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The 2019 U.S. Millionaire Report at a Glance

WealthEngine, as the leader in wealth intelligence in the United States, specializes in helping you identify, understand, and connect with wealthy individuals. Our WealthEngine Research Lab has updated our now highly anticipated 2019 U.S. Millionaire Report to give you the most up-to-date insights on millionaires throughout the country.

Currently, 12.7% of the United States’ adult population is made up of millionaires. As wealth continues to grow and the number of millionaires climbs across generations worldwide, the population is being divided into segments of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) and Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWI). The rise of these subpopulations presents marketers and fundraisers with both an opportunity and a challenge to understand and engage with these promising prospects.

With the growth and diversification of the millionaire population, changes in the millionaires’ behavior mean that marketers & fundraisers must tailor their marketing, sales, and development efforts to the wants, needs, and values of their target audience. The personalization of communication and products allows marketers and fundraisers to connect and forge long-lasting relationships with their existing and prospective donors.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are also revolutionizing the way each industry appeals to their consumers, individually. AI can help you identify patterns and actionable insights among customers, donors, and prospects. These insights can be used to build predictive models that not only identify your next best prospect, but also predict or even influence behavior. With this evolving technology that is constantly being refined, you have the ability to reach consumers in a for more personalized, and focused way. You are able to understand their ways of being and provide them with what they need, exactly.

The data presented in the 2019 U.S. Millionaire Report highlights the tremendous value and opportunities that can be gained from uncovering the millionaires you are already engaged with and discovering the millionaires you want to be engaged with.

Download your copy today to gain more insights.

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Ethical By Design – Marketing in the Age of Personalization and Privacy

Over the past few years, marketing has experienced a shift. As businesses moved into digital channels, and with the emergence of social media platforms, they were given the opportunity to communicate with customers on an individual level. Although personalized marketing has allowed businesses to understand their customers individually, how ethical is it for businesses to use affinity data to learn more about their consumers?

Momentum always follows money and motivation. In 2017, over $15B had been invested in AI-focused startups. As of this year, that amount has been surpassed and is forecasted to be over $58B by 2021. Industry analysts believe AI-enabled businesses will create over $2.1T worth of business value and generate over 2.3M new jobs while eliminating 1.8M existing jobs. Technology has always been the core of our economic growth, where disruption and business value are constantly created and recreated in a virtuous cycle.

Creating business value is defined by new revenue, new markets, new customer experiences, and cost reductions. Although the needs of the consumer are the main focus, their personal values seem to fade into the back as companies digitally transform. How do we unlock business value that also serves the beliefs of the greater good? Creating this balance can be challenging.

AI-enabled experience economies, for example, face this challenge. However, these technologies come with self-learning techniques, so they are able to seamlessly gather and sift through information on individuals and their interests. Although this data provides businesses with the ability to understand and persuade consumers on a personal level, without human judgment and intervention things can go awry. We will need a moral and ethical playbook for the practice of personalization.

Data is our frenemy. It’s our fuel. It’s also the basis of the Information Age.

Consider Facebook, Google, and WhatsApp’s business models. We don’t value them simply because they’re free. We value them because they adapt to our needs and values. These platforms allow us to connect with our external environment by adapting to our behaviors, and subsequently suggesting where we should go, who we should meet, and what we should do all day, every day.. It is free because businesses realize, in the long run, that having and subsequently monetizing your data is much more valuable than having you pay for their services.

Although these platforms make daily life easier, we are collectively subsidizing our personal data for access to free browsers, searches, ratings, and reviews. Digital social platforms, in some cases, have been able to manipulate this data to influence our way of thinking and being instead of serving us what we have consented to. This helps businesses understand your values and provide you with items that may be of high value to you. Data, in that sense, helps businesses and users cut through the digital noise, and provides us with an experience that feels more gratifying and focused. Instead of having to enter our information constantly, or searching for related items, we are given recommendations that are just a click away.

Well, Data is still your frenemy. But, so is Personalization.

So that begs a few questions: Where are our ethical boundaries in our data usage? What are the gray areas? Who gets to store, share, secure, and govern our data? Who decides? It is our responsibility to be vigilant and to remain aware of how and where our data is being used.

Ethics isn’t a pile of red tape that we have to maneuver around in order to forge connections. Ethics is the system upon which our businesses and technological systems should be designed-in.

In the conquest for privacy, personalization takes a hit.

In the quest for personalization, individual freedoms take a hit.

So what does ethical marketing look like? That will be the focus of our series on ethical marketing and personalization. Why? Because it’s personal.

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Maximize Revenue with a Complete Picture of your Customers’ Capacity to Spend

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Luxury brands face tough competition to capture and retain high net worth customers. They are now facing competition from non-luxury brands, who have been gaining traction, and wallet share, among HNW individuals. In 2016, Nike was ranked the most valuable apparel brand in the world, overtaking Louis Vuitton, and Kia, a non-luxury vehicle, came out on top in J.D. Power’s quality car survey.

