Today’s tech-led businesses want to get actionable insights about their customers. They need clear and transparent data about their customers to prepare their action plans. If you are a business looking for the best solution, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is just for you. It renders a powerful preview feature that enables enterprises like yours to escalate customer profiles with the help of brand affinities and interest affinities. The enhancement allows marketers as well as analysts to get clearer and more precise insights about their customer likings and preferences. It also empowers them to refine their segmentation and craft better strategies. What’s more? It also enables more effective personalized engagements.
In this detailed blog, we’ll cover everything you need to know about this feature. It’s a complete guide and can benefit your business tremendously.
What Are Brand and Interest Affinities?
Brand affinities and interest affinities are data attributes derived from customer behavior and preferences. Leveraging Microsoft’s vast online search and demographic data, this feature assigns affinity levels and scores to individuals, allowing organizations to better understand their customers' likes and dislikes.
These affinities are represented in two key metrics:
Affinity Level
A categorical indicator of a customer’s likelihood to favor a particular brand or interest, divided into:
- Very High
- High
- Medium
- Low
Affinity Score
A numerical scale (1-100) that quantifies the strength of a customer’s affinity for a brand or interest. These are mapped to affinity levels as follows:
- Very High: 85–100
- High: 70–84
- Medium: 35–69
- Low: 1–34
| Affinity level | Affinity score |
|---|---|
| Very high | 85-100 |
| High | 70-84 |
| Medium | 35-69 |
| Low | 1-34 |
Share of Voice (SoV)
Another critical concept within enrichment is Share of Voice (SoV), which highlights a brand’s visibility and influence compared to its competitors. SoV helps businesses identify the dominant brands and interests within specific demographic segments. This insight drives effective campaign planning and product positioning.
How the Enrichment Feature Works
The brand and interest enrichment feature relies on demographic data, including age, gender, location, and behavior patterns, to deliver actionable insights. Microsoft then maps this information to online search trends to provide a well-rounded view of your customer’s preferences.
Supported Regions
The enrichment feature is currently available for the following countries/regions:
- Australia
- Canada (English)
- France
- Germany
- United Kingdom
- United States (English)
Key Benefits of Brand and Interest Enrichment
- Improved Customer Segmentation: Create highly targeted segments based on affinity scores to focus your marketing on the most engaged audiences.
- Personalized Marketing: Leverage enriched profiles to deliver hyper-relevant content and offers based on your customers’ brand preferences and interests.
- Enhanced Campaign ROI: Allocate resources efficiently by targeting the right customers with the right messaging, ensuring a higher return on your marketing investments.
Step-by-Step Guide: Configuring the Enrichment
Follow these steps to configure brand and interest enrichment in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights:
Step 1: Access the Enrichment Feature
- Navigate to Data > Enrichment in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.
- On the Discover tab, choose Enrich my data for either the Brands or Interests tile.
Source: Microsoft
Step 2: Review Enrichment Details
- Read the feature overview and click Next to proceed.
Step 3: Select a Country or Region
- If necessary, change the default country/region by clicking Change and selecting a supported region.
Step 4: Choose Brands or Interests
You can choose up to five brands or interests:
- Industry Selection: Pick relevant brands or interests by selecting an industry from the dropdown.
- Custom Selection: Enter a specific brand or interest relevant to your business. Suggestions will be provided, but if you don’t see your choice, use the Suggest option for feedback.
Step 5: Set Preferences
- Review the default enrichment preferences and make changes based on your business requirements.
Step 6: Select Customer Data Set
- Choose whether to enrich all customer profiles in the Customer table or enrich only a specific segment.
Step 7: Map Demographic Data
Map the following required fields from your customer table:
- Date of Birth or Age
- Gender
- Country/Region
- City or Postal Code
Note: At least the Date of Birth or Gender fields must be mapped for enrichment to proceed.
Step 8: Name the Enrichment
- Provide a descriptive name for the enrichment. The system automatically generates the Output Table Name.
Step 9: Save and Run
- Save the enrichment configuration and initiate the process by selecting Run. You can also close the configuration and run it later.
Accessing Enrichment Results
To view the results of an enrichment run:
- Navigate to Data > Enrichment in Dynamics 365.
- Select the enrichment you want to review.
The results interface provides information like;
- Number of Enriched Profiles: The total number of customer profiles successfully enriched during the process.
- Profiles Enriched Over Time: A trend chart that displays the growth of enriched profiles across specific time intervals.
Preview of Enriched Customers
The Enriched Customers Preview Card gives you a snapshot of the generated enrichment table. This preview showcases a small sample of the enriched data, allowing for a quick overview of how the enrichment was applied.
To dive deeper into the data:
- Click See More to open a detailed view.
- Select the Data tab for a comprehensive breakdown of customer profiles and their enriched attributes.
Affinity Charts
The results also include visual representations in the form of Affinity Level or Share of Voice (SoV) charts. These charts allow you to quickly identify key trends in customer preferences, providing actionable insights for targeted campaigns.
Tables Created from Enrichments
The enrichment process generates new data tables within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 environment. These tables are listed under the Enrichment Group in Data > Tables.
Each type of enriched data is categorized as follows:
Brand Affinity Data:
- BrandAffinityFromMicrosoft table
- BrandShareOfVoiceFromMicrosoft table
Interest Affinity Data:
- InterestAffinityFromMicrosoft table
- InterestShareOfVoiceFromMicrosoft table
These tables contain detailed customer data enriched with brand and interest information. The structure allows easy integration into segmentation workflows, analytics, and customer journeys.
Viewing Enrichment Data on the Customer Card
In addition to viewing enrichment data at the macro level, you can explore brand and interest Share of Voice (SoV) insights at the individual customer level.
Steps to View Customer-Level Data
- Go to the Customers section in Dynamics 365.
- Select a specific customer profile.
- On the Customer Card, you'll find charts that display brand or interest SoV data.
These charts provide a demographic-based visualization of customer preferences, helping you tailor interactions and engagements for individual customers with precision.
Why View Enrichment Results?
- Reviewing enrichment results empowers businesses to:
- Validate the success of the enrichment process.
- Identify trends in affinity levels and SoV metrics.
- Gain clarity on how enrichment impacts customer segmentation and profiling.
- Ensure enriched data is integrated seamlessly into marketing strategies.
By leveraging this enriched data, businesses can create data-driven campaigns, optimize targeting, and enhance the overall customer experience.
Best Practices for Using Brand and Interest Enrichment
- Regularly Update Customer Profiles: Schedule periodic enrichment processes to ensure your customer profiles remain accurate and relevant.
- Integrate with Campaigns: Enriched data can be used to create dynamic campaigns on marketing platforms like Dynamics 365 Marketing.
- Monitor Performance: Continuously analyze the performance of segments and campaigns created using enriched data to optimize ROI.
Conclusion: Unlock the Power of Enrichment
The brand and interest enrichment feature in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights offers businesses a revolutionary way to understand and engage their customers. By leveraging proprietary Microsoft data, businesses can enrich customer profiles with brand and interest affinities, enabling personalized marketing and strategic decision-making.
If you're looking to take your customer insights strategy to the next level, this feature is a game changer. Start exploring this preview feature today and see the difference it makes in your customer engagement.
Ready to revolutionize your customer data strategy? Contact DynaTech today to implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and get the full benefit of customer profile enrichment!
Inside Image Source: Microsoft
