Data integration represents the biggest marketing challenge in the Dutch business world. This is according to research by data-driven marketing agency Ternair. In particular, retailers, publishers and media and event agencies participated in the survey.
The data-driven marketing agency from IJsselstein surveyed Dutch companies about their marketing goals and their communication with customers (both b2b and b2c) in the period April-June 2017. In addition to the aforementioned industries, there were also participants from automotive, financial services, education, telecom, transport and logistics and ICT. Most respondents are managers in marketing, online, crm or e-commerce (67%). The remaining participants hold positions such as database marketer, data/market analyst and online marketer.
Data silos
The survey shows that for many organizations, data-driven 1-to-1 marketing is still a bridge too far. "Customers expect a vendor to know who they are, what they want and what information they are waiting for," said Erik van Stiphout, managing partner at Ternair. "But companies often don't have a single customer view, because customer information is stored in data silos that are not centrally available." Moreover, data is often not available in real time to respond immediately to a current situation.
Of the companies surveyed, 72 percent maintain contact with more than 100,000 relationships. In fact, at 38 percent of the companies that participated in the survey, contact is maintained with more than one million customers.
