It is a wonderful time to be data-driven as a business. The conditions can be met: marketing technology is mature enough and there seems to be more data available than ever. That means companies have the opportunity to use data to improve customer experience, make better decisions and increase conversions.
Is 2016 the year of data-driven marketing?
You can argue that the past 10 years have all been the year of data-driven marketing. Yet the playing field is changing. The trend is moving toward ever simpler ways to bring data together, the technology for analysis is becoming more sophisticated. And at the same time, desires and ambitions are also growing.Recently, Ternair conducted a benchmark study on data-driven marketing in the Netherlands, which offers interesting insights. I share some of the results below.
Data-driven marketing needs to get it right this year
Why is data such a popular topic? With the right data, it becomes possible to better understand marketing effectiveness and create more complex campaigns. The marketing function can be supported by data in several ways. Basically, there are two main areas.Data-driven descision making (decision-making. organization-centric). Companies use data for decision making. Measurement, effectiveness analysis, trends and testing provide input for this. The aforementioned benchmark study shows that 22 percent of the companies surveyed feel that they will run great risks in making decisions if they do not get data-driven marketing right this year. Data-driven marketing campaigns (execution - customer-centric). The other part of data-driven marketing focuses on execution, where data enables more targeted communication. Segmentation, personalization, optimization through testing and event-triggered messages to send and make the right recommendations. According to the survey, companies say they miss connecting with the customer (54 percent) if they don't get data-driven marketing right. Now you can interpret that connection with the customer in two ways: connection in the form of reach and touch points as well as in the form of the match between customer and the right marketing messages. Both fall under execution.
Data-driven marketing is a strong growth driver
Data-driven marketing can be described as a process. The process of collecting, bringing together, analyzing and deploying data for marketing purposes.
"Deploying data is like marketing Pokémon, companies with it grow faster than without it."
87.8 percent of businesses see good or even excellent growth opportunities with data-driven marketing, while only 19.5 percent see a good opportunity for growth without it. In fact, without data-driven marketing, nearly half of companies estimate that their company's growth will fare poorly or very poorly.The stage that organizations are at with the use of data for marketing varies widely. Looking at the following chart, it's fair to say that for most organizations it's on the agenda.
This is easy to imagine when you realize that, for example, marketing automation is experiencing significant growth. Fields like business intelligence, CRM, real-time bidding and analytics are, by definition, based on data. It also becomes clear when we put them alongside business objectives. Customer growth and development are the No. 1 challenge, efficiency is at No. 2 and accountability at No. 3.As Karel Dörner, principal consultant at McKinsey, says, companies that successfully adopt digital technology do not see it as an extra, but it becomes the focal point of what they are, as it changes the value proposition and as every part of the organization evolves to become data-driven, customer obsessed and agile.Now that may be a little too buzzword-heavy, but it can be taken as truth that personnel, processes and technology can only make the data-driven transformation together. If any one of these lags behind in development, the party won't happen.
For many companies, all data from different source systems are centralized into one system before it can be used effectively. This is then in fixed formats in one system, such as a data warehouse. Data-centric means bringing the data together centrally as well.I wonder if this offline data and CRM-based thinking will remain future-proof. There will always be a place for a central customer profile. But in 3, 5, 10 years, will the same principles still be held as intensively? The fact that it is proving difficult for organizations to achieve single customer view within fixed data (base) structures is the catalyst for change.
