What Happens When Data and Marketing Align?

Big data was the talk of adland this winter, after Spotify’s data-inspired ‘Weird’ campaign hit billboards around the world.

The music streaming service tapped into its data archives to offer a light-hearted look at how its users have been interacting with its music and playlists. In the UK, a poster said “Dear 3,749 people who streamed ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It’ on the day of the Brexit vote. Hang in there.”

The US market were treated to messages including: “Dear person who made a playlist called ‘One Night Stand with Jeb Bush like He’s a Bond Girl in a European Casino’. We have so many questions.”

Each poster, with wording adapted to each regional audience, closes with the line: ‘Thanks 2016. It’s been weird.”

The demand

It’s been said that 2016 was data-driven marketing’s breakout year.

It’s about time – data is a key tool in industries as diverse as automotive, telecoms, retail and sport. However, marketers are (rarely) data scientists. This puts the onus on software providers, who will need to deliver tools that make it easy to visualise, analyse and understand it.

“The availability of it, a new generation of technology, and a cultural shift toward data-driven decision making continue to drive demand for analytics technology and services,” said Dan Vesset, group vice president, Analytics and Information Management at IDC, in a recent report.

Naturally, this has implications for IT departments. As demand for data-crunching tools grows within the business, there becomes a need for greater alignment. That’s one of the key drivers for digital transformation, and a key challenge for CIOs, as highlighted in this Gartner report: ‘Now is the time for digital transformation’.

Getting with the program

Marketers’ demand for data is also evident by the upsurge in programmatic marketing.

This method of automatic advertising is forecast to grow by 31% in 2017, faster than any other digital channel. Advertisers bid or use algorithmic software, to serve website visitors users with display ads. These are served based on factors such as the website type and relevance to the user.

Underpinning it all? Specifically, data about the user. Advertisers need to know about the visitor in order to know whether they should serve up an ad that will interest them.

Managing customer relationships

If employees are a company’s most valuable asset, then the information isn’t far behind. This is down to what Forrester calls ‘the customer experience ecosystem’, a key battleground for companies. The key to giving superior customer experience is quality information.

What’s more, the rise in omnichannel marketing requires Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) infrastructure to be robust enough to handle the increased volumes.

To stay competitive, companies must gather and, more importantly, interpret data about their customers.

source – http://bit.ly/2mrZAl6