Luxury brand or not, the competition is fierce to both attract and keep the attention of HNW customers. Their business can make a huge impact on your business. A Bain & Company study found that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 7% and that the average amount spent by a repeat customer was two-thirds more than a new customer.

Because of the current landscape, it is imperative for brands, both luxury and non-luxury, to prioritize and segment their customer base and identify who they should focus their time and budget on in their marketing campaigns. One approach is to use transactional history, however, spend history does not equate to spend ability, so you need to be more granular.

Previous spending is a key component, but it should not be the only data point you’re using. Instead, focus your efforts on identifying the low spend, high net worth customers among your current database. Think about it – a customer may have purchased something for $100 when they actually have the capacity to buy something that’s $1,000. Use this information to personalize your sales and marketing outreach and present higher cost items.

Remember, not all existing customers have the capacity or ability to spend more with you. Identifying those that do are critical to enhancing revenue and driving a higher customer lifetime value.

Contact us for more information on analyzing your customer base and identifying those with the capacity and net worth to spend more.

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Marketing Analytics Conference Recap

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This week, we attended the Marketing Analytics Conference, hosted by the DMA. The event was 2 days packed with great thought leadership and real-life examples how organizations are using analytics as the base for successful strategies. It also provided a setting for executives across many industries to learn from each other and share best practices.

We were very excited to not only participate but also to lead some of the discussion. Our SVP of Product Management, John Funge, led an outstanding a panel on “The Promise of Personalization – Two Approaches in Conversation”. John was joined on stage by Abby Lee, VP, Marketing & Media Strategies, at Re/Max and Justin Boggs, Senior Director, Marketing Analytics at Sephora. They discussed a wide variety of topics about how they address personalization, from the basics such as how they define it to more specific methods they are using to customize their conversations to customers and prospects. It was a fascinating look at two different industries and their challenges of using data to enable better 1-to-1 marketing.

Personalization was just one of the many great themes at the event. The agenda was jam-packed with topics such as data-driven processes and technology, how to reach buyers, developing a data-driven culture, AI, attribution, automation, and more. Like most of the participants at the event, we came away from the session with a ton of ideas to implement in our own businesses when we get back to the office.

After plenty of discussions about marketing analytics and how it is integral for success in the industry, it’s more clear that in order to succeed, you need a good foundation of the right data. That’s where we come in. We can help your organization enhance your own internal 1st party data with more information about the people you already know and supplement that with additional prospects who you don’t. Without the right data, it’s impossible to implement any analytics to drive success. You wouldn’t jump straight to building your house without first pouring the foundation. Likewise, one shouldn’t start trying to implement a sophisticated data-driven program without ensuring you have the right data in place.

If you want to learn about all the ways we can help you with personalization and segmentation, take a look at our products and services here. When you’re ready, contact us for a free demo anytime.

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Marketing Analytics in Action: Join WE at the Marketing Analytics Conference

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Marketing has become increasingly sophisticated over the years. From real-time personalization to dynamic messaging, marketers can do some powerful things to segment their audience and engage with them on a 1-to-1 basis with relevant content. While there are many routes to marketing success, all of these tactics have one thing in common – data. Comprehensive and informative data is a prerequisite to everything marketing today. It’s the foundation that needs to be laid down before you can build the house. After all, you need to know something about an individual before you can customize your engagement strategies.

As a data and analytics company, we’re fully bought into this mindset. We know the powerful things that our data can do to help drive successful sales and marketing strategies. And we love talking about it with colleagues, customers, prospects, and anyone else who is interested! Which is why we’re excited to attend this year’s Marketing Analytics Conference by the DMA on June 5-6 in Austin, TX. Here’s a brief synopsis of the event straight from the company’s website: 

The Marketing Analytics Conference brings together the most brilliant minds at the front lines of marketing and data science to share strategies for building out, managing and drawing the most value from your marketing analytics practice. Navigating today’s multitude of channels, touch points, and data sources requires that marketing executives and data scientists collaborate to turn insights into intuitive customer interactions.  Attendees will leave MAC 2017 with specific tactics for enhancing their marketing analytics strategy and the connections needed to continue building out their practice in the years to come.

We’re excited to be participating with industry leaders to discuss the ways we can drive more revenue and better engagement using our data. We’re also excited to contribute to the discussion by presenting. Our SVP of Product Management, John Funge, is leading a panel on Personalization. John will be joined on stage by Abby Lee, VP, Marketing & Media Strategies, at Re/Max and Justin Boggs, Senior Director, Marketing Analytics at Sephora as they discuss how they address personalization from different perspectives and what they have learned along the way. It’s going to be a great session.

