Data That Delivers
You have plenty of customer data. The million-dollar question is, how can you manage it in a way that delivers a return on the investment it took to acquire it?
I attended a session on this topic at the recent Frost & Sullivan Sales and Marketing Mind Xchange event. Participants noted both challenges and opportunities for seeing ROI from customer data.
Among the challenges was the age-old question, who is the customer. A B2B company trying to do customer analytics, for example, has to decide whether the customer is the company or the set of individuals who make and influence the purchase decision. Adding to the complexity is when the primary buyer changes jobs. How does that affect the current relationship and a potential new relationship with another company? Some participants suggested having a CRM system in place that tracks not only current individual and company information but also changes to those over time, so you can see who’s been where. The data then becomes richer and more valuable over time instead of the opposite.
Another challenge is how to even measure a return. One participant noted that doing so means understanding all the pieces of each customer account. This way changes to the account are more notable; the relevancy of data and the results of using it become more apparent, he said. Another participant advised other attendees to have individuals be responsible and accountable for specific results regarding data-based marketing or customer initiatives. Marketing, she said, has to “enforce” that responsibility.
Segmentation was a popular solution among the group. Tight targeting can more easily show an ROI than broad blasts, was the consensus. One participant also suggested using customer value analytics and predictive modeling to determine which customers and prospects are most likely to become high-value customers, and then targeting them appropriately to spur that evolution.
Another avenue to garnering ROI from data is customer feedback, according to the majority of the participants. The catch, of course, is that a company actually has to use the feedback to drive real action – changes to products or processes, for example. Companies can then track improvements in sales, loyalty, etc., as a result of the adjustments made based on customer feedback.
Finally, several participants noted the ever-present importance of data quality. If data is to deliver results or ROI, it needs to be current and clean.
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