Customer Data – How to Make the Most of What Is Available
Data-driven marketing has swiftly become the go-to-market strategy for the majority of senior marketers since the beginning of 2020.
In an age of lifestyle change, lockdown and limitations, the question of, ‘where is the customer?’ becomes increasingly difficult to define but twice as important to determine.
Marketers have their backs up against the wall in 2020. They are subject to greater expectations, with fewer options and what must seem like a significant reduction in budget. The question then, is this – ‘how can Marketing Executives deliver results to budget and timescale whilst also supporting their staff as they create radical new solutions which maximize ROI and lead generation?’
Customer Data
If there is one business trend that appreciably defines 2020, it’s that data is driving the future. Since the beginning of the year we’ve seen industries and organizations throughout the world unite in their aim to use the data that they generate to uncover newer and more efficient ways of doing business, this is no different when it comes to marketing.
Data & Analytics – Data-driven marketing has swiftly become the go-to-market strategy for the majority of senior marketers since the beginning of 2020 as it affords them an enhanced view of the customer at a time when insights into their daily lives, spending habits & attitude are few and far between.
64% of marketing executives “strongly agree” that data-driven marketing is crucial for the economy and to meet the challenge during 2017, we saw that more than 63% of marketers reported that they had increased their spending on data-driven marketing, with around 20% of all marketing spend going towards data-driven advertising campaigns.
However, according to Gartner’s Marketing Data & Analytics Survey 2020, as many as 50% of senior marketing leaders are still unimpressed with the results they receive from their marketing analytics investments, this even whilst that same report suggests that investment in marketing data and analytics are still the top priority for CMOs year-over-year.
The reason for this is simple. Data – especially at the rates and complexity churned out by marketing departments – is difficult to manage and hard to turn into actionable processes. In line with this, executives have begun to invest heavily in the technologies which help them to sift through these datasets easily and introduce change more readily.
AI & Machine Learning – Similar to the significant uptick we’ve seen in the adoption of data to drive internal & external change throughout 2020, so to have AI & Machine learning been brought to the fore in digital marketing.
The Digital Marketing Institute defines these two systems as follows, “artificial intelligence (AI) aims to harness certain aspects of the “thinking” mind, whilst machine learning (ML) uses data to teach itself how to complete processes with the help of AI capabilities”. The benefits for marketers & reading marketing data should already be apparent.
- Artificial Intelligence – Artificial Intelligence can be used to consider how data will affect the end-user. Behavioral information and data will become the source of AI analysis which can then be used to infer at customer buying habits, helping marketing staff to offer bespoke solutions to specific customers in order to boost sales and CRM abilities.
- Machine Learning – Machine Learning tools can analyze large sets of data and present understandable analytics that marketing teams can then use to their advantage. In turn, this frees the marketing team up to specialize in other areas and use machine learning findings to gain new in-depth insights to optimize their marketing strategies.
Forrester and DMA found that 33% of elite marketers believe having the right technologies for data collection and analysis are essential to understanding customers. Executives must not neglect the power of data nor the technologies which turn it into useful insight.
According to Forbes, companies who adopt data-driven marketing are more likely to have an advantage over the competition and increase profitability. In fact- they are six times more likely to be profitable year-over-year. The time for data adoption then, is now.
To learn more, download the full report here or continue the debate at the Digital Marketing Digital Summit NA, a GDS Summit, where we bring together senior Banking executives who are actively seeking to share, learn, engage, and find the best technology solutions.
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