A Marketer's Guide to Navigating the IoT

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Brought to you by A MARKETER'S GUIDE TO NAVIGATING THE INTERNET OF THINGS

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This definitive guide tackles three big questions that this era of hyperconnectivity poses with actionable takeaways for each: -How do businesses effectively manage and make use of the large data sets that the IoT creates? -Once you have intel on your users, how can you build connected experiences that matter to your users? -What are some ways that the connected experience can be further enhanced to nurture loyal, engaged customers?

Transcript of A Marketer's Guide to Navigating the IoT

Page 1: A Marketer's Guide to Navigating the IoT

Brought to you by

A MARKETER'S GUIDE TO NAVIGATING THE INTERNET OF THINGS

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Twenty years ago, there were about 3 million devices connected to the Internet. By the end of this decade, Cisco estimates that there will be 50 billion of these connected devices in the world.

A Brief Overview of the IoT

This can only mean one thing: We’re living in the Internet of Things.

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With seemingly everything going online, Cisco projects the Internet of Things (IoT) to be a

Huge Opportunity for Marketers

$14 TRILLION REVENUE OPPORTUNITY.As a marketer, though, it can be difficult and tricky to figure out how to effectively navigate this landscape of connected devices and experiences.

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To help you tap into the IoT, we’re tackling three big questions that this era of ultra-connectivity poses:

How do businesses effectively manage and make use of the large data sets that the IoT creates?

Once you have intel on your users, how can you build connected experiences that matter to your users?

What are some ways that the connected experience can be further enhanced to nurture loyal, engaged customers?

3 Big IoT Questions

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How do businesses effectively manage and make use of the large data sets that the IoT creates?

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As consumers interact more and more with their connected devices, they create unique data points that businesses should store and use to provide an optimal experience to their customers across different channels. However, the question of how to efficiently consolidate these large volumes of data remains.

To help you gain a firmer grasp on this, we’ll go over the kinds of data and data management technologies that your business needs in order to capture the insights that will drive your IoT strategy forward.

Data Consolidation for the IoT

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Structured data is generally housed in traditional databases (also known as relational databases), which are made up of fields organized in a grid-like fashion. However, as data becomes more varied, it requires a database equipped to handle and consolidate large volumes of dynamic, disparate data points. Take, for instance, a user that authenticates his Facebook identity on a website. This website could potentially capture his profile picture, friend graph, email address, interests, and current location, but first it needs a NoSQL database to store large volumes of unstructured data.

Structured Data vs. Semi-structured Data

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With the total volume of big data across the globe already in the zettabytes, the need for efficient, dynamic storage systems is greater than ever before. When it comes to storing large volumes of consumer data, traditional IT infrastructures lack the elasticity and scalability of cloud storage systems. In other words, cloud storage models allow easy access to data by multiple users and are equipped to handle massive amounts of data.

In addition, businesses that span across channels can allow stored data to be accessed easily by keeping it in a centralized location. Unifying data this way makes it easier to scale your efforts and reach the right users at the right time.

Cloud-Based & Central Databases

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Once you have intel on your users, how can you build connected experiences that matter to your users?

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Once you have the right technologies to efficiently store and manage your consumer data, you need to think about ways to tie this data to the overall brand experience. When done right, a connected experience should work seamlessly from channel to channel. In other words, users should be able to stay connected to your brand and enjoy a consistent experience from one device to another.

Tying Data to the Experience

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Take Nike, for instance: It went from a sports apparel retailer to a full-fledged fitness and lifestyle manager with its FuelBand product.

By tying its customers’ fitness routines to its brand, the company provides a consistent, Nike-powered experience from start to finish by letting users track their daily exercises and set fitness goals.

Use Case: Nike

Recently, the company bridged the FuelBand experience with its apparel line by installing a vending machine in the middle of New York City stocked with Nike goods. It then used its social media channels to drop hints about the exact location and purpose of this vending machine. FuelBand wearers that successfully locate it can redeem their FuelBand points for Nike socks, shirts, hats, and more. This facilitates a holistic experience that spans mediums and puts Nike at the center.

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As the IoT spreads the brand experience across mediums, you can create cohesion among your brand properties by investing in a solution that consolidates all the behavioral data you’re gathering on your users across your channels in one place. You’ll want this solution to carry the following features.

Creating Brand Cohesion

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High Security and Performance - Because you’re handling volumes of sensitive data, you want to ensure that your solution is proven to work in high-scale enterprise environments. Some product features to look for include Safe Harbor Certification, ISO27001 compliance, PCI-approved scanning, real-time data backup, and self-owned hardware.

Automation - With so many users interacting with your brand at any given time, it’s impossible to manually direct the data capture and management process. You’ll want to ensure that your solution automatically pulls their data in and makes it readily available to you.

Fully Indexable Data - The big advantage of collecting user data is that you can use it to inform your brand strategy and marketing efforts. Going along these lines, you’ll need to invest in a database that sorts and displays this data in a way that’s easy to understand and pull segments from.

Integratable with Existing Systems - To take your data strategy a step further, we recommend investing in a data management system that integrates with the business applications and marketing software that you already use. This will enable you to connect data insights to your marketing campaigns and business processes.

