The Data imperative for Marketing function in Organizations

“Water, water everywhere not a single drop to drink”, is a famous line in the poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The only parallel that I can draw in today’s context is with respect to the state of Data in the organizations. Every organization that we talk to/consult with always start with the phrase ‘We are sitting on a Data Goldmine’, ‘we want to be a Data driven organization’, etc.

However, they always have questions in the backdrop of their minds

What Data are we talking about?

The data which the organization hold is worth something?

Can we really make sense of the available data?

As we look at the world around us is changing. There are few companies who have really mastered the art of playing around with data. Right from System of Records to System of Insights to System of Engagement; all these systems work as one single entity and truly dig the worth by leveraging this data to drive their Marketing Campaigns, Business Strategy, Operational efficiency, Training & Development, and many other good things.

While we see very hyper-personalized messaging from a few of the emerging brands. However, there are other behemoth organizations, which still rely on sending bulk e-mailers to their guests/customers with little to no personalization. This all fades away their claims of sitting on a Data-goldmine.

But what is really stopping them to really utilize the Data?

1. Unstructured Data: As many of the processes are being done manually with no pre-defined structures/templates, many times the data collection process depend on the individual employees. Thus, there is no standardized way of collecting and the data which ends up being collected becomes of no use for the organization.

2. Data in Silos: With the advent of Digitalization, every organization now has about 200+ Systems and applications. Not all these systems are well Integrated and talk to each other. Thus, the data stays in certain systems and becomes unusable from an organization’s standpoint.

3. Duplicate Data: Due to improper training/lack of SOP adherence there happens multiple profiles get created in the system. Thus, enabling a single view of Customer becomes difficult.

4. Incomplete Data Capture: Missing information is often being missed out during the Data collection process. The imperative which this has on the organization are huge.

What does it take to enable the organizations to leverage this data?

If we look at an enterprise level strategy, we will need to have a full-fledged company-wide strategy which will involve all the Systems and Application assessment and thereby, creating a future roadmap with newer systems to be put in place. With the advent of Big Data and move to Data Lake, most companies are tackling this challenge is by creating a Customer Master Data Management. Companies enable such projects in partnership with the Data Lake provider. However, we will only be limiting the scope of discussion to the marketing function, as the ROI here can be humongous in nature here.

We have all seen/heard/read about various case studies, where companies have seen huge improvement in the reach/Open Rates/Conversion of their campaigns with highly personalized messaging and the Customer delight that is achieved is just enormous.

We studied various Clients in the hospitality sector and found that most companies are relying on modern-age Customer Data Platforms. A CDP helps in creating a single unique identity of the Customer. It acts as a single source of truth for all the Customer Profiles.

When we look at the working of the Marketing function in comparison to the overall organization, the marketing function operates in a very fast paced environment. The process of a Campaign right from Ideation to Execution can be as low as a week. Thus, the availability of Information becomes very critical, and time bound. A CDP is designed specifically for Marketing professionals, with interactive dashboards the information is made available very quickly and really enables Marketeers to run and simulate various scenarios. Some of the mature CDPs are even capable of producing system generated insights such as Customer Segments, Key Trends and even leverage external Data to help marketeers in designing better planned and targeted campaigns.

Not just limiting to campaigns, these days the time of targeting is very important. Suppose a customer is browsing products on the internet and are relevant from your brand perspective. Thus, Real-time availability of information becomes critical. Brands want to reach their customers as quickly as possible. Digital Streaming Data, real-time mining, insights, and Trigger activities are all the examples of use cases pertaining to the use of CDPs.

As the Consumers are becoming more Digital native, the channels which they use are not traditional (like Website/Call Center/Apps) anymore. Rather, we have observed Customer journeys initiating from Social Channels (Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.), Chatbots, Partner Websites and many more. As brands are becoming more omni-channel driven, their marketing efforts should become omni-channel in nature. Thus, it becomes imperative for marketers to leverage the potential of Multi-Channel Campaign tools.

A combination of CDP and MCCM tool has proven to do wonders for many of the clients across different Industries (especially consumer focused like Retail, Hospitality, Travel, etc.). There are various technologies which are further added on top of these platforms like AI/ML to make mature models for de-duplication and generating Insights. Maybe in the coming times we will see more such technological innovations in this space.

Looking beyond the tools

Although, CDPs and MCCM tools are helping organizations to better leverage their existing Data, it is also very important to enhance the existing Data collection process. Few recommendations here will be:

1. Re-look at the SOPs for Data collection

2. Develop system level triggers to effectively capture Data

3. Leverage secondary data collection mediums like Social Wi-fi, social media Integrations, etc.

4. Enterprise-wide Data De-duplication and Data Cleansing exercises

5. Roll out an enterprise-wide Change Management Program to really drive the Digital adoption across all the levels of the organization.

Apart from these recommendations, it is also critical to ensure complete Data Governance. There are various models to really look at the governance structure, the most prominent one is a 3-tiered mechanism. At executive level, Mid-tier and On-Ground; this helps in complete transformation of the processes. And empowering the On-ground Roles with positions like Data Champions/Data Evangelists helps in achieving the overall enterprise goals of the company.