If you’re planning to be in Austin at the DMA MAC next Monday, make sure you keep an eye out for us. John speaks at 1:20 pm and is gearing up for a successful session. We’ll also be ready to demonstrate WealthEngine with anyone who stops by our table. If you can’t make it, don’t worry. You can follow us on social as we’ll be frequently updating the event.

Check back on the blog next week for a recap of the event. In the meantime, if you want to learn about all the ways we can help you with personalization and segmentation, take a look at our products and services here.

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Take Personalization Beyond Email

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Personalization in email marketing, and the positive ROI that can result, is frequently discussed. It’s been proven that personalized emails result in 6x higher transaction rates. However, personalization should not stop at email marketing. Emails are just one component of the whole customer experience.

Real-time personalization across all channels is key. The speed at which you can customize your  messages and offerings to your customers can dramatically impact your revenue, boosting total sales by 15 to 20 percent.

Imagine instantly knowing key demographic and wealth information of an individual who calls into your customer service department. Within seconds your representative would be able to determine what approach to take with the customer and who to route them to, whether it is rolling out the red carpet, inviting them to a preferred customer program, or pointing them to goods and services that match the individual’s spending capacity.

You could also utilize this consumer information to tailor and enhance a hotel guest’s experience upon check-in. For example – upgrade their room to a suite or sign them up for a guest experience that closely aligns with their interests and wealth bracket. The personalization shouldn’t stop once your guest checks out. You should send emails with specific packages that would appeal to their interests and lifestyle, or ask them to sign up for a rewards program.  

While the majority of marketers agree that personalization has improved their customer experience, only a little more than half believe they are doing it correctly. If you’re not building personalization into your marketing and sales strategies, you are missing out on revenue opportunities.

Take the time now to gather your company’s stakeholders and discuss the need for personalization in the customer experience. By making it a priority, you will better understand your customers, which will result in increased brand loyalty and higher lifetime customer value.

To hear more about personalization join WealthEngine at the Marketing Analytics Conference on Monday, June 5 for a session on The Promise of Personalization – Two Approaches in Conversation.     

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CEO Mark Logan on Marketing to Gen X, Y, & Z

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On Wednesday, May 3, our CEO, Mark Logan, joined senior executives and decision makers at the 2nd annual Luxury Roundtable hosted in New York City by Luxury Daily. The goal of the roundtable was to discuss a serious issue facing luxury marketers: how to drive and sustain demand from Generations X, Y and Z whose shopping habits are strikingly different from the silent generation and baby boomers.

Mark joined a panel of experts to discuss “Ecommerce and Mobile: Symbol of the New Path to Purchase.” The focus of their session was how to deploy online and mobile channels to generate new business while retaining existing customers for generations who live on their smartphones. Mark shared how WealthEngine can provide useful insights on customer segmentation and the critical importance of personalization.

WealthEngine has put together a useful resource to help luxury marketers use predictive analytics and modeling. You can download it here.

For more on the roundtable, including slides and other panel summaries, click here.

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Drive 2016 Holiday Strategies with Big Data

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Fall and holiday planning is in full swing and customer-centric brands have an opportunity to drastically improve the consumer experience – with wealth data. Wealth data has become the “must have” data point for brands and retailers who know how to maximize their consumer marketing and create the most relevant and profitable experience for each segment of their database.

The emergence of new structures for rich data allows for the unprecedented ability for brand marketers to truly deliver highly personalized, one-to-one e-commerce experiences. As we know, today’s consumers are pros at ignoring mass media and listening only to what they want to hear. But, with access to and with the effective use of Big Data, brands can enhance consumer experiences with contextual relevance that allows for engagement at precise moments when customers are most persuadable. Applying contextual relevance to digital customer experiences is often overlooked by marketers, yet it can make all the difference in delivering value propositions that get to the heart of a customer’s buying criteria.

In this competitive landscape, it doesn’t matter if marketers are focusing on direct mail, email, mobile, or digital strategies. The focus is the same. It is critical for marketers to pinpoint their prospects in unique and compelling ways. Utilizing wealth, demographic and lifestyle parameters are an effective way to leverage the attributes of your best customers to generate a targeting strategy and a voice that will resonate with that audience.

For more information on prioritizing your buyers and prospects using wealth data check out our webinar Improve Consumer Experiences and Drive Revenue in the 2016 Holiday Season Using Wealth Data.

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6 Ways to Use Consumer Data to Drive Better Marketing & Sales – Part 2

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Last week, we covered the various ways marketers could use consumer-level data to help their outreach. Go back and read for yourself if you missed it. This week, we shift our focus to the sales team as we wrap up our post on how sales and marketers can use consumer data to drive increased revenue opportunities.

