Fragmented customer information is the main stumbling block for many Dutch companies in implementing a successful marketing policy. Although customer interaction and business models are becoming increasingly digitalized, there are often still 'data silos' and dynamic data is not available in real time.
This is evident from market research by marketing agency Ternair. The survey is among companies with more than 100,000 relationships. 32 percent of survey participants maintain contact with more than 1 million customers.
Building and retaining customers is seen as the greatest marketing challenge by 53 percent of companies, followed closely by acquiring new customers (49 percent). Interestingly, integrating on- and offline data and personalizing outbound marketing are a lot lower on the agenda (both 23 percent).
Realtime
External communication channels do not appear to be integrated (with each other) at many companies. The largest group of companies (one in three) has linked the e-mail system to one other outbound channel (for example, direct mail, telemarketing or SMS) and 26 percent to two other channels. 21 percent of Dutch businesses cannot work in an integrated way.
According to Erik van Stiphout, managing partner at Ternair, this fragmented way of working hinders companies in retaining existing customers and in acquiring new ones. "Companies that create value from data do two things very well," explains Van Stiphout. "Their data is centrally available AND they can deploy it through personalized communication channels."
