This month, Elyse Gatt and I will be publishing “Marketing Analytics: Crunching Numbers, Winning Customers.” With the explosion of customer data available to marketers, it is no surprise that marketing analytics is one of the hottest topics in the Business Intelligence (BI) world. Marketing analytics go beyond measuring strictly online performance and offer a complete approach to the measurement of marketing efforts. By connecting all areas of marketing, including lead generation with sales results, sentiment analysis, and social media traffic, marketing analytics reveal the impact marketing has on bottom line performance. This report, based on 101 survey respondents in marketing roles, will examine the top external pressures felt by marketers and explore the leading practices for applying analytical firepower to marketing.
Aberdeen asked what top external pressures impact either individual marketers or their company’s marketing efforts (Figure). The top two pressures went hand-in-hand. Forty-five percent (45%) of marketers cited both an increasingly competitive business landscape and increasing customer demands as top pressures on marketing efforts.
Marketers compete for attention as consumers have limited bandwidth and no shortage of distractions. Also, customers have become more demanding due to time-compressed results, prioritization of convenience, and value placed not only on product, but also on customer service. Consumers are also more informed than ever due to increased internet accessibility and online consumer-created networks. Therefore, in today’s competitive environment, delivering a unique customer experience is a key differentiator for organizations. Utilizing marketing analytics for differentiation in customer experience is a relatively new idea, as organizations look to customer-facing individuals (i.e. sales representatives, contact centers operators, field service technicians) as the primary driver of customer interaction. Armed with a fortress of data, however, the marketer becomes informed of not only the competitive landscape, but also the needs of individual customers and segments of customers.
Finally, 33% of marketers cited the proliferation of new marketing channels as a top pressure. Customers have a lot of choices as to how to engage an organization, such as social media, phone, online, or email, referred to as an omni-channel experience (see sidebar). In Aberdeen’s report, Omni-channel Customer Care: Empowered Customers Demand a Seamless Experience, the omni-channel customer experience is discussed further. Organizations must ensure they are they are gathering customer data from each channel in order to gain insight into the full competitive landscape.
Stay tuned for the full report, which will be one my first content packs highlighting Aberdeen’s new (and more colorful) content suite.
