Information is power. That saying is one of those age old adages that seems ever-relevant. Information certainly is power in today’s day and age of technological integration, instant access, and virtual operations. Over the past several decades, technology has found a continually expanding role in society and our everyday lives. Recently, though, technology has become an even more important piece of the puzzle. One reason that technology is so vital in today’s economy is because of the growing percentage of the consumer population that is considered to be a digital native. A digital native is a person who was born in the era of the internet and smart-technology. As such, they have very little resistance to technological integration, are very intuitive and savvy when it comes to utilizing technology, and are typically prone to choosing convenience over loyalty in the context of purchase decisions. Another reason that the digital economy is so massive right now is because of the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With many organizations converting to fully or partially remote operations, the online marketplace became bigger and more versatile than ever. Industries that never dreamed of going virtual did just that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between the long-term trend of technological integration and the immediate impact of the pandemic, the online economy skyrocketed. Similarly, consumer data became even more valuable to organizations than it already was.
Different Data Options
Running a business today typically requires the use of multiple scaling cloud-based services. Services like Salesforce, Hubspot, Snowflake, and Amazon Redshift. All of these services help business owners, managers, and employees do their job at a higher level. These systems also all collect consumer data that can be extremely valuable if used correctly.
However, one of the main issues is that a lot of the time, these different systems don’t talk to each other automatically. This leads to data silos that can be hard to penetrate. These data silos become problematic when they contain pieces of valuable data that other systems could benefit from having as well. This is where data synchronization comes into play.
Data synchronization is one of many data activation strategies that organizations can implement in order to utilize the data various systems collect to the highest degree. Data activation is designed to facilitate data-driven decision making throughout the entire organization to improve overall performance as well as specific KPIs.
Synchronizing the data in Redshift to Salesforce, for example, is a good example of how an organization can equip their sales and marketing professionals with higher-quality consumer profiles built with real data. In turn, this can improve campaign design, the messaging in content marketing, and even communication and social media strategies. In order to synchronize the data between Redshift and Salesforce, users first have to tell Redshift which pieces of data it should sync and share with Salesforce. This is to avoid an information overload as well as extended wait-times.
Managing the Mapping
Once the data you want synchronized is selected, it’s time to map the information from one source to the other. The process of data mapping is one of the most important aspects of the whole process as it also dictates how the data is labeled in the new system.
Data mapping is a vital phase in this process because if data is mis-labeled, it can lead to a wide variety of head-ache-causing complications. Even worse, it can lead to poorly designed campaigns and negative consumer experiences. Keeping the data organized will be integral to utilizing it correctly.
Choosing the Schedule
Finally, it’s time to get the synchronization rolling. The last step in this process is pretty self-explanatory, and is just about creating an ongoing synchronization schedule. There’s a wide variety of both simple and complicated scheduling options from which users can choose. This makes it easy and convenient for organizations to customize their synchronization schedule to their specific needs.
Once your schedule is set, it’s off to the races with the initial synchronization.
Benefits of Syncing Redshift to Salesforce
There are a lot of consumer data metrics stored in Redshift which Salesforce can’t access. These metrics can be used in concert with the consumer profiles built on Salesforce to find deeper consumer insights and to better design campaigns that are tailored to specific target audiences.
By syncing the data between Redshift and Salesforce an organization is taking steps to better serve their entire consumerbase through individualized consumer experiences based on a deeper understanding of the driving data.
Wrapping Up
Data activation is the next level of data analysis that aims to go above and beyond understanding data, and actually helps the professionals in an organization make real-time data-based-decisions. Implementing a series of data activation tactics and strategies can help any organization remain competitive in the modern economy.