  1. Lead Scoring
    You have a list of leads. They may have come from marketing, a list you purchased, or through your own prospecting. You’re ready to work through this list. Now, who do you call first? What about second? Third? Fiftieth? This is difficult to answer without data. As easy as it would be to start with the A’s and work down to the Z’s, that’s not efficient. You want to focus on the leads that have the highest chance at driving conversions and maximizing revenue first.

    Lead prioritization is a real thing, and it’s only done well if a good scoring model that is based on a concrete set of rules is used. These rules can be massively enhanced with consumer level data. For example, if you are selling customized high-end travel packages, don’t you want to prioritize those who can afford it or the ones who have shown an interest in your destinations?

  1. Drive Better Sales Conversations (and Conversions!)
    Let’s face it. You sell to people, not to companies. I don’t care if you’re in B2B, B2C, B2H, or B2[Insert Any Letter] sales, at the end of the day, you finalize your deal by interacting with a person. It’s obvious that if you know more about that person, you can drive a better conversation.

    According to the Brevet Group, only 13% of customers think that sales people understand their needs. Sure, this also relates to their business problems. But it’s also focused on understanding the person. Having some information about someone’s interests, attributes, and who they are as a person can arm a sales person with content that can drive better meetings and, ultimately, higher conversions.

  1. Cross-Sell / Up-Sell to Existing Customers
    Well executed cross- and up-selling is a great way to drive revenue for your business. It’s also an effective way to increase customer satisfaction, as you are pairing consumers with products that can better fit their needs and/or are complementary to their purchase. Typically, this practice is done based on the type of product they purchase. For example, if you’re selling a laptop, you may try to up-sell the customer more RAM or cross-sell them a laptop case.

    Using data about the specific consumer is another way to drive more up-sell or cross-sell opportunities. By having information, such as a consumer’s net worth or interests, you can help guide them to a product that will better fit their own needs or budget.

There are a number of ways in which consumer data can help drive sales and marketing efforts; these are just a few of them. Companies that are embracing information and using it to enhance their sales and marketing processes are giving themselves a competitive advantage. If you’re not on board with this revolution, it’s about time you got started. Don’t get left behind.

We want to hear your stories about how you’re using consumer data in your sales and marketing. If you have one, please share in the comments below.

Or do you want to learn more about helping your business become more data-driven? Contact us for a preliminary conversation.

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6 Ways to Use Consumer Data to Drive Better Marketing & Sales – Part 1

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Marketing has become a data-driven function at most companies. Gone are the days when the Don Drapers of the world thought up extravagant marketing campaigns and executed them without running tests or conducting detailed ROI expectation studies. According to a Teradata survey, 78% of marketers feel pressure to become more data driven in their day-to-day jobs. Gut instinct, while still a valuable skill, can’t be the only tool in a marketer’s tool belt. Instead, a marketer must be literate across all digital channels, along with the wealth of data that comes with them.

As the data revolution has gained steam, companies that provide information on consumers have increased along with it. Companies such as Acxiom, Experian, and of course WealthEngine help to highlight consumer data that can help companies drive more revenue and make better decisions. There are use cases for consumer data across all parts of a business, but arguably no more than there are in sales and marketing.

Today, we’ll stay on the marketing side and discuss the first three ways you can use consumer data to drive revenue. Next week, we’ll finish up the post with the last three ways that you can use consumer data to help your sales.

  1. Personalization of Marketing Content
    Personalization is not just a fancy buzz word – it’s a real marketing trend that is made possible by the digital enhancements that have been made over the years. However, personalization is not possible unless you know information about the person for whom you are trying to customize your content. Understanding more about a particular person, such as the car they drive or their interests, can help you focus on the content that is going to best resonate with them. 
     
  2. Build Targeted Campaigns
    Have you ever received a marketing piece that just wasn’t meant for you? We’ve all been on the receiving side of that. As a marketer, I can tell you that this happens sometimes – particularly if you can’t build detailed segments of your prospects. The more generic your segments, the more likely you’ll swing and miss with a good number of people that receive your communications. By using consumer-level data, you can go deeper with your levels of segmentation. By doing so, you can become much more targeted with your campaigns, ensuring that the right people see your materials and you won’t waste a touch with the wrong ones. 
     
  3. Increase Marketing Automation
    Marketing automation platforms have become more sophisticated every year. You now have the capability to build detailed campaigns that could go in a number of different directions based on user actions. You can also vary the steps of a campaign through other triggers, such as a characteristic about a person. Some of our customers connect directly to our data through an API and use wealth as a trigger, routing potential prospects through different journeys based on their wealth.

Rich consumer data can be a game changer on the marketing front. By employing some simple tactics, your marketing campaigns can transform from generic into highly focused conversations.

Join us next week as we finish the post by focusing on the ways sales teams can use consumer data to improve their processes. And as always, if you have a story in which you used consumer data to improve your marketing efforts, let us know about it in the comments below.