As we move into 2017 and beyond, data-driven marketing will get bigger, better, and more integrated into the consumer experience. Technology-savvy, data-driven marketers want to get the right message in front of the right audience at the right time to drive the desired behavior. This means implementing the right resources and partnerships to understand the data that you have and uncovering the data that will drive more results for your marketing efforts.
In a recent survey[i] of over 250 marketing executives and 50 agency executives, InfoTrends sought to undercover how data is being used to improve sales and marketing results. The respondents highlighted the following areas of importance as we move forward into 2017:
- Understanding the path to purchase is critical. You must understand the channels that work best for various customer types, and the path of navigation needs to be monitored throughout every campaign.
- Messaging needs to be consistent and personalized across all channels.
- Marketers are spending their money on an array of data-related services, including data quality, data enrichment, data mining, analytics, and predictive modeling.
Although marketers want to take a data-driven approach with their customers, many are still focusing on data collection and lagging behind when it comes to making their data actionable. A significant number of marketers still lack the internal expertise—at a functional or operational level—to be successful. More than 70% of the marketers that InfoTrends surveyed highlighted challenges surrounding data quality, disparate data sources, and inadequate skills/technology/expertise. Key areas where additional capabilities were required included mobile/social media strategy development, optimizing purchasing behaviors on ad exchanges and search engines, tracking direct mail campaigns, aggregating data from multiple sources, data cleansing, and creating a personalized and relevant customer experience.
The face of direct marketing changed last October, evidenced in the rebranding of our largest industry organization, the DMA, on the eve of its 100th anniversary. The “D” in DMA took on a new meaning in 2016, transforming from the Direct Marketing Association to the now-named Data & Marketing Association. This new naming convention reflects the fact that data-driven marketing will get bigger, better, and more integrated into the customer experience in the coming years. Consumers crave spot-on experiences, and savvy marketers want to deliver!
It’s not just about more data—it’s about better data that can drive business decisions. The DMA reported the impressive growth and value that data-driven marketing brings to the U.S. economy—966,000 jobs and $202 billion in revenue—and confirmed that data is a catalyst for the economy and employment. Marketers are seeking personalized, targeted communications that drive better business results. They are facing numerous challenges, and they need a strategic partner to deliver data-driven communications.
Here at Tukaiz, we’ve made strategic hires over the past several years and built our data skills to help assist our clients with more complex data mining and predictive modeling to deliver personalized and relevant communications to customers. As we move into another new year, we believe that data will be key to growing your business. Don’t face your data challenge alone in 2017—let Tukaiz help you to deliver relevant data-driven communications to your customers!
[i] Lead with Data: Follow with Print; InfoTrends December 2016