Database Requirements

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What are some ways that the connected experience can be further enhanced to nurture loyal, engaged customers?

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We’ve already discussed how the IoT opens up new opportunities for businesses to collect data on their users’ habits and daily behaviors. You know, however, that your users aren’t just data points -- they’re actual human beings with unique backgrounds and circumstances.

For a truly comprehensive IoT strategy, you want to look into ways to collect your users’ actual personal data, which includes intel like their interests, friend graphs, email addresses, profile pictures, and more.

When you connect the behavioral data gleaned from the users’ interactions with your brand with their personal data, you get a complete, accurate picture of your customer.

Pulling the Brand Experience Together with Identity

Let’s return to Nike as an example. When users register for an account for its Nike+ Running app, they are presented with the option to authenticate their Facebook accounts for a more convenient, faster login process.

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To start collecting the insights that will ultimately power your marketing campaigns, consider looking into implementing a solution such as social login, which enables you to easily authenticate your users’ existing social media accounts.

New Belgium Brewery offers three different social login options for its customers to easily and conveniently create a site account to access exclusive content.

Managing User Identities

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Here’s how it works: Social login allows users to register with and sign in to your business’s web properties using one or more of their social media accounts, also known as a social identity. Users who log in to a website using an existing social identity are essentially granting that website permission to access their first-party social data such as full name, interests, education, social connections, email address, location, and much more. This lets you begin capturing the user insights that will drive your brand experiences and marketing campaigns forward in a secure, safe manner.

Capturing User Identities with Social Login

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As important as technology is to the IoT, your users should ultimately be at the center of your strategy. After all, they’re the ones consuming, vying for, and interacting with your brand.

Consider these words from Co-Founder and CMO of IoT software provider Evrythng: "The more you interact with a product, the more of a direct digital relationship you have with the brand. That is a huge shift in how products work and puts the brands alongside retailers in their relationship with consumers.”

Putting Users at the Heart of Your IoT Strategy

In a nutshell, all great companies understand that strong consumer relationships are the lifeline of their business. The IoT helps facilitate these relationships in a completely new way by introducing a variety of platforms and technologies that consumers depend and rely on on a day to day basis.

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As you seek to put your users at the forefront of your IoT strategy, it’s important to find that delicate balance between offering relevant, personal brand experiences without coming across as borderline creepy and intrusive.

3 out of 4 consumers prefer giving their business to brands that deliver a more relevant, personalized experience. Yet, 43% of businesses are concerned about data privacy compliance because they fear the loss of brand equity and/or consumer confidence.

(Sources: DigitalTrends and Winston & Strawn LLP)

Honoring User Privacy While Still Providing Personalization

The truth of the matter is that today’s customers are a complicated breed: They demand relevancy at every turn but are, for the most part, incredibly sensitive about sharing their personal information, particularly when businesses ask for it. So how can you effectively cater to these conflicting expectations? We’ve outlined three tips below.

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As useful as social login is for extracting valuable user data, it’s even more crucial that businesses follow best practices when collecting personal information from customers online. Here are some general guidelines for handling your users’ sensitive data like a pro:

Tips for Being a PRO at Collecting User Data

Protection Protect users’ right to data privacy by being completely transparent and clear with just how their information will be used before prompting social sign-in. You can do this by displaying a dialog that lists exactly which data points you’ll be collecting from them at registration, along with the ability for users to opt in or out. !Relevancy Assess your customer base and offer social sign-in for social networks that make sense for your properties. For instance, it probably would not make sense for a retailer to offer LinkedIn as a sign-in option since most LinkedIn users do not share personal purchases with their professional networks. !Options Present options to your users instead of limiting them to a single social network. Providing choices increases the likelihood of customers authenticating their social identities on your brand properties, giving your business more opportunities to capture helpful data.

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As connected devices become increasingly prevalent in our everyday lives, it’s more important than ever for businesses to figure out how to reach users across all the devices they use while still maintaining a cohesive view of the customer. To build a foundation for the IoT-centric age to come, you want to ensure that you have the right technologies in place to support your efforts and a strong, customer-centric strategy to execute.

Building an IoT for Everyone

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ABOUT GIGYAGigya's Customer Identity Management Platform helps companies build better customer relationships by turning unknown visitors into known, loyal and engaged customers. With Gigya’s technology, businesses increase registrations and identify customers across devices, consolidate data into rich customer profiles, and provide better service, products and experiences by integrating data into marketing and service applications. Gigya's platform was designed from the ground up for social identities, mobile devices, consumer privacy and modern marketing. Gigya provides developers with the APIs they need to easily build and maintain secure and scalable registration, authentication, profile management, data analytics and third-party integrations. More than 700 of the world’s leading businesses such as Fox, Forbes, and Verizon rely on Gigya to build identity-driven relationships and to provide scalable, secure Customer Identity Management. !For more details about Gigya, visit www.gigya.com. !

Gigya, the Gigya logo, and Customer Identity Management Platform are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Gigya Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

© 2014 Gigya Incorporated. All rights reserved.

To learn how Gigya can help provide you with the tools and technology needed to develop a successful

guide to navigating the Internet of Things, visit gigya.com or call us at 888.660.1469.