When It Comes to Marketing, Data Is the New Black
Consumers today are sick and tired of marketing; they feel that most marketing is irrelevant to them. This is the reality that marketers are faced with today, said Forrester Research principal analyst Dave Frankland during a presentation earlier this week at Acxiom's Global Marketing Performance event in New York.
Frankland went on to describe how dire the situation is for marketers: Consumers think they receive too many marketing communications, he said, adding that relevancy is a major issue. According to research from Forrester, a mere 5 percent of consumers "strongly agree" that advertising is relevant to their needs; only 3 percent "strongly agree" that email is relevant; 2 percent feel that way about direct mail. What's more, 55 percent of consumers say companies "should let me decide how they contact me."
Marketers are also dealing with continued audience fragmentation, as well as new channels, devices, and behaviors. Customers are getting information from more sources; as trust in marketers decreases, trust in ratings and recommendations increases. Many consumers also have high expectations for privacy and corporate social responsibility. Internally, marketers are facing increased accountability for their spending.
Simply put: It's time for marketing to reinvent itself, he said.
Frankland suggested that as the keepers of customer data, it may be time for marketing to evolve to the "customer-centricity department" and act at the customer advocate in the organization. One aspect of this approach is to drive marketing not by organizational silos like direct, Web, retail, and the like, but by customer intelligence, that is, more cross-functionally, similar to how the customer behaves and interacts with the company. For example, a customer may review a catalog, go online to learn more, but print a coupon from email and purchase in the store. The channels become one integrated process flow to the customer, not a series of silos.
Serving customers cohesively in that environment requires a mature customer intelligence organization. According to Frankland, a mature customer intelligence organization comprises four capabilities:
Customer-centric communication: Customers and the customer experience, not product, drive the messaging, channel, frequency, of marketing communications. Segmentation is a basic element of communications, and predictive analytics plays a critical role in messaging.
Enterprisewide approach: This begins with a consistent understanding of customer value across the entire organization. The customer contact strategy extends across business units and channels. There is clear governance and rules for arbitration for working collaboratively.
Customer intelligence is considered a strategic asset: Executives understand that customer intelligence enhances revenue, profit, and wallet share. Consequently, customer data is used not only for marketing, but also for such areas as product development and strategic decision making.
Technology: Customer data is centralized, and access to that data is available at the point of customer interaction. Inbound and outbound communications are integrated.
According to Frankland, more than half of companies say they use their customer database to drive corporate strategy. If yours is one of them, you likely have a competitive advantage in this time of marketing overload. If not, it may be time to develop the capabilities of your customer intelligence organization.
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