Data-Rich, Action-Poor: Survey Says Few Brands Feel Effective When Acting on Customer Data
Customer data should be able to help marketers better hone their strategies, but many brands struggle to actually use the information they have gathered effectively.
In fact, just 14% of respondents in a recent survey of 100 senior marketers and executives at top B2C brands by BlueConic and WBR Insights felt their organization was highly effective at acting on customer data. One-quarter believed their work was only moderately effective and 30% saw it as somewhat ineffective.
There are multiple issues that organizations face in maximizing the growth potential of first-party customer data. Top challenges include analyzing large volumes of data and managing data privacy and consent issues, with 67% of respondents saying they intended to invest more in adhering to security regulations within the next 12 months.
Other priorities include working to ensure they can integrate data from multiple sources and ensuring the quality of the data they receive.
Integrating new technologies is a struggle for 71% of the respondents, as technology infrastructures are widely viewed as inadequate or in danger of becoming outdated. While brand leaders show strong support for data-centric initiatives, they are concerned that their teams lack the technical skills to actually use the data, particularly if it requires marketers to learn to code like engineers.
That problem is exacerbated by organizational silos that continue to limit the effectiveness of customer data initiatives, with 47% of respondents saying that their marketing teams collaborate with IT, sales, and customer service only occasionally or rarely.
When they do work together, 70% of the time is spent integrating data across various platforms. Twenty-seven percent of respondents cited limited cross-department collaboration as one of the top cultural barriers their organization faces to becoming more data-driven, with 51% blaming a resistance to change from traditional marketing practices.
"To be successful, marketers need the most relevant knowledge of who they are trying to connect with, at the moment of interaction, in order to make a resonant connection,” BlueConic CMO Patrick Reynolds said in a statement. “However, our survey shows that they are being asked to do SQL and other technical tasks that have never been a part of the marketing job description before.
To alleviate these challenges, Reynolds pointed to the need for no-code tools that provide marketing and other “hands-on doers” with access to data and ability to apply insights.
