relevant information.
Personalization: A platform that we developed offers specific and user-optimized contents to registered users. The basis for this is made up for one part of profile information (basic data etc.), the other part consists of information that is derived from the behavior of the users (segments etc.). The better the personalization of the content, the greater are the chances for establishing contacts and/or receiving project enquiries.
Automation: The data streams that get obtained and optimized this way can now be transferred into automated processes. Over the system’s open interfaces – Pimcore offers numerous APIs for connecting third-party systems in this regard – email campaigns can be triggered and tasks and tickets can be added to the CRM. Hereby, a classic website with the suitable CDP/MDM becomes the starting point for a holistic market cultivation.
Scaling: Companies that make use of these systems in a cross-platform and centrally controlled way have great scale effects in prospect. A consolidated data set does not only save costs for system and data maintenance, the implementation of it can also be completed a lot faster in order to carry out new business requirements.
Reporting: And how much faster all this can lead to measurable success is much easier to identify with a clean CDP/MDM landscape in comparison to a large number of individual data hubs. Furthermore, visualization tools such as MS Power BI or Tableau can be used to convert the success of your optimized marketing infrastructure into factual profits.

Success through teamwork

You get the idea: Modern marketing is not an easy undertaking. Especially the set-up of a Customer Data Platform or a Master Data Management system is usually new territory for marketers and can only be accomplished with intensive support from IT and sales departments. But if you start to work on this task together, the results can be impressive and ultimately generate more business – plus more (budgetary) scope for the next marketing campaign.