Why data quality is crucial for DTC businesses

With inflation rates climbing and consumers being more conscientious of where they spend their money, maintaining a reputable brand and customer service is extremely important to business success. At the front line is data quality. 

Data is the lifeblood of a business. It powers users with telling metrics about customers and the company's overall health, allowing leaders to make informed decisions on operational and marketing strategy direction. The reality is that shoppers want to feel connected with the brands they patronize, which means consumer brands are faced with the challenge (and opportunity) to create an authentic, personalized customer experience to retain customer loyalty and increase revenue.

Additionally, e-commerce sales continue to rise with no sign of slowing down when consumers increasingly switch to online shopping. In fact, the International Trade Administration expects global online sales to reach $5.5 trillion by 2027. Enter the direct-to-consumer (DTC) business model, a retail landscape that positions brands to sell directly to consumers. DTC retailers can skip the wholesaler middlemen and third-party shippers altogether and can succeed without depending on larger retailers and brick-and-mortar stores to stock their products. This allows DTC businesses complete control over all operational processes, from the point of purchase to the order's fulfillment, shipping, and delivery, making this business model increasingly more popular for even long-tenured brands that traditionally rely on wholesale to distribute their products.

DTC businesses and the need for data quality go hand in hand. As its name suggests, all aspects, including marketing, of a DTC business go directly to the customer. This gives them a clear and comprehensive understanding of their customer needs. Having direct access to your customer data is incredibly beneficial to decision-making. However, data is only actionable when it is accurate and trustworthy. 

In this blog, we will cover the importance of data quality for DTC businesses and how Experian can help your company incorporate data quality into its strategy. 

3 key benefits of data quality for DTC businesses

Targeted marketing campaigns

Your customers are your most valuable asset, and staying close to them is crucial to test ideas, learn, and change to fit consumer needs rapidly and efficiently. To capitalize on their direct relationship with customers, DTC businesses must be targeted and intentional with their marketing strategy to ensure their campaigns resonate with customers. The best way to do this is through data enrichment, the process of incorporating new updates and information into an organization's existing database to improve accuracy and add missing information, allowing you to get the most out of your customer data to make better decisions.

Data Enrichment - Experian's Data Enrichment service includes over 900 data attributes, including demographic data, financial data, and behavioral data, to enhance your existing contact data with additional consumer information. As a result, your team can use these valuable consumer insights to predict preferences and purchasing patterns, personalize and segment communication based on a better understanding of your customers, and create customized messages that allow you to connect and engage with your customers, increasing revenue and enhancing brand loyalty.

Decreased operational costs

DTC businesses often have more complicated supply chain models. This can leave a wider margin for error and have a more significant potential for risk. Clean and accurate data is the answer to mitigating risk and maintaining a positive customer experience. This is why DTC companies need to invest in the correct data tools to prioritize customer loyalty and decrease operational costs down the line.

Email validation – Email is one of the best ways to connect with your customers. Our research shows that 72% of business leaders say email is the top channel they rely on to reach customers. On top of that, customers simply prefer digital communications to stay in touch with a brand. However, marketing campaigns take time and human capital to execute, so they can be costly when they're not reaching your intended target audience.  

Experian's Email Validation corrects all parts of an email address (like spelling and formatting) and confirms that the email address is live and receiving mail through a silent and quick ping. This lets you verify your segments ahead of hitting send, ensuring you're deploying your important communications to real, active inboxes. 

Address validation - Imagine creating a seamless fulfillment process, only to be fined for something your business had nothing to do with. Customers mistype address information during checkout all the time, and it can be particularly costly, especially to the company.  

Experian's Address Validation solution leverages the most up-to-date USPS® address data to determine the accuracy and completeness of physical addresses by correcting typos from incorrectly entered mailing addresses. Our team can do this automatically and in real-time, enabling your customers to receive their shipment in time while helping you avoid hefty address correction fees. 

Improved customer service

In a macro environment where business competition is fiercer than ever, the only way to stay agile and stand out is to provide superior customer service. Building a robust data quality strategy to produce a single, holistic view of your consumer data is the first step to enabling your business to better understand your customers and their needs to create a personalized customer experience. In fact, 91% of business leaders say implementing data quality has improved business agility.

Data quality platform - Experian Aperture Data Studio enables you to ingest data from a variety of sources to bring together previously siloed data sets for a single customer view. With capabilities to validate, cleanse, de-duplicate, and enrich data, the self-service platform helps users build a consistent, accurate, and complete view of their consumer data quickly and effortlessly. Bad data can have negative impacts downstream. Implementing a data quality management platform empowers modern data practitioners to understand their customers for improved marketing and increases competitive advantage through better customer experience. 

Connect with an expert to learn more

Trusted data is a big component of success for DTC businesses, and implementing the right tools to develop a strong data quality strategy has benefits ranging from enabling targeted marketing campaigns to decreased operational costs and improved customer experience.